Today science knows not everything about how the brain works and how memories are formed inside it. But every year scientists step by step approach the answers to numerous important questions. For example, it was previously assumed that short-term memory is stored in the hippocampus and only then is transferred to a special area of the brain for long-term storage. But new research proves that scientists were wrong, and that's not quite the case.
A group of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made an unexpected discovery while researching the neural circuits that underlie memory. Researchers have identified the fact that memories are formed simultaneously in the hippocampus, as well as in the cerebral cortex, where memories are stored for a long time. Long-term memories, however, remain in a "dormant" state for a couple of weeks before reaching a mature state. As you already understand, this goes against the previous ideas of scientists about how a person remembers certain events.
“This discovery, highlighted in our article, opens up a completely new mechanism for the work of memory formation processes for scientists. Previously, it was assumed that the formation of memories occurs in one place, and then the information is gradually transferred to another area of the brain for long-term storage, but everything turned out to be much more interesting, Susumu Tonegawa, author of the study and professor of neuroscience at MIT, shared with the press.
The article, containing the research material of Professor Tonegawa and his team, was published in Science on April 6.
SERGEY GRAY