DailyDirt: Figuring Out Forgetfulness

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, Dec 17th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Few people wouldn't want the ability to remember facts with ease. The skill of memorizing vast amounts of information could be useful for so many tasks, but unfortunately, while there are a variety of techniques to help with impressive memory tricks, there's no magic bullet for general learning. Here are just a few interesting studies on memory that could be worth remembering later.

We know now that memories are stored in specific neurons because genetically engineered mice with light-activated neurons can be made to recall (or forget) when those neurons are activated (or removed). The ethics of "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" technology might be a serious discussion soon. [url]
Marijuana is well-known to have side effects that impair memory functions, but the mechanism hasn't been studied extensively until recently. THC doesn't have much effect on neurons, but instead affects astroglia cells -- interfering with how neurons communicate with each other. [url]
The formation of long-term memories in our brains seems to occur during sleep, transferring from the hippocampus to the neocortex. The communication between these two areas of the brain will be important to study for finding out more about memory storage processes, and we've only started to discover how memories work. [url]
Memory foraging is just one way to think about how our brains recall memories. People tend to remember things in clusters, and knowing this could lead to better ways for people to learn or recall items -- or to build virtual brains that more closely mimic how human brains actually work. [url]

If you have some more free time, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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Filed Under: astroglia cells, brain, fmri, memory, memory foraging, neurons, sleep, thc

4 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2012 @ 5:11pm

precise lobotomies, yay!
Erasing memories might be an easy thing to do technologically someday, but imagine all the mis-uses for criminal activity... no need to plead the 5th if you can't remember anything, but the brain scars might be incriminating.
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Pixelation, 17 Dec 2012 @ 9:06pm

"...but the mechanism hasn't been studied extensively until recently. "

Oh how wrong you are. I studied it very extensively years ago. I just can't remember what the results were.
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kitsune361, 17 Dec 2012 @ 10:35pm

Well, that explains...
... how I managed to ace high school chemistry despite sleeping though most of class.
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Rekrul, 18 Dec 2012 @ 6:18am

Marijuana is well-known to have side effects that impair memory functions...
Are they doing a drug study for this? I wonder how they'll convince people to volunteer...
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