A word map of the word “memory.”
Image Source: Dynamic Memory Lab
Do you remember what you had for breakfast today? What about the lyrics to your favourite music? Or the names of the people you met today? If you are trying to recall your memory right now, then you are initiating an extremely complex and rapid cascade of hormonal and neuronal events happening within your brain to provide you with a simple answer.
An image depicting the many things that we memorize.
Image Source: Eternal Beauty & Youth
For more than 40 years, neuroscientists have studied the mechanics of memory within our nervous system. According to basic models, memory breaks down to three main processes, which include acquisition, storage, and retrieval. When we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch something, this information is relayed to our nervous system where it is processed. After processing (or simultaneously with processing), the information is stored as memory, and can be recalled when necessary.
For many years, neuroscientists were fond of describing memory as a filing cabinet in our brain where information from the senses is fed to for storage. But today, experts believe that memory is far more elusive and complex than what anyone has thought in the past! Although recent theories describe that memory is stored in multiple structures within the brain, it is still not known exactly how memory is physically stored. Below is a video explaining that several parts of the brain are active when performing multiple tasks:
Thus, according to the video above, one may think that brain structures responsible for a certain function become active when the task at hand involves such a function. For example, when visual memory is being tested, we notice a high neuronal activity within the occipital lobe, which is responsible for visual information.
But, what about recalling information from the past? How do we retrieve information from our memory? Neuroscientists in the past hypothesized that retrieving memory is as simple as scanning the file cabinet of memories within the memory centre of the brain and pulling out the file that matched your request. However, much like how the storage is complex, the retrieval is not so simple either.
An artistic representation of a human’s memory being much like a computer’s memory.
Image Source: White Locust
Neurophysiologists now hypothesize that memory works a lot like a biological time machine. Let’s consider an example — let’s say that I ate some very delicious cinnamon buns this morning for breakfast. When I try to recall the smell and taste of the delicious cinnamon buns, my memory triggers a cascade of hormonal and neuronal events that mimic the biological state of my mind and body at the moment of time when I first took a whiff and bite of the cinnamon buns. In other words, let’s say that my body and mind were at state X when I took my first whiff and bite of the cinnamon buns in the morning. Now, several hours has passed and my body and mind are at state Y. When I try to carefully remember the delicious taste and aroma of the cinnamon buns, my body strives to make Y approach X; the more time I spend thinking about the taste and smell of the cinnamon buns, the closer Y gets to X.
Below is a video of Dr. Antonio Damasio, a Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, who describes how memory works:
Although we still do not quite understand memory, our theories about its mechanics have certainly improved, according to neuroscientists.
– Pedram Laghaei
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