Interview with Mike Alkire M.D.

PART A

1. Mr. Michael Alkire of the University of California at Irvine

    Field of work: Mechanisms of Memory and Anesthesia as a Center for

    Neurobiologyof Learning & Memory (CNLM) Fellow

    link to cnlm: http://www.cnlm.uci.edu/

2. Reliability: authoritative figure of the CNLM

                      professor of the University of California at Irvine (UCI) in Anesthes &
                      Perioperative Care

                      link to uci: http://directory.uci.edu/index.php?uid=malkire&return=Alkire

3. Interview by e-mail throughout April 12-21, 2012

PART B Interview:

1.    What is the most current theory of how memories are stored and recalled through brain passageways?

Here is a good link to a Scientific American article that talks about a fairly recent Larry Squire paper: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-memory-trace

2.    What are some of the different and unique ways you can remember something (by sounds or images)? And what are typically the most common and least common ways by which you remember something?

Not really sure what you’re after here.  There are different types of memory generally defined by the task used to establish that they are present.  For instance, Patient HM was found to be able to learn a “procedural memory” task in which he could trace a star pattern in a mirror, even though he didn’t have his hippocampus.

Here is a link to Luke Mastin’s website, which gets at the different types of memory and offers a nice overview for many of your questions. http://www.human-memory.net/types.htmll

3.    Are there any running hypotheses today about why no one can remember when they were born?

There are a number of ideas about why this might be so, ranging from various bits of the brain like the hippocampus have not yet developed, to ideas about babies not having the cognitive structure to think logically.  My personal hypothesis is that babies don’t yet have the conceptual frame work of cause and effect.  This is why they can drop a ball over and over again and be amazed that it falls.  The ball dropping experiment that everyone does as part of learning about the world is part of the process of learning cause and effect.  Once cause and effect are established in the brain then the stage is set for more long-term, life long memories to be formed.  These are the memories that put one in the space and time of what was happening around them.  

4.    What exactly happens to the brain when alcohol consumption slows memory of intoxicated events?

There are about three really good questions in this one.  Basically, alcohol is an anesthetic and so it anesthetizes that part of your brain associated with forming new memories (i.e., the hippocampus).   The slowing of time is actually an interesting area of study which suggests the drug is affecting those brain networks associated with processing time signals.  Also, the drug likely affects the amygdala which is the brain region that modulates memory according to how emotionally arousing an experience is.  One idea is that when things get emotionally arousing time slows down because the frame rate of consciousness itself is actually increasing and the brain is processing more information per unit time.  This has the subjective feeling of time slowing.  You get the same sort of distorted time processing with anesthetics.

5.    What are your specific views on the ability to "remember everything"?

This is an interesting and exciting new avenue of research being performed by my colleagues at the Center.  You should watch this 60 min clip, if you have the time:

http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/2010/12/gift-of-endless-memory-they-never.html

Scroll down to get to the videos.

6. Is there any recent research in foods that may aid memory?

Here’s a link to a WebMD article that gets at this: http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/slideshow-brain-foods-that-help-you-concentrate Many of the memory boosters are really attention boosters.