Human Brain Study Sheds Light on How New Memories are Formed

In a study recently published in the journal Neuron, researchers from UCLA and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior found that neurons in a specific brain region play a key role in rapidly forming memories about everyday events — a finding that may result in a better understanding of memory loss. The research team analyzed neurons in the medial temporal lobe associated with episodic memory — which houses the brain’s ability to consciously recall situations like running into an old friend at a specific event, for example. During the study, the team was able to record individual neurons in the medial temporal lobe and found that the cells changed their firing to encode new associations (such as meeting an old friend) at the exact moment of the experience. “This study goes into the heart of the neural code underlying one of the most fundamental aspects of human cognition and memory, namely the formation of associations. The astonishing finding was that this basic code is so explicit at the level of individual neurons in the human brain,” said the senior author of the study. “Recording such activity of even one lonely cell in a multitude of billions of neurons in the brain of a patient on a hospital ward is a technical achievement that only a few places in the world can achieve.” To read more about this study, click here.