A new study from Nathan Rose, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, examined a fundamental problem your brain has to solve, which is keeping information “in mind”, or active, so your brain can act accordingly.
The common theory is that the information is kept in mind by neurons related to the information actively firing throughout a delay period, a theory that has been dominant since at least the 1940s, according to Rose.
However, in a new paper published in Science, Rose and his team give weight to the synaptic theory, a less well-known and tested model. The synaptic theory suggests that information can be retained for short periods of time by specific changes in the links, or weights, between neurons.
And even though a specific memory could seem vanished from the brain (due to total lack of any neuron activity), when researchers reactivated specific regions of the brain which were previously active when the memory was formed, the specific pattern of the phenomenally lost memory reappeared out of the blue. (1)
We do NOT know how and where data is stored into our brain. And yet, we are so certain that it is stored there… Even though evidence suggests something “else” is keeping the information inside “us”, we are so certain that this is based on the brain that no alternative might be considered.
We like seeing flashes and lights. And we believe what we see.
This memory was “not there”. And yet, we believed it was still there. And we managed to find it. Reappearing only after the brain region was stimulated again. But could this memory or any memory be stored in the neurons’ structure of an ever-changing brain? Or is it more logical to assume that it is stored in the ever-lasting structure of an eternal cosmos?
Everything changes. And yet we stay the same.
One self, with memories. Wandering through the cold cosmos.
Pondering. Who are we? What dark dreams have haunted us?
I had forgotten. But now I know again. My memory is back…
Those flashes and lights…
Out of the darkness, light again.
Oh, how much we like seeing flashes and lights…
