Fugitive loss of memory causes confusion

• May 6, 2024

Has it ever happened to you that you are doing many activities and suddenly you no longer remember what you had to do? This is called fleeting loss of memory , Norwegian scientists point out in research published by the magazine Nature .

In an animal study, the experts demonstrated that the memories they come in separate "packages", and each one has a duration of 125 milliseconds, which means that eight can be recovered thoughts different per second.

When people have a sense of confusion, it is because several packages of memories compete in the brain against each other, points May-Britt Moser , of the Norwegian University for Science and Technology, in Trondheim.

In general, the processes are very fast so that individuals can notice the change between different thoughts. The researchers point out that the brain You can change a "package" of memories to another up to eight times per second.

For the analysis, neurologists studied electrical activity in different regions of the brain of rats. The rodents had learned in long experiments that a certain type of light represented a given space.

Thus, animals could be moved quickly from one environment to another; however, when the light system was changed, the behavior was completely different. For this reason it was concluded that the brain always jumps from one "package" of memories to another alternately.

Although the observations were made with animals, the researchers believe that they can be applied to humans.

How often do you forget things?