Study Identifies New Insight Into the Nature of Memory Storage

Researchers from New York University have found new insight into the temporal nature of how we store our memories, which could potentially offer a pathway for treating cognitive-related diseases. The findings, published in the journal Neuron, pinpoint the brain activity that helps explain why we remember some events as having occurred closer together in time and others further apart. During the study, researchers asked participants to look at a series of pictures while their brain activity was being monitored. The participants viewed objects and faces that were separated in time, with each one paired with a picture of a scene. Participants were then asked to imagine a scenario in which either the object or the face played a role in the scene they just viewed. The process was designed to encode a series of memories in the participants. Later, the participants performed a retrieval test in which they were asked to indicate how far apart in time the two items were when they were encoded into their memories. The results of the study showed a relationship between hippocampal activity and how close, or far, the participants placed their memories — stressing that the hippocampus is vital in determining how we recall the temporal distances between the many memories we hold. To read more about this study, click here.