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Savantism is a rare condition in which people with 'developmental delays' of the brain (notably autism spectrum), and/or brain injury, demonstrate profound and prodigious capacities and/or abilities far in excess of those considered normal.

Types of memory

 

The brain does not store memories in one unified structure, as might be seen in a computer's hard disk drive. Instead, different types of memory are stored in different regions of the brain.^{[citation needed]} LTM is typically divided up into two major headings: declarative memory and implicit memory (or procedural memory).^[3] Computer programs store information similarly with a separate data section and code section.

 
 
1. Explicit memory/Declarative memory refers to all memories that are consciously available. These are encoded by the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex, but consolidated and stored elsewhere. The precise location of storage is unknown, but the temporal cortex has been proposed as a likely candidate.^{[citation needed]} Declarative memory also has two major subdivisions: 
   • Episodic memory refers to memory for specific events in time
   • Semantic memory refers to knowledge about the external world, such as the function of a pencil.
   • Implicit memory/Procedural memory refers to the use of objects or movements of the body, such as how exactly to use a pencil or ride a bicycle. This type of memory is encoded and probably stored by the cerebellum and the striatum.^{[citation needed]}
    
 

There are various other categorizations of memory and types of memory that have captured research interest. Prospective memory (its complement: retrospective memory) is an example.

 

Emotional memory, the memory for events that evoke a particularly strong emotion, is another. Emotion and memory is a domain that can involve both declarative and procedural memory processes. Emotional memories are consciously available, but elicit a powerful, unconscious physiological reaction. They also have a unique physiological pathway that involves strong connections from the amygdala into the prefrontal cortex, but much weaker connections running back from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala.^{[citation needed]}

Glia cells: the brain's supervisors (credit: Gray's anatomy/Wikimedia Commons)

Glia cells are central to the brain’s plasticity, Tel Aviv University researchers have found, controlling how the brain adapts, learns, and stores information — and their design can be implemented in neuromorphic computer chips.

Glia cells (Greek for “glue,” also known as glial) hold the brain’s neurons together and protect the cells that determine our thoughts and behaviors. But glia cells have now been found to do much more: a mechanism within the glia cells also regulate the synapses, sorting information for learning purposes, according to Ph.D. student Maurizio De Pittà of TAU’s Schools of Physics and Astronomy and Electrical Engineering.

“Glia cells are like the brain’s supervisors. They control the transfer of information between neurons, affecting how the brain processes information and learns.”

De Pittà’s research, led by his TAU supervisor Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob, along with Vladislav Volman of The Salk Institute and the University of California at San Diego and Hugues Berry of the Université de Lyon in France, has developed the first computer model that incorporates the influence of glia cells on synaptic information transfer.

The model can also be implemented in technologies based on brain networks such as microchips and computer software, Prof. Ben-Jacob says, and can aid in research on brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy.

The stimulus timing pattern that maximized the peak level of memory in a snail consisted of non-uniformly spaced serotonin (5-HT) applications with interstimulus intervals of 10, 10, 5 and 30 min. "Inducer" is a variable representing the synergistic interaction between two proteins (PKA and ERK) associated with memory. (Credit: Yili Zhang, et al./Nature Neuroscience)

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) neuroscientists used the sea snail known as Aplysia californica to test an innovative learning strategy designed to help improve the brain’s memory, with encouraging results.

The research could ultimately benefit people who have impairments resulting from aging, stroke, traumatic brain injury, or congenital cognitive impairments.

Building on earlier research that identified proteins linked to memory, the UTHealth researchers created a mathematical model that tells them the temporal pattern (timing) of the activity of these proteins for the best learning experience. Using this model, the computer sorted through 10,000 different permutations to determine a schedule that would enhance memory.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have made an artificial neural network out of DNA, creating a circuit of interacting molecules that can recall memories based on incomplete patterns, just as a brain can.

To find out the “where” of this “scene-facilitation effect,” researchers flashed drawings of pairs of objects for just 1/20 of a second. Some of these objects were depicted as interacting, such as a hand grasping for a pen, and some were not, with the hand reaching away from the pen. Test subjects were asked to press a button if a label on the screen matched either one of the two objects, which it did on half of the presentations.

Subatomic particles do it. Now the observation that groups of brain cells seem to have their own version of quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance", could help explain how our minds combine experiences from many different senses into one memory.

Now Jamie Ward at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, and colleagues offer a different explanation. They had 36 colour-grapheme synaesthetes sit a similar test. When given just 1 second to identify the hidden shape, the synaesthetes were more likely to spot it than controls. But they still only found it about 40 per cent of the time. Volunteers' descriptions of the trial offer insights into why this is. "I only see the colours in the part that I am looking at," said one. "I have to attend to the symbols," said another (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1765).