Remembering makes us forget as the process of recall actually causes people to lose other memories
A nerve cell. Photo: Alamy
Researchers at Birmingham University and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences unit in Cambridge showed how intentional recall actually leads us to forget other competing experiences that interfere with retrieval.
Put simply, the very act of remembering may be one of the major reasons why we forget.
The research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, is the first to isolate the adaptive forgetting mechanism in the human brain.
The brain imaging study shows that the mechanism itself is implemented by the suppression of the unique cortical patterns that underlie competing memories.
Dr Maria Wimber, of Birmingham University, said: “Though there has been an emerging belief within the academic field that the brain has this inhibitory mechanism, I think a lot of people are surprised to hear that recalling memories has this darker side of making us forget others by actually suppressing them.”
Patterns of brain activity in the participants were monitored by MRI scans while they were asked to recall individual memories based on images they had been shown earlier.
The researchers, co-led by Dr Michael Anderson, were able to track the brain activity induced by individual memories and show how this suppressed others by dividing the brain into tiny three-dimensional voxels.
• Secret behind why Alzheimer’s patients cannot make new memories discovered
Based on the fine-grained activation patterns of these voxels, the researchers were able to witness the neural fate of individual memories as they were reactivated initially, and subsequently suppressed. Over the course of four selective retrievals the participants in the study were cued to retrieve a target memory, which became more vivid with each trial.
Competing memories were less well reactivated as each trial was carried out, and in fact were pushed below baseline expectations for memory, supporting the idea that an active suppression of memory was taking place.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11476423/If-you-remember-this-story-another-memory-will-die-off.html
Dr Maria Wimber, of Birmingham University, said: “Though there has been an emerging belief within the academic field that the brain has this inhibitory mechanism, I think a lot of people are surprised to hear that recalling memories has this darker side of making us forget others by actually suppressing them.”
Patterns of brain activity in the participants were monitored by MRI scans while they were asked to recall individual memories based on images they had been shown earlier.
The researchers, co-led by Dr Michael Anderson, were able to track the brain activity induced by individual memories and show how this suppressed others by dividing the brain into tiny three-dimensional voxels.
• Secret behind why Alzheimer’s patients cannot make new memories discovered
Based on the fine-grained activation patterns of these voxels, the researchers were able to witness the neural fate of individual memories as they were reactivated initially, and subsequently suppressed. Over the course of four selective retrievals the participants in the study were cued to retrieve a target memory, which became more vivid with each trial.
Competing memories were less well reactivated as each trial was carried out, and in fact were pushed below baseline expectations for memory, supporting the idea that an active suppression of memory was taking place.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11476423/If-you-remember-this-story-another-memory-will-die-off.html
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