The Hippocampus and what happens during sleep

Using what you have learned in this course,

1. identify the parts of the nervous system that are active in your example,
2. describe the functions of the nervous system that are apparent and/or impaired in your
example, and
3. explain in detail the ways in which this course has allowed you to better analyze the
events and phenomena around you.

The hippocampus is part of the limbic system (short reminder: limbic system ist important in
processing emotions and memory) and is sitting in the inner part of the temporal lobe.
Mammals and humans have both two hippocampi. The hippocampus has a distinctive curved
shape and resembles of the shape of a sea horse. Important roles of the hippocampus are
consolidation of information from short therm to long term memory and spatial navigation

In segment 10 we learnt that if the hippocampus gets removed on both hemispheres of the
brain, we are unable to form new memories and going to have problems with rehearsing
episodic memories. So far so good.

But what is with a healthy person? Is the hippocampus limited and if it is than how it works?
Besides that, I want to explain, what happens during sleep with our hippocampus.
The hippocampus is a fascinating part of the brain it’s the most important player when it
comes down to identity.

So first things first the hippocampi can communicate with other areas of the brain: olfactory
cortex, auditory cortex, visual cortex and motoric cortex just to name some. So the
hippocampus puts different inputs together into an unique memory. There are three major
types of memories. First the working memory: this capacity is responsible for activities
covering 0 - 30 seconds. Secondly there are explicit memories including semantic and
episodic contents. Semantic means facts like: who is the chancellor of Germany in 2022.
Episodic memories describes situations which you can recall like for example: the first time
you went on a date should be a memorable event. And last but not least there are implicit
memories these can be motoric activities(memories) like for example riding a bike.

So is there a limit restricting the hypocampus? The answer is yes and I am going to explain
why. Hippocampal neurons are the critical part when it comes down to restrictions set to
new memories. Memories get built when two (or many more) neurons communicate with
each other. This is called a synapse. Synaptic strength can change over time dependent on
the behavior of a person. Some synapses are weak and some are really hard wired or to put
it different you can access a memory more easily than another. Now comes the important
point neurons cannot be endless and so synapses points where neurons communicate
cannot be endless. I personally think its really interesting what I found out about learning
and aging. You probably know the saying you don’t teach an old dog a new trick. This saying
often used by older people to get new unknown this out of the way got luckily disproved by
the scientific community. A 90 year old person has the same potential to build new neurons
as a 18 year old. But an important factor is demand. If the hippocampus doesn’t gets
demanded it can also shrink. (often seen in people with depressive disorders)
So now we learnt that there is a limited number of neurons in the hippocampus. But what
would happen if we would overwrite old memories with new ones like an ongoing process?
That this doesn’t happen the brain has a mechanism. Now it gets a little bit complicated. So
we have to understand that if we recall a random memory not the original memory is
recalled but rather the recall of the original event. This what Peggy Mason described with
the high quota of people who remember things that didn’t happen in that way because their
memories get interfered with new facts they didn’t knew back then when the original event
took place

Ablauf: damit wir Erinnerungen leichter zugänglich machen können müssen wir Synaptic
strengt verstärken

This process is called long time potentiation. An important role in this process has the
neurotransmitter Glutamat. Für Informationsaustausch Glutamat freigesetzt  synaptic
strength increases.

Nun schützt sich das Hirn aber vor einer Überschreibung durch die gleichzeitge release oft he
protein ß-amiloide dies hemmt weitere Freisetzung Glutamat und schützt synapsen vor
nochmaligen überspeichern. Synapse erinnert sich daran schon etwas neues gespeichert zu
haben.

Tagebuchbeispiel

Verfügbare synapsen sinken

ß-amiloide steigt