LOCATION OF MEMORIES

IN BRAIN
PRESENTATION :PSYCHOLOGY
MODULE NO.12 ( REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING)
PRESENTED BY : NOORULAIN
ROLL NO. 43
PRESENTED TO : MAM ZARA HAYAT
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
If you learned only 500 new things every day, that adds up to storing 180,000 new memories
every year and 3,600,000 memories after twenty years.

Where do you put all those memories?

To figure out how the brain stores and files away 3,600,000 memories (a very conservative
estimate), researchers have studied the formation of memories
 in sea slugs, which have a relatively simple nervous system,
 in brain-damaged individuals, who show deficits in some kinds of memory but not
others,
and in individuals who are having their brains scanned for neural activity while they are
using different kinds of memory
WHY DID RESEARCHERS USE SEA SLUGS
Eric Richard Kandel ( born November 7, 1929) was an Austrian-American neuropsychiatrist.
Kandel, who had studied psychoanalysis, wanted to understand how memory works.
Following the advice of his mentor Harry Grundfest, Kandel pursued a reductionist approach
to studying the nervous system, searching for subject animals with large and basic neural
structures. Kandel made his most famous breakthrough working with the sea slug Aplysia
californica, which has large nerve cells amenable to experimental manipulation and is a
member of the simplest group of animals known to be capable of learning.
LOCATION OF MEMORIES IN BRAIN
Based on these studies, researchers have identified the several different areas
of the brain that are involved in processing and storing different kinds of
thoughts and memories.
Cortex
Hippocampus
Amygdala
 CORTEX
A thin layer of brain cells that covers the surface of the forebrain
Short-term Memories:
 When you look up a new phone number, you can hold it in short-term memory long enough
to dial the number
Ability to hold words, facts, and events in short term memory depends on activity in the
cortex.
Short-term memory refers to information processed in a short period of time
People may have brain damage that prevents them from storing long-term memories, but if
their cortex is intact, they may have short-term memory and be able to carry on relatively
normal conversations. However, if they cannot store long-term memories, they would not
later remember having those conversations.
 LONG-TERM MEMORIES
If you learn the words to a song, these words are stored in long-term memory.
 Your ability to remember or recall songs, words, facts, and events for days, months, or
years depends on areas widely spread throughout the cortex.
Long-term memory allows us to store information for long periods of time, including
information that can be retrieved consciously (explicit memory) or unconsciously
(implicit memory).
People may have brain damage that prevents them from learning or remembering any new
songs. However, if they have an intact cortex, they may remember the words from songs
they learned before their brain damage because such information would have already been
safely stored in their cerebral cortex
 AMYGDALA
Suppose that each time you hear a particular song associated with a special person, you have a
romantic feeling
This romantic feeling associated with this emotional memory is provided by the amygdala ,
which is located in the tip of the temporal lobe and receives input from all the senses.
Amygdala plays a critical role in the long-term processing of emotionally intense experiences.
For example, the amygdala helps us recognize emotional facial expressions, especially fearful
or threatening ones, and adds a wide range of emotions (positive and negative) to our memories

 Humans with damage to the amygdala still have memories but the memories lose
their emotional impact, such as no longer finding loud noises unpleasant or no longer
recognizing emotional facial expressions.
 HIPPOCAMPUS

Transferring memories:
Hippocampus transfers words, facts, and personal events from
short-term memory into permanent long-term memory.
Hippocampus is a curved, finger sized structure that lies beneath
the cortex in the temporal lobe.
The hippocampus is vital for storing certain kinds of memories.
 For example, individuals with hippocampal damage cannot save any declarative memories

(explicit memories), such as new words, facts, or personal events

Hippocampus is necessary for transferring declarative information from short-term into long-
term memory.
People with hippocampal damage CAN learn and remember nondeclarative or procedural
information, such as acquiring motor skills or habits (tying one’s shoes, walking up the
stairs, playing tennis)
But, if asked, people with hippocampal damage CANNOT remember actually performing a
motor skill (playing tennis) because performing the skill (I played tennis) is a personal event
(declarative memory).
 The hippocampus is necessary for transferring declarative information (words, facts, and
events) from short-term into long-term memory but not for transferring nondeclarative or
procedural information (motor skills and habits)
HIPPOCAMPUS: RETRIEVING MEMORIES:

Researchers have long assumed that the hippocampus is also somehow

involved in retrieving memories.
Only recently have they discovered that the storage and retrieval of memory
actually involve activation of the same neurons located in the hippocampus.
 BRAIN: MEMORY MODEL
Recent findings indicate that your cortex stores short-term memories as well
as long-term memories;
your hippocampus transfers or saves declarative information in long-term
memory but does not transfer nondeclarative or procedural information into
long-term memory;
 and your amygdala adds emotional content to positive and negative
memories
Now that you know the location of memories in the brain, we can examine
how individual memories are formed.