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    "headline": "Tau Organizes the Cells That Keep a Memory",
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    "dek": "A mouse study found normal tau phosphorylation helps recruit engram cells and preserve long-term recall.",
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    "body_text": "Flinders-led researchers found that mice without tau could learn and retain short-term memories but formed weaker long-term traces. Normal tau activity helped select engram cells and suppress background activity; disease-associated tau disrupted formation or recall depending on timing. The Nature Communications result is mechanistic mouse evidence, not a human dementia treatment.",
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