Learning and memory requires specific chemical modifications of neuronal structure and interactions between the neurons in the nervous system. There are a number of chemical substances in cells, such as calmodulin that phosphorylate specific enzymes responsible for the chemical modifications. Another of these important substances recently discovered and found only in nerve is a compound called neurogranin. Like calmodulin and the associated calcium/calmodulin dependent protein kinase II, neurogranin may regulate the availability of active calmodulin in nerve cells. In order to better understand the processes associated with learning and memory the location of neurogranin within the neuron, how it gets to its site of action from the site of its synthesis and how neurogranin regulates the availability of calmodulin must be determined.
