I just found a great tech­ni­cal descrip­tion –see below– of how we remem­ber in the Brain Back­grounders at The Soci­ety for Neu­ro­science website.

If you are look­ing for a less tech­ni­cal expla­na­tion, you will enjoy read­ing instead:

- Improve Mem­ory with Sleep, Prac­tice, and Testing

- Try Think­ing With­out Work­ing Memory

- New Neu­rons: Good News, Bad News

At first the activ­ity of var­i­ous chem­i­cals pro­vides knowl­edge with a tem­po­rary occu­pancy in the brain, last­ing for a few min­utes. The mem­ory is in its “short-term” phase. This fresh infor­ma­tion is evicted and for­got­ten unless essen­tial mol­e­cules and genes are activated.

Many researchers believe that the process of trans­form­ing a short-term mem­ory into a long-term mem­ory begins when brain cells receive sig­nals that induce reac­tions involv­ing the mol­e­cule, pro­tein kinase A. This, in turn, sets off another mol­e­cule in the cell known as cyclic AMP-response ele­ment bind­ing pro­tein (CREB). CREB acti­vates genes, which are seg­ments of the cell’s deoxyri­bonu­cleic acid (DNA). Genes hold sequences of cod­ing mol­e­cules that pro­vide the bio­log­i­cal instruc­tions for pro­duc­ing pro­teins. The devel­op­ment and func­tion of the body and brain is directed by many dif­fer­ent pro­teins. The genes acti­vated by CREB lead to the pro­duc­tion of spe­cial pro­teins that change the struc­ture and activ­ity of nerve cells. These reac­tions fas­ten infor­ma­tion for days, weeks or longer.

The core mol­e­c­u­lar switch appears to be involved in secur­ing the mem­o­ries of facts and events, known as explicit mem­o­ries, as well as implicit mem­o­ries. Implicit mem­o­ries remind you how to do some­thing. They involve motor skills and per­cep­tual strate­gies. The answers to the his­tory test ques­tions rely on explicit mem­o­ries. Implicit mem­o­ries remind you how to actu­ally write the responses.

While at least some of the chem­i­cal reac­tions needed to con­vert a short-term mem­ory into a long-term mem­ory appear to be the same, the mem­ory pro­cess­ing occurs in dif­fer­ent brain areas. Explicit mem­o­ries require the brain regions within the tem­po­ral lobe of the cere­bral cor­tex includ­ing the hip­pocam­pus. Implicit mem­o­ries are primed in the spe­cific sen­sory and motor sys­tems that are recruited for what­ever the par­tic­u­lar task is.

Think­ing of all those fresh mem­o­ries being “evicted and for­got­ten” unless a whole chain of mol­e­c­u­lar events takes place makes me won­der if we should stop wor­ry­ing about why we for­get and instead won­der why we ever remember!

Be Socia­ble, Share!

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