| Title | Electrodes Show A Glimpse Of Memories Emerging In A Brain | |
| Date | Monday August 19 2019, @08:11PM | |
| Author | takyon | |
| Topic | ||
| from the echo-echo-echo dept. | ||
Seconds before a memory pops up, certain nerve cells jolt into collective action [DOI: 10.1126/science.aax1030] [DX]. The discovery of this signal, described in the Aug. 16 Science, sheds light on the mysterious brain processes that store and recall information.
Electrodes implanted in the brains of epilepsy patients picked up neural signals in the hippocampus, a key memory center, while the patients were shown images of familiar people and places, including former President Barack Obama and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As the participants took in this new information, electrodes detected a kind of brain activity called sharp-wave ripples, created by the coordinated activity of many nerve cells in the hippocampus.
Later blindfolded, the patients were asked to remember the pictures. One to two seconds before the participants began describing each picture, researchers noticed an uptick in sharp-wave ripples, echoing the ripples detected when the subjects had first seen the images.
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printed from SoylentNews, Electrodes Show A Glimpse Of Memories Emerging In A Brain on 2024-04-18 12:09:50