Post #7 Where Are Old Memories Stored in the Brain?

link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-memory-trace
Journal Information:

• In the 1920's Karl Lashley conducts experiment that leads to the discovery that memories are not stored in just one single part of the brain
• Theories now predict that the hippocampus stores the memory for short-term and then transfers to the frontal cortex for long-term storage
• Therefore based on how old the memory trace is, depends on where the memory is stored
• fMRI scanners can actively control what parts of the brain are being used when participants in a study were asked a question about the past
• Smith and Squire tested the effects of age of the memory as apposed to personal associations (richness) and encoding
• 1.) recall the original question to acess encoding
• 2.) answer the question - accuracy of recall
• 3.) how much they know about the event - richness of memory
• concluded: "the memories of events that occurred in the distant past were often as rich as those of more recent event"
• Alzeheimers patients have no ability to form new memories as well as recall old ones - hence the reason they have no idea it is happening because they cannot form the new memory that they don't remember the past
• Along with that, the hippocampus is mainly used to for short-term easily retrieveable memories and the frontal cortex is for more complex long-term storage that takes greater effort to recall

Title: Where Are Old Memories Stored in the Brain? A new study suggests that the location of a recollection in the brain varies based on how old that recollection is

From Scientific American Journal; Author: Moheb Costandi