News Medical: Study sheds new light on how the brain forms memories

The activity registered by the implanted electrodes showed that the neurons in the medial temporal lobe were immediately activated when they first noticed the actors. “This study goes into the heart of the neural code underlying one of the most fundamental aspects of human cognition and memory, namely the formation of associations”, said neurosurgeon Dr. Itzhak Fried of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and the Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. “But the astonishing fact was that these changes were dramatic, in the sense of neurons being very silent or very active, and that it occurred at the exact moment of learning”.

The two actresses were often on screen together. Medial temporal lobe neurons that selectively responded to Clint Eastwood but not the Tower of Pisa in the first phase of the experiment abruptly began firing to this famous landmark once the patient learned the association.

The study involved 14 patients with severe epilepsy who were hospitalized at UCLA and implanted with electrodes in their brains to identify the seizure focus for possible surgical intervention.

After implantation, the participants were shown around 100 pictures of celebrities and places. Then they identified different neurons that responded to pictures of a particular place, like the Eiffel Tower or the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Scientists have, for the first time, discovered exactly how memories are formed in the brain.

Montana With a bit help from Clint Eastwood, Jennifer Aniston and Josh Brolin and a minimum of snapshots of which is that researchers have achieved a different knowledge of how thoughts of on a regular basis activities are organized inside of the brain.

When people saw these fake images, it was like running into an old friend at the train station.

Researchers have used “mind games” to reveal clues about how nerve cells may change when making new memories. The process involves a set of neurons in a specific area of the brain that change their behavior the moment when someone associates a particular person to a specific place.

“When the association is created, suddenly the cell very rapidly changes its firing properties”, he says. Lead author Ison said that it is the first study that shows how an individual neuron correlates learning of new contextual associations in the human brain. And when we recall an experience, these special neurons may help us re-assemble all the relevant information, he says.

Researchers at the University of Leicester working alongside colleagues in the USA, have found that nerve cells in a brain region called the medial temporal lobe play a key role in the rapid formation of new memories about personal experiences and life events.

And if Alzheimer’s affects the same neurons that make associations, it would explain why people with Alzheimer’s can’t remember things like where they parked their vehicle, Fried says. Back then it was hard to imagine that I was going to be able to contribute to the understanding of how the brain works at such [a] vital level.

Competing theories include the idea that solitary or just a few nerve cells represent a single person or concept, while others believe a whole host of neurons are needed to form a memory.