Stress Breaks Loops that Hold Short-Term Memory Together
By watching individual neurons at work, a group of psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed just how stress can addle the mind, as well as how neurons in the brain’s prefrontal cortex help remember information in the first place.
Researchers Create Short-Term Memories In-Vitro
Researchers have discovered how to store diverse forms of artificial short-term memories in isolated brain tissue. Using isolated pieces of rodent brain tissue, the researchers demonstrated that they could form a memory of which one of four input pathways was activated.
Noisy Surroundings Take Toll on Short-term Memory
Scientists found that adverse listening situations are difficult for the brain, partly because they draw on the same, limited resources supporting our short-term memory. The new findings are particularly relevant to understanding the cognitive consequences of hearing damage, a condition that affects an increasing number of people.
Dopamine: A Substance with Many Messages
Researchers recently localised and identified the most important types of nerve cells involved in forming positive and negative memories of a fruit fly. All four nerve cell types they discovered use dopamine to communicate with other nerve cells. Three of the nerve cell types assume various functions in mediating negative stimuli, while the fourth enables the fly to form positive memories.
HC: Woman with Amnesia Unable to Hold a Single Face in Short-term Memory … Unless it’s Paris Hilton
Study shows intact memory for familiar information, despite memory deficit A 22-year-old woman known as “HC” with amnesia since birth as a result of developing only half the normal volume of the hippocampus in her brain, has demonstrated to scientists that the ability to hold a single face or word in short-term memory is impaired. [...]
