Memories tagged posts

It’s common knowledge that our brains—and, specifically, our brain cells—store memories. But a team of scientists has discovered that cells from other parts of the body also perform a memory function, opening new pathways for understanding how memory works and creating the potential to Enhance Learning and to Treat Memory-related Afflictions.

“Learning and memory are generally associated with brains and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can learn and form memories, too,” explains New York University’s Nikolay V. Kukushkin, the lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Nature Communications.

The research so...

While everyone knows that a good night’s sleep restores energy, a new Cornell University study finds it resets another vital function: memory.

Learning or experiencing new things activates neurons in the hippocampus, a region of the brain vital for memory. Later, while we sleep, those same neurons repeat the same pattern of activity, which is how the brain consolidates those memories that are then stored in a large area called the cortex. But how is it that we can keep learning new things for a lifetime without using up all of our neurons?

A study, “A Hippocampal Circuit Mechanism to Balance Memory Reactivation During Sleep,” published in Science, finds at certain times during deep sleep, certain parts of the hippocampus go silent, allowing those...

Your brain is responsible for controlling most of your body’s activities. Its information processing capabilities are what allow you to learn, and it is the central repository of your memories. But how is memory formed, and where is it located in the brain?

Although neuroscientists have identified different regions of the brain where memories are stored, such as the hippocampus in the middle of the brain, the neocortex in the top layer of the brain and the cerebellum at the base of the skull, they have yet to identify the specific molecular structures within those areas involved in memory and learning.

Research from our team of biophysicists, physical chemists and materials scientists suggests that memory might ...

Respiration modulates olfactory memory consolidation in humans. The Journal of Neuroscience, 2018; 3360-17 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3360-17.2018

The way we breathe may affect how well our memories are consolidated (i.e. reinforced and stabilised). If we breathe through the nose rather than the mouth after trying to learn a set of smells, we remember them better, researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Research into how breathing affects the brain has become an ever-more popular field in recent years and new methodologies have enabled more studies, many of which have concentrated on the memory. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet now show that participants who breathe through the nose consolidate their memories better.

“Our study shows that we ...