New memories…

What are memories? How are they stored in our brains? What occurs when we try and recall events? Or, for that matter, what happens when we have a failure to recall? While much of what we think we know about the brain is based in speculation (or observing phenomena and creating hypothesis about what is happening, yet lacking the ability to validate due to the difficulties of researching a still live brain), we’re in an era of exciting research. Much like the 20th century brought many insights into diseases, treatments, and vaccines, the ongoing sophistication of technology enables researchers to confirm (or disprove) what used to exist as assumptions.
Memories Are Made of This: “The mystery of what happens in our brains when we remember something is fascinating not only from a scientific perspective but also because the experience of recall can be so, well, memorable. Thinking backwards we become sensory time travellers; recalling sights, sounds, events, emotions - all in the blink of an eye. But what happens in our brains when we travel backwards?…This study provides strong evidence that memory works through the reactivation of specific individual neurons in the hippocampus. Effectively things that happen to us activate networks of neurons in the brain, and when we recall past events at least some of these same neurons fire again.”