What Memories Are Made Of
Presenter:
Brain Facts
Time:
5:01
Summary
The brain stores memories by changing how neurons talk to each other. When one neuron fires an actional potential, another neuron activates. Over time, this connection gets stronger. Scientists can watch this play out in real time by stimulating and recording slices of brain tissue.
Transcript
The capacity of the brain to learn new information and remember experiences is essential to our existence. Our memory connects our past to the present and prepares us for the future. It helps animals and humans to adapt to the environment. Almost everything we do relies on it, finding food and knowing how to get it or remembering how to get home.
The question is, how does the brain store new information? Let's take a look inside the Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb suggests that learning and memory occurs when two connected neurons are activated at the same time or close in time, leading to strengthening of the connection between them. This is often paraphrased as neurons that fire together, wire together, a neuron sends an action potential along its axon, causing it to release a neurotransmitter, which the other neuron receives at the synapse. The connection between them.