Persistent Memories : The Frontal Cortex - The Diigo Meta page

• 02 Dec 09
  

  Jason K

  memory

• 13 Sep 09
  

  Michael Hartford
• 11 Sep 09
  

  Andrew Murphie

  memory cognition brain neuroscience archivefever

• 10 Sep 09
  

  LLOYD AXWORTHY

  memory leher

  • What does it mean to forget? Do we actually delete our memories, like an unwanted computer file expunged from the hard drive? Or does the memory always remain, a persistent neuronal ensemble that we just forget how to find?
  • he forgotten memory doesn't disappear - we just can't remember where we put it. The experiment went like this: a few dozen undergrads were put in an fMRI machine and shown a series of different words. They were then asked to perform various cognitive tasks, such as thinking about how the word is used, or pronouncing the word backwards.
  • 1 more annotations...
  • • One of the interesting implications of this experiment has to do with why memory declines with age. The conventional assumption is that memory loss occurs because our memories vanish, because cells die and the hippocampus gets tired. But what if memory loss is actually triggered by the steady degradation of the frontal cortex, a brain area associated with memory retrieval? (The frontal cortex starts to lose cell density at about the same time we start to lose our memory - in our mid-thirties.) This suggests that our memories are still there, waiting to be found, like a misfiled piece of paper. The struggle of aging, then, isn't simply a matter of holding on to the past - the brain has a seemingly infinite hard drive. Instead, the challenge is remembering where all of our memories are.
• 09 Sep 09
  

  J B

  cognition memory

  • Or does the memory always remain, a persistent neuronal ensemble that we just forget how to find?
  • The forgotten memory doesn't disappear - we just can't remember where we put it.
  • 1 more annotations...
  • • However, when the students failed to recall the task details the brain scanner still revealed a recognizable pattern of activity.

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