Memories.
A term used to describe and shape the daily experiences of an individual. Memories play an essential role in how we navigate the world. From recalling your favorite superhero to remembering where you live, our ability to remember is of essence to guarantee survival. Recent neuroscience research has discovered fascinating new information about the mechanisms behind memory formation, encoding, and retrival. The discovery of engrams, a term coined by the brain’s physical representation of memory, uncover a shocking discovery of the wide range in different brain structures disproving the idea that memories reside in a confined brain area. These memory traces are spread across various brain regions, offering a more complex understanding of how we form and retrieve memories.
In the “Artificially enhancing and suppressing hippocampus-mediated memories” research paper, Dr. Grella and other contributors explore how different brain parts. This research paper specifically explores the dorsal and ventral hippocampus as both structures handle memory. The researchpaper goes in depth and explores how different brain regions work together to process memories, especially when emotions and highly traumatic situations are involved. The group found that activating specific brain cells tied to memories can change behavior, like freezing in fear or avoiding places, depending on the situation. Over time, reactivating these cells can have lasting effects, either reducing or increasing certain behaviors. The study revealed that different parts of the hippocampus handle different types of memories. For example, one deals with places and situations while another deals with emotions like fear. This relation between how memories and behaviors change based on context and emotions offers insights into treating stress-related disorders. Dr. Grella and the other researchers utilized light to control specific brain cells in mice in order to test different memories and their affected behavior in various environments. The results highlight how our memories are shaped by both what we feel and where we are.
A recent article, “Brain-wide mapping reveals that engrams for a single memory are distributed across multiple brain regions” by Dr. Soy and some other researchers, closely relates to Dr. Grella’s research, which points out how important certain hippocampal regions are in shaping memory, as it studies the specific role of the hippocampus in processing the spatial and emotional parts of memory and looks at the ways different regions of the hippocampus, like the dorsal and ventral areas, change behavior and memory. Both studies stress that emotional and contextual factors greatly shape how memories are encoded, how they are retrieved, and how they effect behavior. Dr. Grella’s research indicates that while the dorsal hippocampus is important for spatial and cognitive memories, the ventral hippocampus also factors into emotional memories and memories connected to anxiety. According to Dr. Soy’s study, activating particular memory traces in these regions can cause different behaviors, such as freezing, avoidance, or preference, depending on the memories’ emotional or contextual features.
Activating certain brain cells with light, a technique used in Dr. Soy's study, showed that behavior changed when fear or reward memories were reactivated. When the dorsal hippocampus was stimulated, multiple fear responses, like freezing in place or avoiding a number of locations, were triggered. Repeated activation of such memories over some time had genuinely lasting effects, greatly decreasing or increasing fear responses, according to the specific region activated. The studies found that the ventral hippocampus raised fear-like behavior. This happened only when the basolateral amygdala (BLA), another brain area, was also involved. Even with the fear response completely stopped by blocking the BLA, the changes from the dorsal hippocampus were still considerably affected. The ventral hippocampus and the BLA seem to collaboratively control emotional responses. The research improves our comprehension of how the brain processes factual and emotional memories. This offers new ways to treat conditions, like anxiety and PTSD, where past memories strongly influence feelings and behaviors. Understanding how memories can be manipulated to change behaviors makes it possible to deal with memory-related disorders.
Importantly, these studies imply that memory reactivation can produce lasting effects. Dr. Grella’s research indicates that behavior can change considerably from active activation of brain regions tied to memory, which either lessens or heightens fear responses depending on which area of the hippocampus is activated. Both studies highlight how flexible memories are and the effects that different kinds of brain stimulation may have on them, perhaps providing a way to treat anxiety and PTSD. Optogenetic tools, which allow researchers to manipulate particular brain cells with light, represent another promising aspect of these studies, in addition to the above. The encoding and retrieval of memories can be continuously observed using this approach. Fairly new options regarding treatment for emotional disturbances in addition to cognitive disturbances could come from its ability to substantially advance neuroplasticity as well as memory therapy.
All in all, Dr. Grella's research and Dr. Soy's research offer key understandings. These understandings concern how memory, emotion, and context relate in the brain. More helpful treatments for mental disorders related to stress might come from a better comprehension of how memory is changed and manipulated, according to these studies.
Work Cited
Chen, Briana K., et al. “Artificially enhancing and suppressing hippocampus-mediated memories.” Current Biology, vol. 29, no. 11, June 2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.065.
Roy, Dheeraj S., et al. “Brain-Wide Mapping Reveals That Engrams for a Single Memory Are Distributed across Multiple Brain Regions.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 4 Apr. 2022, www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29384-4.
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