Long- and Short-term Memory Differences (2)

Professor Seth Grant explains that long-term memories are created when the synapse sends a signal to the nucleus to activate certain genes.

Long-term memory and short-term memory differ by the kinds of stimulation that nerve cells endure to establish those forms of learning and memory. The stimulation that produces short-term memory results in only local biochemical changes at the synapse, but the stimulation, which is usually a stronger stimulation that leads to long-term memory, not only activates the synapse but sends a signal from the synapse all the way to the nucleus where it turns on genes that then change the expression of different proteins encoding the long-term memory.