Recent study finding offers new promises as a path towards the formulation of novel treatments for memory disorders like Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
A EurekAlert! report said in research by Cedars-Sinai, study authors have found two types of brain cells that play a vital role in splitting continuous human experience into unique segments that can be remembered later.
According to the study's senior author, Ueli Rutishauser, PhD, professor of Neurosurgery, Neurology, and Biomedical Sciences at Cedars-Sinai, one of the reasons they cannot provide substantial help for an individual suffering from a memory disorder is that "we don't know enough about how the memory system works." The professor added memory is the foundation of human beings.
As part of an ongoing study into how memory is working, Rutishauser and co-investigators looked at how brain cells are reacting as memories are formed.
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Based on observations of behavior of people, memories are separated by the brain into individual events, a notion called ‘event segmentation.’
Event Segmentation
The research, part of a multi-institutional BRAIN Initiative consortium financially backed by the National Institutes of Health and led by Cedars-Sinai, was published in the Nature Neuroscience peer-reviewed journal.
The human experience is nonstop although psychologists believe, based on observations of the behavior of people, that memories are separated by the brain into individual events, a notion called "event segmentation."
Working with 19 patients who have drug-resistant epilepsy, Rutishauser and his team examined how neurons are performing during the process.
Patients taking part in the research had electrodes surgically embedded into their brains to help find the focus of their epileptic seizures, enabling investigators to record individual neurons' activity while the patients viewed clips that comprised cognitive boundaries.
Boundary Cells
When the volunteers watched films, the researchers noted that specific neurons in the brain, which they labeled "boundary cells," amplified their activity after both soft and hard boundaries.
In addition, another group of neurons which the study investigators labeled "event cells," augmented their activity only as a reaction to hard boundaries, but not soft boundaries.
Rutishauser, together with co-investigators hypothesized that peaks in the boundary and event cells' activity, which are highest following hard boundaries, when both cell types fire, send the brain into the "proper state" for instigating a new memory.
The senior author explained, a boundary response is a sort of like creating a new folder on the computer. One can then store files in that folder, he elaborated adding, "when another boundary comes around," he closes the first folder and creates a new one.
Anchors for Mental Time Travel
To recover memories, the brain is using boundary peaks as what the professor calls "anchors for mental time travel." He added, when one tries to remember something, it's causing brain cells to fire.
The memory system is then comparing this activity pattern to all the previous firing peaks that happened just after boundaries.
If it finds one that's akin, it then opens that folder. One goes back for a couple of seconds at that particular point in time, and things that occurred then come into focus.
A similar Medical Xpress specified that according to Rutishauser, therapeutics that enhance event segmentation could help patients suffering from memory disorders. Even something as simple as a change in atmosphere can intensify event boundaries, he added.
Related information about how the brain is making memories is shown on Big Think's YouTube video below:
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