Neuroscientists discover molecular mechanism that allows memories to form (2020)

Post by ThalesX » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

temp0826 wrote: post #55

jcims wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory is generally terrible. One discovery that was alarming, encouraging and disturbing at the same time is that I do appear to have some form of nearly total recall buried in there somewhere. Unfortunately it only surfaces in one way. If I listen to a podcast while I’m doing something, then listen to that same podcast again within a week or so, I will have regular, intrusive visual recall of exactly what I was…

That's sort of fascinating- it reminds me of how the ancient romans used to memorize long epic poems etc (walking around and making visual/spatial associations, then recalling their travel to recite it later. I might be butchering that a bit but that's how I understood the method)

Post by monocasa » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

d110af5ccf wrote: post #70

monocasa wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantum chemistry is a field with a lot of unknowns still. To say that chemistry has a complete understanding of the hydrogen atom is inaccurate.

... what?! We can accurately predict hydrogen (and helium!) energy characteristics to _absurd_ accuracy levels. The issue is that even a system as simple as a single helium atom is prohibitively computationally expensive.

Post by d110af5ccf » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #73

d110af5ccf wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... what?! We can accurately predict hydrogen (and helium!) energy characteristics to _absurd_ accuracy levels. The issue is that even a system as simple as a single helium atom is prohibitively computationally expensive.

There's more to quantum chemistry (and hydrogen atoms) than what you're saying. If you define chemistry tautologically as what we know, then sure I guess.

Post by sprafa » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

d110af5ccf wrote: post #74

WaltPurvis wrote: post #67

I experienced an episode of transient global amnesia [1] a couple of years ago. It lasted for 6-7 hours, during which I was transported to the hospital, but every 2-3 minutes I would ask anew "Why am I in the hospital?" — having no memory at all of being there. I still have no clue what might have caused it. I mean, scientists don't have a clue what causes it, only a wide range of speculated causes, none of which rea…

> Since there's no known way to prevent TGA, no treatment, and apparently no lasting damage, it has never (AFAIK) been researched, certainly not researched much I suspect the issue may be the lack of a good biological model. I'd guess it would be a very attractive and obvious research target for anyone aiming to investigate memory formation and recall. However, systematic studies generally require a model system that…

Post by T-A » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #45

iandanforth wrote: post #42

Please please don't take away from this that there are "memory cells" that "encode memories." The article is so badly written it seems to imply that. Memory is a whole brain phenomenon, and memory formation involves connections being formed and lost constantly between all types of neurons everywhere in the brain. One small aspect of memory (episodic memory) relies more heavily on hippocampal neurons during consolidat…

So, isn’t the nature of memory in the brain still understood pretty vaguely? The “memory is connections and involves the whole brain” is still kind of a hypothesis and less of a hard, empirically-validated theory, no? May still be the best idea we have, but from what I understand (which isn’t much), it’s not nearly that cut and dry and we don’t really know enough to exclude a lot of the other models of memory formati…