Can scientists 'hack' memory?
06 April, 2019
Modern science brings us endless possibilities to help our bodies and our minds stay healthy, but some recent scientific pursuits have also been the center of controversy. One of these is researchers' interest in manipulating memories. Is this feat possible, and if so, why would
In this Spotlight feature, we explore whether scientists can achieve memory manipulation, and how they might do it.
Our memories make up so much of who we are, and the things we remember can often define our experience of the world.
And while positive memories can help us grow and thrive, negative memories do not always have such welcome effects.
Sometimes, unpleasant memories can be part of a learning curve — getting scalded with boiling water means that next time we will be more careful when handling the kettle.
However, there are also memories that are truly traumatic, and recalling them can lead to distress and serious mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The study of memory — formation, recall, and forgetting — attracts a lot of attention and curiosity among neuroscientists, psychologists, and even researchers from the humanities, as there is still so much we do not fully understand about the processes surrounding memory.
And, while we still need to find out more about how memories form in the brain, researchers in recent years have started investigating the possibility of manipulating memories — particularly negative ones — to see if they can weaken or remove them altogether.
In this Spotlight feature, we look briefly at why we remember and why we naturally forget. We also explore some studies that have delved into memory manipulation, explaining how researchers aim to achieve it, and why.
Memory recall and forgetting
When the brain encodes information, those data become stored in groups of neurons that synapses — or links that allow brain cells to "communicate" —connect together.
Scientists typically associate stronger synapses with a better memory, and the brain constantly "updates" synaptic connections, forming new ones or strengthening old ones, as new memories build or we update older ones.
However, synapses can also become weaker if they are not activated often enough, and the brain often loses some of these connections altogether. Thus, forgetting can occur naturally and, indeed, researchers argue that forgetting is a crucial part of learning and creating new memories.
Medical News Today spoke to Sam Berens, Ph.D., who is currently a research assistant at the University of York in the United Kingdom, and he explained to us that natural forgetting can be due to a few different reasons.
"Forgetting occurs because it would not be energy efficient to indefinitely maintain all the memories that we form each day," he explained, adding that it "also seems to be a natural consequence of neurogenesis — the process that creates new brain cells in support of future learning."
"Because of this, clearing old and unused memories may be directly related to our ability to learn new things," he told MNT.
But scientists continue to explore the many complications that riddle memory recall and formation. For instance, not all our memories are correct, and sometimes our brains "implement" forgetting as a defense mechanism.
TAG(s):