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Volatility of Human Memory 246

Posted by samzenpus from the help-finding-your-keys dept.
prostoalex writes "Scientific Americans looks into the human brain, trying to figure out why some events just tend to stick in our memories forever, while the others are gone: "How does a gene "know" when to strengthen a synapse permanently and when to let a fleeting moment fade unrecorded? And how do the proteins encoded by the gene "know" which of thousands of synapses to strengthen? The same questions have implications for understanding fetal brain development, a time when the brain is deciding which synaptic connections to keep and which to discard. In studying that phenomenon, my lab came up with an intriguing solution to one of these mysteries of memory.""
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Volatility of Human Memory More

Volatility of Human Memory

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  • poor /. synaptic function (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:16PM (#11463498)
    Does this article explain the dupes on /. ??

    • Re:poor /. synaptic function (Score:5, Funny)

      by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:20PM (#11463543) Homepage Journal

      No, but this does. [lycaeum.org]
    • Does this article explain the dupes on /. ??

      Maybe, but I'm sure it explains WOM - Write Only Memory.

    • What was the question again?

  • This is kinda interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gtrubetskoy ( 734033 ) * on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:16PM (#11463499)

    From the recently noted on slashdot Edge poll What do You believe is true even though you cannot prove it [edge.org], I remember this bit by Terrence Sejnowski [edge.org] caught my attention (I'm pasting it here cause I can't figure out how to link to that specific part of the page):

    How do we remember the past? There are many answers to this question, depending on whether you are an historian, artist or scientist. As a scientist I have wanted to know where in the brain memories are stored and how they are storedthe genetic and neural mechanisms. Although neuroscientists have made tremendous progress in uncovering neural mechanisms for learning, I believe, but cannot prove, that we are all looking in the wrong place for long-term memory.

    I have been puzzled by my ability to remember my childhood, despite the fact that most of the molecules in my body today are not the same ones I had as a childin particular, the molecules that make up my brain are constantly turning over, being replaced with newly minted molecules. Perhaps memories only seem to be stable. Rehearsal strengthens memories, and can even alter them. However, I have detailed memories of specific places where I lived 50 years ago that I doubt I ever rehearsed but can be easily verified, so the stability of long-term memories is a real problem.

    Textbooks in neuroscience, including one that I coauthored, say that memories are stored at synapses between neurons in the brain, of which there are many. In neural network models of memory, information can be stored by selectively altering the strengths of the synapses, and "spike-time dependent plasticity" at synapses in the cerebral cortex has been found with these properties. This is a hot area of research, but all we need to know here is that patterns of neural activity can indeed modify a lot of molecular machinery inside a neuron.

    If memories are stored as changes to molecules inside cells, which are constantly being replaced, how can a memory remain stable over 50 years? My hunch is that everyone is looking in the wrong place: that the substrate of really old memories is located not inside cells, but outside cells, in the extracellular space. The space between cells is not empty, but filled with a matrix of tough material that is difficult to dissolve and turns over very slowly if at all. The extracellular matrix connects cells and maintains the shape of the cell mass. This is why scars on your body haven't changed much after decades of slougare contained in the endoskeleton that connects cells to each other. The intracellular machinery holds memories temporarily and decides what to permanently store in the matrix, perhaps while you are sleeping. It might be possible someday to stain this memory endoskeleton and see what memories look like.what makes you a unique individualhing off skin cells.

    My intuition is based on a set of classic experiments on the neuromuscular junction between a motor neuron and a muscle cell, a giant synapse that activates the muscle. The specialized extracellular matrix at the neuromuscular junction, called the basal lamina, consists of proteoglycans, glycoproteins, including collagen, and adhesion molecules such as laminin and fibronectin. If the nerve that activates a muscle is crushed, the nerve fiber grows back to the junction and forms a specialized nerve terminal ending. This occurs even if the muscle cell is also killed. The memory of the contact is preserved by the basal lamina at the junction. Similar material exists at synapses in the brain, which could permanently maintain overall connectivity despite the coming and going of molecules inside neurons.

    How could we prove that the extracellular matrix really is responsible for long-term memories? One way to disprove it would be to disrupt the extracellular matrix and see if the memories remain. This can be done with enzymes or by knocking out one or more key molecules with techniques from molecular genetics. If I am right, then all of your memories

    • Re:This is kinda interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nucal ( 561664 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:10PM (#11463864)
      The idea that the extracellular matrix might control neuron plasticity is not all that far fetched - there are many studies showing that cell function is controlled by the extracellular environment.

      Another aspect to consider is that diseases such as Alzheimers are associated with the accumulation of misfolded proteins (plaques) in the extracellular environment. Although the prevailing idea is that these plaques might be toxic or the residue of dead cells, it's not impossible to think that plaques could also "de-program" neurons by altering the normal extracellular environment.

    • Re:This is kinda interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tlosk ( 761023 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @03:23AM (#11465930)
      While I belive Sejnowski is absolutely correct that there's probably a lot worth investigating in the extracellular material, one possibility is that very long term memories are illusory.

      Rarely are these long term memories of the same quality as very recent memories, and I don't just mean of strength, but that they are qualitatively different. That you no longer have access to what one might call witness memory, where if someone asks you questions about the event you can search the myriad details of the event to find the answer.

      Given that the bulk of our early memories are lost over time, what's special about that handful of memories that we do hold onto and that are veridical? I suspect that most of this subset of retained memories are not the original memories but rather memories of the memories.

      Personally, when I go over the longest memories I still hold onto, they are almost all experiences that I at some point either told someone else about, thought about, or had cause to remember at some point in the past. Each time you do this the memory is copied to other areas (whatever those might be, we still don't have a good grasp on this). And most of a given memory that I now have owes its features to the nature of the account I gave earlier.

      For example say someone remembers the experience of riding on their grandmother's lap on a train when he goes to visit her at the age of three. Shortly after that he will have all sorts of specific stored information relating to that particular event. If the event is never revisited it will likely be almost entirely lost, but if several years later he tells someone else about the experience, a memory of the event recounted still many years further down the road would depend heavily on what exactly the person shared during that earlier recounting. That is, the person is no longer remembering the event, but rather recalling the earlier recounting.

      Oh if you're cued well enough you can remember all sorts of things from way back, but they are so fragmentary that it's probably just the distributed nature of memory that saves them from complete loss most of the time. There will always be a few bits and pieces floating around in there.

      • More recent memories unravel first (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ynotds ( 318243 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @06:22AM (#11466371) Homepage Journal
        one possibility is that very long term memories are illusory
        I know it can feel introspectively that our oldest memories are really memories of memories of memories, because certainly the ones we most often bring to mind ourselves are ones we have remembered from time to time. Yet on vacation recently I was reminded by my brother of an allergic reaction I experienced almost 40 years ago which I'm sure I had not thought about for at least 25 years, yet the memory was still there once reactivated.

        More telling, visiting an elderly friend in hospital, he introduced me to the wife of the patient opposite who had stroke-related dementia. They were immigrants and he had spoken both English and another major "second" language fluently before his disability, but now can only use his birth language, which is a lonely way to exist in an English-speaking hospital.

        Even my mother, who had a very slight stroke a couple of years ago, now starts many more conversations about things from her childhood than about the last third of her life in the house where she still lives reasonably independently in a community where she played a very active role for most of those years.

        So I felt Sejnowski's idea sounded sensible when I first read it. However I don't see it as being inconsistent with the SciAm article linked here. To form something more permanent in the intracellular matrix around a synapse, most likely you are still going to need to start with some special protein finding its way to that particular synapse.

        And we still need a credible story as to how one or several persistently strengthened synapses actually encode one of the countless details we accumulate in a life time in all their contextual detail.

  • Uh... sorry... (Score:3, Funny)

    by hadesan ( 664029 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:16PM (#11463503)
    Forgot what I was about to type...

  • Yeah, my lab came to the same conclusions... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gardyloo ( 512791 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:16PM (#11463505)
    ... but then -- OOH! Shiny!

  • Implications for Slashdot Editors (Score:3, Funny)

    by mr_don't ( 311416 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:17PM (#11463508)

    When scientists figure out how this process works, we should start a fund to genetically enhance the memories of the Slashdot editors, in order to prevent DUPES

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:17PM (#11463512)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Pain for me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by purduephotog ( 218304 ) <`moc.tibroni' `ta' `hcsrih'> on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:17PM (#11463523) Homepage Journal
    I remember back to when I was only 2 years old- I had had surgery on ... well, we'll call it a sensitive part of the body.

    Now I don't remember the surgery, and I don't remember the antics I pulled at showing nurses why I was in the hospital... but I *do* remember the first time I had to goto the bathroom after surgery.

    That memory is so seared into my brain I can even recall I was high enough to look out a window over the cityscape, and that there was a bricked church in the background and the window had blinds (the black slatted ones) on it.

    And I remember so much so terribly much pain I don't know how I survived it.

    My parents tell me that after that brief moment of screaming I was OK... and I don't remember anything else of that event save for that moment.

    And just for comparison (of a little kid) I've had 18 kidney stones... I have a good memory for pain. But that memory makes me cringe and shiver every time I have it.

    • Re:Pain for me (Score:5, Funny)

      by savagedome ( 742194 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:22PM (#11463566)
      Well at least they didin't send you to school right away.

      A teacher noticed that a little boy at the back of the class was squirming around, scratching his crotch and not paying attention. She went back to find out what was going on. He was quite embarrassed and whispered that he had just recently been circumcised and he was quite itchy. The teacher told him go down to the principal's office, phone his mother, and ask her what he should do about it. He did it and he returned to the classroom, where he sat down in his seat.

      Suddenly, there was a commotion at the back of the room. She went back to investigate only to find him sitting at his desk with his penis hanging out. "I thought I told you to call your mom!" she screamed. "I did," he said, "And she told me that if I could stick it out till noon, she'd come and pick me up from school ..."

    • Re:Pain for me (Score:2, Interesting)

      by softparade ( 736054 )
      While my grandfather was going through some old rubbish in the garage he found an old photo album that was my dads. In the album are photos of my Dad while in Vietnam. When we showed it to him he couldn't remember who made the album or many of the people in the photos. Given it was more than 30 years ago, but its weird how such events can be forgotten.

      • Re:Pain for me (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rbarreira ( 836272 )
        Pain usually wants to be forgotten by the brain... And everyone is different, which might explain why your dad "forgot" (I'm sure he knows it deep inside even if he thinks he doesn't), and the grand-parent poster remembers his experience.

        • Re:Pain for me (Score:3, Interesting)

          by MBCook ( 132727 )
          That's true, and I've heard it before. Many people remember traumatic events, and they remember that they WERE in pain, but they often don't remember the pain, or despite it's severity they don't "expiriance it" when they remember it.

          This is very often true of pregnancy. I've been told (being a 21 year old guy, I'll never really know) that while childbirth is painful for humans (duh), women don't tend to remember it after childbirth. This is supposedly a genetic trait becuase otherwise women wouldn't be li

        • Re:Pain for me (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Illserve ( 56215 )
          That's precisely wrong.

          Your brain, built around the need to survive, certainly does not want to forget about pain. It wants to remember pain, and more importantly what caused it.

          Because if everything else about pain is working correctly, pain is a good indication that we've done or encountered something that is bad for us.

          Sounds like you've been reading too many books about recovered memories. That pile of crockery has destroyed more lives than it has helped.

          • Re:Pain for me (Score:5, Insightful)

            by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:06PM (#11463837) Homepage
            Actually, you're both right and wrong. See my sibling post to yours for some more info.

            There is some pain that is important to remember. It's VITAL to remember. This is stuff like knives are dangerous (learn this after a cut), a stove is hot (ouch!), it hurts having people piled on you (making it hard to breath), etc. All these things are important to remember for your survival. If you forgot that putting your hand on a stove hurt, how many times would you do that during your life? This is important stuff, so this comment's parrent is right.

            At the same time there are things that are painfull that need to be forgotten. Some (like childbirth, mentioned in my other comment) could be a BIG problem if they were remembered. Others (highly traumatic events, abuse, serious car wrecks when you're bleeding on the pavement, etc) could prevent you from functioning if you remembered them. These things should, must, be forgotten to live a normal life. These things are fewer, and more likely to be emotional or abuse related.

            As for "recovered memories", I agree completely. They are bogus, and very dangerous. There are some good books out there about the falacy's and dangers of recovered memories.

            • I think this is anthropomorphosizing the bits of the brain a bit.

              There may be special cases, such as childbirth, in which mechanisms kick in to prevent harmful memories, but I don't buy this protective mechanism for big-bads, like car accidents

              I think people don't remember big-bads because their brains are swelling from the impact trauma and certain parts, such as the hippocampus, stop working well enough to encode memory. Hence, people have missing parts of their memory near the time of trauma not becau
    • I had an operation when I was about 2 years old also. I remember (and will never forget) when I complained when my parrents bumped me when it hurt (which was the discover of the pain causing it). I remember being in the hospital bed. I also remember that they wouldn't let me leave either untill I could walk by myself (since I was mostly in the bed since the operation). I also (vaguely) remember being put to sleep before the operation.

      I only remember one thing before that (my parrents painting the hallway),

    • I had very similar sugery, except I was significantly older at the time, probably about 7 or 8. And I can remember exactly what the tile that was used for the floor and half-way up the walls looked like, what I said immediatly after, and even parts of the walk beforehand. Everything else is a complete blank.

      The same goes for the 4 times I've separated my left knee, I remember each moment as if it had happened yesterday, and the rather memorable pain that it caused.

      Personally I think it has something to do
    • I can still remember the first time I ever got kicked in the nuts.

      I was watching a Kung-Fu movie at my great grandparent's house, my cousing and I were trying to mimic the moves of the guys in the movie. Well, he did it a bit too enthusiastically and nailed me right in the balls.

      I spend the next 20 minutes crying and so did he because my great grandmother spanked him. This was over 25 years ago and I remember it like it was last week. Yet, I can never remember when my GF tells me we have some function to

  • Oops.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:19PM (#11463538) Homepage Journal
    Dang. I had the perfect post, but forgot what it was just after hitting Reply..

    I hate when that happens.

    On another note... when I was 13 years old I was walking around the house for about 20 minutes trying to find the screw driver I just had, where the heck could it have gone, I just ... had ... it ... in ... my ... hand. It was still there and at that point I knew what lay ahead for me in life.

    • Re:Oops.. (Score:3, Funny)

      by gardyloo ( 512791 )
      What -- you're now a slashdot editor?
    • > when I was 13 years old I was walking around the house for about 20 minutes trying to find the screw driver I just had,

      20 minutes?

      When I was 31 I spent a good half an hour wandering around the house trying to find my glasses. Suddenly I found them on a table, put them on, and immediately thought "great, now I can find... wait, what was I looking for?"

      I spent another ten minutes looking around before I remembered what I was doing.

      At that point I said "you know, I should just go back to using drugs.

  • Does this shed any more light on coding solutions? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sowelu ( 713889 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:19PM (#11463539)
    I've been tracking the periphery of AI for quite a while. Even though directly emulating the human brain is probably not the best solution for artificial intelligence, has this research opened any new doors lately?

  • At last... (Score:4, Funny)

    by teneighty ( 671401 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:20PM (#11463550)
    ... I can erase goatse and tubgirl from my memory.

  • Catch 22 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrKyle ( 818035 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:22PM (#11463565)
    If we can figure out what proteins need to be expressed to convert short term to long term memory and somehow in the future find some sort of drug that ups the expression of that gene we will still have a problem with what do you do when every memory is a lasting one? Do ou need to know the plate# of every car you drove by on the way home or the order of the commercials when watching Oprah? I think if we mess with the number of long term memories we make we may also lose the selectivity which is so important in making sure the brain isn't cluttered with irrelevant memories and we strengthen only important ones.

    Increase the signal to noise ratio of my memory, then w're in business.
    • It'd be great for learning though if they can make a 2 hour treatment or something.

    • Re:Catch 22 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nEoN nOoDlE ( 27594 )
      Call me crazy, but I'd love to have the ability to remember every license plate number and commercial order on tv. Some people already have such photographic memories (to some extent). I think even with the capacity to recall every little detail, doesn't mean that the big details will go into the background. We will still have the ability to categorize those memories as we do now, but instead of the small ones getting lost in the ether, we will be able to recall them at will. I think if the contents of ever
      • I think having such a detailed memory would slow down the recollection of individual memories. Think trying to query a large database versus a small database. Your brain would have more things to search through before it got to the one memory it's looking for.
      • There was a show on tv about a man who remembered everything, his problem was that he understood almost nothing. He could remember all details about an event, but had no idea about how or why something had happened.

        It seems that the lack of need of association results in none being created, resulting in data rather than knolage being built.

    • superflies (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gunark ( 227527 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:17PM (#11463911)
      The protein you're talking about appears to be CREB (I love how 90% of slashdotters feel compelled to post their opinions without reading the f'ing article :) For a good couple of years now, we've known that transgenic fruit flies -- and recently mice, if I'm not mistaken -- engineered to over-express CREB do have strikingly improved memory... but not in the way you think. These flies don't appear to form "more" memories, instead they just learn faster. In other words long-term potentiation seems to happen with less training/effort.

      What this means for us humans -- if it means anything at all -- is pretty questionable. However if you want to go out on a limb here, drugs or genetic modifications to increase CREB production could make you learn things faster, without sacrificing that important relevance filter (i.e. remembering every license plate you see or whatever).

  • Human memory (Score:5, Funny)

    by user32.ExitWindowsEx ( 250475 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:39PM (#11463660)
    I don't know when I realized this, but the human mind is like the internet. everything you could ever want to know is probably in there, but you need google to find it all and every search eventually leads to something sex-related.
  • I've remembered things because I've said to myself "I will remember this moment." One of them was when driving a Previa from up the north-east US seaboard, while eating a bag of doritos. Another was as an infant, choosing to drink milk after hearing my mother say that I wouldn't.

    I think the level of consciousness a moment has affects our capacity to (and interest in) remembering them. But this can be a function of pure will.

    Mind you, there is no telling how many of these willed memories have been forgotte

    • This reminds me of a moment I was in some sort of philosophical conversation.

      It was about the about how meaningless a moment can appear, cause most of it will go up in thin air unless you specifically remember it.
      There was a plane flying overhead, and I pointed out that plane would stop to exist in our minds. I was certain the moment that by the time we'd meet up again the upcoming week, the moment would've been lost, never to be remembered again if I wouldn't have pointed out we wouldn't remember. The l

    • I have done that as well, when I was 6 or 7 I was on holiday in Devon, on the beach half way up a sand dune and decided to spend a few minutes sitting in the same place and looking at the scene in front of me. The intention was to remember that for as long as possible so I put a lot of 'effort' into the remembering.

      Over the years I have reminded myself of the scene and could look around it like looking at a photo but now unfortunately it has faded to the extent that although I remember the broad details an

  • Fake memories (Score:4, Interesting)

    by D H NG ( 779318 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @08:58PM (#11463770)
    Sometimes our brains can be tricked into remembering things that did not happen. Elizabeth Loftus [washington.edu] had done much research in the area of misinformation effect [wikipedia.org], which actually has legal repercussions [williamcalvin.com].
    • There is an interesting memory approach called Image streaming that deals with conjuring memories that you didn't think ever happened. The odd thing about it is that many times the things you forgot actually get remembered(and not fake memories). It makes one wonder if indeed we actually ever forgotten them at all or just misplaced them.

      http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6243/imstri. html [geocities.com]

      You can laugh and not believe it at all, but Image Streaming is remarkeably effective in remembering events

  • How the brain works... (Score:3, Informative)

    by kiwioddBall ( 646813 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:00PM (#11463782)
    I haven't RTFA but...

    How does a synapse know whether to remember something or not... answer - it doesn't. What we remember is only related to what synapses still function, so it something breaks, we don't remember that particular piece of information.

    I personally think that the source of all human illness is basically the body forgetting how to maintain itself... critical synapses failing. But what would I know?
    • How does a synapse know whether to remember something or not... answer - it doesn't.

      Well, that's not quite true. Some synapses are truely "unsupervised," strengthening when, for example, the two neurons it connects fire at the same time. Other synapses strengthen or weaken when exposed to certain chemicals, like calcium or dopamine.

      I personally think that the source of all human illness is basically the body forgetting how to maintain itself... critical synapses failing.

      This may be true for certain ne

  • Irony (Score:3, Funny)

    by ozbird ( 127571 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:01PM (#11463786)
    prostoalex forgot the apostrophe in "Scientific American's ...".

  • Prudent Memories (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EdwinBoyd ( 810701 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:04PM (#11463812)
    If evolution teaches us anything (no comments from the Intelligent Design category please) it's that our memory is working just fine. The memories that really stick with us and are the most vivid are the huge mistakes and successes. This is for the sole purpose of helping us deal with future situations by drawing on past experiences. So not being able to remember where your keys are when you're late for work may seem like the product of a faulty memory, the brain is simply full of more pragmatic information like 'fire burns' or 'never bet on the Steelers'.

    • Yeah... ish.... but what about.... Trivia? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kaladorn ( 514293 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:33PM (#11464017) Homepage Journal
      Hmmm. This doesn't exactly explain how one can, with crystal clarity, remember absolutely useless bits of information when not being able to retain information that is far more important to ones success in life. For instance, one can forget ones fiance's birthday or the day you got engaged or little things like Valentine's day, while remembering the gram molecular weight of ethanol or the exact number of Tribbles sat on by James T. Kirk.... so I'm not sure that evolution has strictly wired us for efficiency.

      The truth is evolution is a coarse brush. In order for something to offer a significant chance of being genetically propagated, it has to offer a sizeable benefit (25%+ if I recall my conversation with one of the world's better population modellers working for CSIRO). Less than that and it will tend to get lost in the noise.

      So I'm sure that memory setup the way it has been (to forget some pains, to remember others) has been something we've grown into, but I'm also sure some element of it prevades almost every intelligent animal as well. I bet our cat has that same setup (well, there is the claim they may in fact remember nothing, but I know too well this is just propaganda...). But I wouldn't say the system was yet 'fully optimized' for being able to deal with future events.

      The fact is, there probably is no fully optimized configuration, given an infinite range of possible future events. So we're probably in that fuzzy zone of mostly useful in most situations, which is right where we should be (that is to say though I disagree with the particulars of the comment, I agree with the general conclusion).

      Sure, we can probably enhance memory via drugs or nanos eventually for certain things. Handy, perhaps an advantage. We may be able to help blot out trauma (a pill, for instance, for a recent victim of physical trauma so the trauma does not become the stuff of recurrent nightmare but fades from their memory over time). So these applications would have some use. But giving everyone an eidetic memory might not be either a good idea nor terribly feasible.
      • well, there is the claim they may in fact remember nothing, but I know too well this is just propaganda...

        Just out of curiosity, who is claiming this? Ican prove pretty well that my cat can remember something traumatic that happened only once even months later (she got a surpise shower while playing with the knobs in the bathroom, and now freaks out if you bring her anywhere near the knobs).
        • Actually this only proofs that it has learned that those knobs are dangerous. It doesn't proof that it remembers the event. (To make it clear: I do think that cats and other animals are able to remember). You cannot tell from that behaviour if, assuming your cat could speak, it would say: "I fear those knobs; I don't know why but I'm absolutely sure they are dangerous" (i.e. it developed a "knobphobia"), or if it would say "I fear those knobs because the last time I was playing with them I got a shocking wa

  • or, 'Potential Programmability of Human Memory' (Score:4, Interesting)

    by brian.glanz ( 849625 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:04PM (#11463814) Homepage Journal

    A leitmotif the article turns on is the potential programmability, more than the volatility, of human memory. They discuss how the older view of our memory as volatile and mysterious has been refined, as we've discovered the mechanisms for transition between short and long term memory. From the physiological to the cellular level, the idea here is a familiar one -- we know more than ever, and we're learning faster than we had before, in this case about memory and about learning.

    Most intriguing are the material implications of the article -- they find memories transitioning to long term storage when information is reinforced at specific intervals and with specific techniques. This matches some experimental evidence as referred to, like the familiar ideas of studying or preparing in the same location you will test or perform in -- but, its level of specificity begs for more experimentation and refinement of memory management techniques. Learning and memory across the whole human experience can be biologically maximized if we find just the right process -- read that slippery section in x minute increments and take 10 minute brakes between 3 repetitions. Or maybe, do asdf to remember x words by rote for the next 4 hours, and do ;lkj to sufficiently remember x for a month. Without running a cord into your ear, the article is promising for its level of detail in exact ways we might approach finding best practices for our current hardware.

    I'm curious generally about how soon articles like this, especially up at the Scientific American level of exposure, translate into experiments at universities (and, self-help books?). I'm tempted to modify my own learning accordingly, n/m waiting.

    BG

  • If I don't remember something, she thinks it's simply because it isn't important to me.

    I have tried to explain the innermost workings of the male mind to her many times, but she just does not understand that we have a very small and flaky birthday/anniversary/shoe size database.

  • Is there anything new here? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Glowing Fish ( 155236 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:43PM (#11464071) Homepage
    This article is a rehash of basic neuronal theory (known for at least a 100 years ago), and slightly less basic information on Long Term Potentiation (which has been known about since the early 70s, although they have been discovering more in recent years); followed by some guesses at how the calcium influx triggers genetic change, because "genetics" is the trendy branch of Biology that is familiar from the cover of Time.

    What we don't know is where and how Long Term memories are stored. We know that they are formed through synaptic input in the limbic system. Presumably, they are then passed to somewhere in the cortex. Why? How? Where? That is what we don't know.

    BTW, it is quite easy to do your own experiments on LTP. Although they can be a bit dangerous.

    • What we don't know is where and how Long Term memories are stored.

      Why do they have to be stored in a localized portion of the brain? Wouldn't it be more likely that they would be stored & interconnected through large chunks of the brain, which might not be located in the exact same spaces between different people?

  • I'm not sure we actually lose memories. I count emotions as heuristics based on our memories, ideas that have a lot of information behind them but we can't really backtrace to figure out what is involved. Our emotions are statistical approximations based on ideas and experiences we can no longer afford to keep in conscious memory.

    The appeal of the game Go to me is just that. When you've seen your 1000th game you don't remember all the patterns and sequences in all the previous games. You simply can't keep track of which opening moves lead to which outcomes. There are more moves in the game than molecules in a galaxy so it's silly to expect full recognition. What you do get though is how you felt about certain moves as you saw them. You learned to enjoy the quick attack at the opponent or the slow tactfulness that drew out an opponents mistakes. Read enough Go games and you'll begin to see what an experienced player is feeling as he makes his moves. You'll see it because you'll remember the feeling you got when that kind of move was made before. You won't have at hand a mental reference chart for what was a brutish invasion and what was sly trickery based on the specific pattern of the stones. Instead you'll have an approximation attached to a feeling which makes that move vaguely recognizable even though you've never seen it before.

    Computers don't have the capacity for heuristics and pattern recognition that people do which is why a three month Go player can soundly beat any Go computer. People have a complex system of feelings which allow us to index and categorize all the experiences of our lives without ever having to remember those experiences explicitly. Go is deep enough that it will show you how someone's head is connected.

    Chess is tricky. Go humbles me.
  • There's something to be said for rote memorization in some cases (addition and multiplication tables from 0+0 to 9x9).

    The rest is probably just random. There may be no ghost in the shell at all.

  • I had a eye operation(s) (4 of them before age 4).
    I was given a matchbox car which had a trunk. Years later I recalled that I put the wrapper for a straw in the trunk. I found the car, opened it and there it was. Funny since I have limited memory from that period of time. I do remember the eye dr's office too from the visits there. There was a good show on TV for the Annenberg CPB education series. This one was on Psychology with Dr Zimbardo (Stanford), it was on memory, he covered the famous cases when som
    • Years later I recalled that I put the wrapper for a straw in the trunk. I found the car, opened it and there it was.

      Memory is very strange. It seems to me that the very act of remembering something becomes a new memory (as it has in your case). You end up with memories of memories of memories. Some of them real, some of them were just dreams that you've remembered so often you can't tell the difference unless at one point you made a point of remembering that it was a dream.

  • Imperfect memory? Yes, please... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Reteo Varala ( 743 ) <.moc.sotnoilsorpmal. .ta. .oeter.> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @12:12AM (#11465102)
    Personally, I'd prefer a volatile memory.

    There are some good things about a clear memory. Being able to recall things with a minimal amount of effort, and maybe, if it's stubborn, the easy recall of where to find it. Immediate notice of a flaw in a pattern, no matter how miniscule or unnoticeable. Noticing inconsistency in a conversation. Tracking how much money you have left.

    However, it does have it's downside.

    Ever hear the saying "Someday we'll look back and laugh at this?"

    I'm still waiting. I still cringe over every single embarassing memory in the 30-year period that is my life. Those memories, when I recall them, are much too clear, and it feels like it just happened, despite the fact that some of those events had occurred over 20-25 years ago. Sometimes it's so strong, I feel the need to shut down, and lately, it's started to cause nervous reactions; too many things are drawing them up as I work to re-integrate myself into that thing known as "Humanity."

    Thankfully, my memory, while vivid, is still selective, and I can find the mercy of forgetfulness. I don't think I could survive a photographic memory with my sanity intact.

    It is said that if you recalled every single thing, it would take a strong will not to go mad. I believe it.

  • Memory vs. Memories (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Couzin2000 ( 797592 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @12:25AM (#11465176) Homepage

    It's interesting to read the point of view of others. That generally is the way for us to form opinions, and, well, I have my own opinion formed.

    I think it's probably not so much a matter of "strengthening" a synapse to remember more clearly. I think it's more of an associative memory thing. As we all know, remembering certain things are "triggered" by events, occurences and coincidences. Certain things could be remembered during a conversation on a certain topic, for example; haven't we all played that game where someone says how bad a fall they took from their bike when that someone was young, and then we go on to say "Well, check out the fall I took..." and then go on to tell them an even worse fall? I think it's things we see, hear, taste, smell, touch, that trigger these memories into surfacing.

    Part of this is associative, and we all do it. But, some events are almost omnipresent in our minds. For example, a rape victim. The victim will remember this event on the premise that so many times she's heard about how bad that could be, how intolerable a behaviour that could be for a human, and we get it drilled in our minds. When the event actually happens to her, it will trigger all these memories of hearing how bad it is all at once.

    The reverse will then happen: anytime a rape victim will see a commercial on rape prevention, or a attempted rape scene in a movie, that will in turn trigger all these times that she was told that rape is bad, and the event itself. (Keep in mind here, I'm in no way saying rape is just an "event" - I do NOT condone it. We're just not discussing the moral implications here.)

    Associations are made between memories and, in turn, synapses, because of all the possible interconnections they have. Based on all the similarities or closeness of incidents in our lives, we re-associate events that happen daily to old, pushed-away-to-the-side memories. That's how when you see an old friend you haven't seen in so long can "bring back" so many great memories.. and bad ones as well.

    I doubt that certain events are more powerful than others, but I think they might be more potent than some, simply by all these things we associate together.

    My 2 cents!

  • Mental heart-beat (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jedwardsnz ( 788220 )

    In light of this article, perhaps the following mental discipline may be useful:

    Every ten minutes, review the important experiences of the preceding ten minutes. Also review the important events of the preceding couple of ten-minute intervals.

    I guess this would be like a 'mental heart-beat', that would serve to keep your mind active and your useful memories intact.

  • Remarkably, if the same high-frequency stimulus is applied repeatedly (three times in our experiments), the synapse becomes strengthened permanently, a state called late LTP. But the stimuli cannot be repeated one after the other. Instead each stimulus burst must be spaced by sufficient intervals of inactivity (10 minutes in our experiments). And adding chemicals that block mRNA or protein synthesis to the salt solution bathing the brain slice will cause the synapse to weaken to its original strength within

  • Witness discreditation program (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ynotds ( 318243 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @06:49AM (#11466465) Homepage Journal
    This kind of research is slowly undermining the legal fiction of eye witness testimony.

    If in order to commit something to long term memory you need to reactivate relevant synapses after an interval measured in minutes, then the reactivation will surely be compromised by whatever rationalisation you have managed to do in the interim.

    If I recall correctly, there have been controlled experiments done in which a stooge managed to readily convince witnesses that certain details of an event where quite different to what had actually happened.

  • My brain without me. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cabazorro ( 601004 )
    My project wound down in October. Since then I've been doing documentation and non-programming duties.

    Yesterday I had to add a line to a file.
    A simple unix command that a few months ago I could have spitted out like second nature...

    was gone!

    I walked aimlessly through the cube-maze string at blank faces trying to remember but I couldn't.

    Was that a cat command? set? awk?

    I asked some gurus and referred my to the >> command. Than I sat back in front of my white board and gently and swiftly the line e

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