Memories go, memories come

• May 8, 2024

Remember not always brings welfare, sometimes you want to erase events, but some insist on remembering or remain in the memory of another, as the Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti confessed in a poem: "My tactic is to stay in your memory, not I know how I do not know with what pretext but to stay in you. "

For neuroscientists, the human capacity to evoke past experiences is a complex process, called "memory consolidation". When learning or acquiring information through the senses, part of that information is discarded and another is consolidated and kept as a memory for variable periods of time.

The perceived information stimulates the release of neurotransmitters, which have effects on membrane receptors of communication between neurons (synapses). There intervene intracellular mechanisms that allow the production of certain proteins that trigger synaptic plasticity at the cellular level, and form neural networks along with other cells, explained Federico Bermúdez Rattoni, researcher of the Cellular Physiology Institute of the UNAM.

The synaptic plasticity and the formation of neural networks mean that the information captured through the senses modifies the communication between the neurons to consolidate the memory.

People unable to forget traumatic experiences show how difficult it can be to erase a consolidated memory, because the lived event modified the neural circuits to such an extent that it seems impossible to reverse it. The scene repeats itself over and over again in the minds of individuals, producing a sense of uneasiness.

At Laboratory of Neurobiology of Memory of this institute, in charge of Dr. Federico Bermúdez, the action of neurotransmitters involved in the formation of memories is studied, both traumatic and positive and comforting.

"Each one involves a certain type of neurotransmitter, which induces different mechanisms within cells and establishes different circuits. In the face of a novel event, acetylcholine and dopamine are released. To consolidate a memory as emotionally traumatic it is required that the neurons produce glutamic acid ”.

The researcher and his collaborators have identified the release of these neurotransmitters through animal experiments. Through a process called microdialysis, they place membranes in the central nervous system and measure the release of neurotransmitters at the time the behavior occurs and identify which occur at a certain time.

The consolidation of memory is a process widely studied in different laboratories around the world. The findings conclude that behind the most lasting memories there are emotional experiences, because in addition to the neurotransmitters, these situations stimulate the production of hormones, mainly norepinephrine.

Therefore, the specialist pointed out that people can modify their memory history, whenever a memory is evoked, it can be modified, as long as new elements are added.

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Video Medicine: Netzwerk - Memories [1995] (May 2024).