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The mystery of the human memory. Photo | Thinkstock
Just 300 millisecondsthe human brain are enough to generate a memory, the time it takes the “neuron concept” to link images, according to a recent discovery of Argentine scientists. The most famous amnesiac brain atlas draws a 3D memory.
This new approach to the mystery of human memory comes from the hand of Rodrigo Quian Quiroga Argentines, director of the Center for Systemic Neuroscience at the University of Leicester in Britain, Hernán Rey, just published their finding in the Current Biology .
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“Overall, memory formation involves an association of concepts eg ‘remember meeting with a friend when I went to the movies’ involves two concepts: ‘a friend’ and ‘went to the movies’ associated to form a new memory that is to have found a friend in the cinema, “says Quian Quiroga.
“Already some time ago showed that there are neurons in the brain that encode concepts.’s used to form the brain memory and time have a shot,” he said, by telephone from Britain.
“Once it reaches the sensory stimulus, such as seeing a person, 300 milliseconds after the neuron fires (pulse) and that is the time during which the neuron is activated to memory formation,” he continued.
This phenomenon is different from other cognitive processes such as decide on whether to take a taxi or bus or pay attention to something that excites you, ‘and involving other neurons in other brain areas, and other times.
Quian Quiroga
and his team studied the brain response in candidates for epilepsy surgery patients, which is evaluated by means of electrodes in different areas of the brain that record neuronal activity.
“An electrode is like a needle having a millimeter in diameter and can hear the activity of neurons, like introdujeras a microphone inside the brain of a person and you could hear,” said Quian Quiroga.
Memory is distributed in different parts of the brain, there is a specific geography of exercising “memory lane”, but there is a specific area involved in their formation. hippocampus
“ If we have that area can not generate new memories , there is much evidence in neuroscience, but mostly we know from a patient who lacked the hippocampus and could not have new memories” said the scientist.
“is very much the case of the film Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000). Indeed, it is based on this patient. was a person that whatever happens you can not save memory, all things that happen go directly to oblivion, “he continued.
hippocampus are located the “neuron concept”, specialized in this type of encodings for his hierarchy of cognitive processes.
discovery of “neuron concept” is thanks to Quian Quiroga and a little to the American actress Jennifer Aniston.
“The first neuron concept I found, what people call the ‘Jennifer Aniston neuron’, because I was just showing different pictures of Jennifer Aniston and answer and if neuron showed photos of any other person, for example Julia Roberts, he did not, “he said.
also found other neurons that responded to Halle Berry, Oprah Winfrey and other popular characters from the American society a decade, since the research was conducted at UCLA in Los Angeles, the year that Aniston was on the crest of the wave of popularity for the issuance of the final season of the series Friends .
That
his great discovery has passed into history as “Jennifer Aniston neuron” Quian Quiroga does not bother but he found it “fun”.
These findings will serve no time to cure diseases such as Alzheimer’s, because there is still a long way to fully understand how the mechanisms of memory work.
“The brain is not only the great unknown of the human body, but of the universe. How the brain works remains one of the mysteries of science. If a scientist asks what are the five big questions of our time, one will be safe functioning of the brain, “he said.
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