Collins Ngao
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How Our Memory Works
Have you ever wondered how your memory works? The brain is not like a computer with limited storage capacity, rather, individual memories are scattered all over the brain. For example a amemory of eating grandma's apple pie, some brain cells help you remember what the pie looked like, others help you remember th smell of the cinnamon, and even cells to remember the delicious Taste. Our brain doesn't have a single place that serves as a memory bank. Instead, individual memories are scattered all over the brain. Many brain cells, in several different regions, work together to make one memory. A memory is not a physical thing that we can find in any given brain cell. It's an action, not an object. A memory only happens when many connected neurons fire in a specific pattern, and because the same cells can fire in many unique patterns, one group of neurons can encode multiple memories, which increases the memory storage capacity of the brain. Buried deep in the middle of the brain we find a group of cells shaped like a sea horse, which is why the 18th century scientists named this bit the 'hippocampus'. The hippocampus is a key to making memories, but it isn't where memories are stored. To commit new memories to long-term storage, the brain consolidates by replaying the experience in fast forward, over and over, backwards and forwards, to make the connections between cells stronger. However, sometimes our mental replay of something we only imagined can feel as vivid as a real experience.
By Collins Ngao3 months ago in Geeks