Forgetting is not just a mistake—it’s part of how the brain works, and dopamine plays a big role in this.
Scientists at Flinders University in Australia found that forgetting is a normal and useful brain function.
They discovered this by studying tiny worms called Caenorhabditis elegans. These worms are only 1mm long, but their brains share many features with the human brain.
The research was led by Dr. Yee Lian Chew and Ph.D. student Anna McMillen. The team taught the worms to connect a smell with food. Then, they watched how long the worms remembered this connection.
Interestingly, worms that couldn’t make dopamine remembered the smell much longer than normal worms. This shows that dopamine helps the brain let go of old memories. Without dopamine, forgetting is slower.
The study also found that two special dopamine receptors—called DOP-2 and DOP-3—are needed for forgetting. When these were turned off, the worms remembered longer, just like when dopamine was missing.
Even when scientists tried to fix the system by adding dopamine back into some brain cells, it didn’t work fully. This shows that the whole dopamine system must work together for forgetting to happen properly.
Dr. Chew says that forgetting is actually good for us. It helps us focus and adapt to new things, rather than being overloaded by too many old memories.
This discovery could help us better understand memory problems in people, like in Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s affects dopamine in the brain and can make it harder to remember or learn new things.
The team now wants to learn exactly how dopamine causes forgetting. Their goal is to find ways to help people with memory loss, either from aging or disease.
This study supports similar findings in fruit flies, suggesting that forgetting with the help of dopamine is a basic part of how brains work in many animals, including humans.
“It’s exciting to see that something so fundamental is shared across species,” said Dr. Chew. “It means we’re learning about a core brain function that could lead to big discoveries for human health.”
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The study is published in the Journal of Neurochemistry.
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