Abstract
Memorizing is the most fundamental capacity of our brain, allowing us to perform not only the simplest physical acts but also the most complex mental tasks. Working or short-term memory is thought to have limited capacity. Considering however the sophistication of our mental abilities, we would like to believe that our memory is unlimited. Biological memory is creative and not strictly replicative. The capacity limits are shaped and defined by the same mechanisms generating consciousness, that is, temporal mapping and perceptual constructs. The representational capacity of human memory grants us the many symbolic activities that characterize our mental lives and our many skills, including foremost language.
The two fundamental types of long-term memory are explicit or declarative and implicit or non-declarative memory. It is well established that the hippocampus plays a crucial role in the initial encoding and storage of memories. Gradually the neocortex becomes involved in maintenance and storage of lasting memory traces in a process called consolidation. The dynamic processes underlying either short-term or long-term memory formation are changes in synaptic efficacy or synaptic strength.
Memory changes at the neurobiological level involve modifications of synaptic proteins or receptors by phosphorylation, leading to remodeling of synaptic connections. Memory storage and consolidation involve changes in gene expression, protein synthesis, and synaptic structure and number. There is also evidence that epigenetic changes in gene expression can alter memory traces, indicating that environmental factors encountered by parents can affect memory and cognition in offspring. The role of the hippocampus in affective, cognitive, and behavioral development is discussed in the light of the lifelong production of new hippocampal neurons.
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- 1.
A memory storage site should not be viewed as a circumscribed storage place. For example, memory encoding in the frontal cortex must involve a distributed network with a large number of connections.
- 2.
Whether the brain is only reshaped in extreme circumstances is open to discussion. Also there are compensation mechanisms: in the reported study, there was a reduced ability in non-London street-associated memory games, so there is a plasticity change in other areas, which we may not be aware of.
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Steck, A., Steck, B. (2016). Memory. In: Brain and Mind. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21287-6_3
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