How are Memories Created?
Take a trip down memory lane
The mind is amazing thing, and it is full of mysteries. The doctors and the psychologists have no idea about numerous aspects of the brain, such as the dreams, the memories, and so on.
The memory is an amazing thing, and as I said, it is unknown the way in which the process of memorizing things occurs. It is known that it is very malleable, and as a result people can remember things in an erroneous manner. Most of us have the flashbulb memory, which allows us to remember what we were doing during certain events. For example most of us will remember exactly while we were doing during the 9/11 attacks, or during other very important events. It has been discovered that we remember better about what we did when we remember about tragic events. However, the psychologists have stated that most of these memories are inaccurate, even if we would swear that they are 100 percent accurate. Karim Nader is an expert in memory, and he remembered with precision what he was doing during the 9/11 attacks. Or at least, that is what he believes, as he is convinced that things might have been somewhat different. He no longer trusts his memories completely, as he knows that he might remember about certain things wrong.
Nader, who is a neuroscientists McGill University in Montreal, admitted that his mind often played tricks on him when he tried to remember about the World Trade Center attacks. He was convinced that he saw the first plane entering in the tower the day it happened, and he could not believe that the event was showed on the televisions on the following day. It was discovered that 76 percent of the people who participated to a study conducted in 2003, had the same misconception about the 9/11 attacks. Nader believes that he has an answer for the reason why the brain often plays tricks on us. He believes that the act of remembering things can alter our memory. So far, he has only conducted the studies on laboratory rats, but he believes that the same theories can be applied to the humans as well. He is convinced that we can not remember certain things without altering the memory associated with them. He believes that the flashbulb memories are the ones which are altered the most, and the reason for that is the fact that we remember them many times. We replay them in our minds, and as a result, we might constantly add or remove certain things from memory.
This might be surprising and shocking, as we would like to think that our memory is accurate. It seems that not all the neuroscientists share the same conceptions, but they have stated that if Nader’s theories are right, they might be used as a treatment of the people who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. It has been known for a very long time now, that in order to remember something, new connections are needed to be made between the neurons. Each time we remember something, the neurons are modified a little bot. The information between the neurons is sent through the synapses, which are very narrow gaps that have the ability of sending and receiving information. Eric Kandel, who is a neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York City, is one of the most important people in this domain, as he has analyzed numerous times the way in which the memory functions.
He has analyzed the processes which take place inside the mind during the process of memorizing certain things numerous times. He won a share of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, thanks to the discovery that the brain needs to create proteins in order to be able to remember certain things, regardless of the time of the memory. The longer the memory is, the more protein the brain needs to create. Most of the neuroscientists have believed for a very long time, that once the memory is established in the brain, it will remain the same. It was later discovered that the memory is not 100 percent safe because it is altered in time. Think of the memory as a letter, and as the years pass the letter will deteriorate. Some words might not be visible anymore, but the basic idea of the letter is still visible. You have read the letter numerous times, and thanks to that, you will remember what the letter is about, even if most of the words would be damaged. Nader did not believe it, and he is convinced that the memory can be altered even after they were consolidated. He conducted an experiment which proved the fact that the memories are not created only once and that each and every time we remember something, they are recreated. He did the experiment on rats, but he is convinced that the same principles could be applied in the case of the humans.
Most of his colleagues told him that the experiment would not work, and that the memory is consolidated only once; the first time when it is created. Once he did this discoveries, he was treated very poorly bi his colleagues. They constantly ignored him, and they criticized his work in numerous magazines. The psychologists were glad that this discovery was made, as they believed for a very long time that the memory might be distorted. The psychologists were aware that the human memory can be easily altered, and one of the easiest way of doing it, is through misleading information. Even if we see something, if someone tells us something else about what we saw, we mind end up agreeing with those people, despite the fact that we witnessed the event. It seems that the flashbulb memory can be altered as well.
He said that during these memories, people often remember the tragic events, but they can not remember what they were doing when those events happened. Oliver Hardt, who is a postdoctoral researcher in Nader’s lab, stated that the reason for that might be the fact that there might be two different types of memories. He said that in most of the cases when a tragic event happens, most of the people will talk about the things they did when the event occurred. Since they hear so many stories, each person might take a detail from a different person, and might incorporate it in his memories. It is a known fact that the memory is subjective, and this is the main reason why we often invent certain things. Kandel said that Nader might be too enthusiastic about his discoveries, and if he made the discovery in the case of the animals that does not mean that the same principles can be applied in the case of humans as well.
A psychological experiment is taking place at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, where the doctors try to see if the memories of the people who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder might be altered or modified in order to make them forget certain traumatic things from their past. Alain Brunet, who is the leader of the experiment, has suffered from post traumatic stress disorder as well. He was in the campus while a man with the rifle killed 14 women before he killed himself. The event, which took place in 1989, shocked him, and he was surprised by the fact that the psychologists did not have too much information about the effects of these events. That is when he decided to study more about the post traumatic stress disorder. He said that the drugs and the psychotherapy used in order to treat the post traumatic stress disorder are not too effective.
There are certain drugs which have the purpose of stopping these fearful thoughts, but in most of the cases they altered the memory. However, this is what he was looking for. He did an experiment through which he observed that when the patients were given a certain pill, 50 percent of them were calmer even when they had to talk about the experiences which caused them distress in the past. When they received a placebo, they still remembered the traumatic events with the same intensity. The people who took the drugs did not forget about what happened to them, but the way in which the brain processed the information was changed. Nader will work in the future with the patients who suffer of post traumatic stress disorder, and he hopes that he will be able to help them. Nader wants to find out of all of our memories can be altered in time, or if only some of them are susceptible to this change.
He also wants to find out why are our memories so easy to alter. They are extremely important, yet they might fail us when we need them the most. He also wants to find out why do we store certain memories, and why do we forget some of them. Most of the people for example will never forget their first kiss, or their first date and so on, but almost none of them will remember the time when they ate a certain kind of food for the first time. He believes that the editing of the memory is a way of learning from our experience. For example we remember about a very happy relationship, but we also remember about the harsh break-up which followed. This is the mind’s way of making us remember exactly what happened, and of not altering the memory on purpose. If we remember about a harsh period from our life, the brain will make us remember that things were fine at the end.
