Memory is a broad term used to refer to a number of different brain functions. The common feature of these functions is the creation of part experiences by the synchronized firings of neurons that were involved in experiences. 

What is memory? A memory may be the ability to read a poem or recognize a face on demand, a vague vision of  some long past event, the skill required to ride a bike or the knowledge that your car keys are on the key hook exactly where you put them away. What all these phenomena have in common is that they involve learning and partial reconstruction of a past experience. Learning is a process in which neurons that fire together to produce a particular experience,  are altered so that they have a tendency to fire again together. The subsequent combined firing of the neuron’s “reconstructs” the original experience producing a  recollection of it. The act of recollecting makes the neurons involved even more likely to fire again in the future so repeatedly reconstructing an event makes it increasingly easy to install. Memory areas are involved in a wide range of fact,  and function, from deeply rooted instincts,  to conscious factual knowledge. These facts and experiences are associated throughout the brain.

(1) Cerebellum – Associated with conditioned memory events linked by time.

(2) Hippocampus  – Experiences turned into memories here.

(3) Temporal Lobe – Holds general knowledge here.

(4) Amygdala – Emotional memories are stored here paired with sense intake, tastes, smell, auditory, vision, touch, colour, experienced.

(5) Putnem – Associated with Procedural skills.

(6) Thalamus – Direct attention

(7) Parietal Lobe  – Associated with spatial memories.

(8) Caudate Nucleus – Associated with memories of instinctive skills.

(9) Mamillary bodies are associated with episodic memories.

(10) Frontal Lobe – seat of working memory.

Memory Process; The process of memory formation has served natural stages from the initial selection and retention of information for recollection and sometimes eventual change or loss of memory. Each stage has particular characteristics and things that can go wrong. 

(1) Stage,,,,,,,,,,,,,

(2) What is meant to happen?  The brain is is designed to store information that will be useful at a late date and allow the rest to pass by unnoticed.

(3) What can go wrong?)  Important events are neglected or irrelevant ones  are retrieved. You might fail to recall a personal name but remember a mole on the nose.

(1) Selection – Lay down

(2) What’s meant to happen?

 Experiences selected for memorizing are stored so that it is associated with relevant pre – existing memories, and retained for an appropriate period.

(3) What can go wrong?

Information maybe mis – filed with faulty links between them. Or new items are not laid down so it is hard to learn or to retain new memories.

(1) Selection – Recollection

(2) What should happen?

Current events should stimulate the recollection of appropriate memories; such as words, names, events, you know the information is here but you cannot grasp it.

(3) What can go wrong? 

Current events fail to prompt useful memories such as words, names, events, you know the information is, here but you cannot grasp it.

(1) Selection – Change

(2) What’s meant to happen? Each time a memory is recalled, it can be altered slightly to accommodate new information.

(3) What can go wrong? – Alterations may create false memories.

(1) Selection – Forgetting

(2) What’s meant to happen? –  Items start to be together as soon as they have been registered unless they are regularly refreshed. Unnecessary information is deleted.

(3) What can go wrong?  – Important or useful information is forgotten. Alternating unnecessary or even damaging memories are not.

Short Term Memory;

Short term memories generally stay with us only as long as we need them. A telephone number you use just once is an example. Short term memories are held in a “working” memory system.”

“Long term memories”  in contrast can be recalled for years or decades later. The address of your childhood home may be such a memory in between extremes we have medium term memories which may last for months or years,  and finally might not be recalled but when you need them, there they are. Some do not have recall on long term as it has faded away, but other’s hold memory in the amygdala areas. Many factors are determining factors whether experiences or items of knowledge are destined to be short term or long term memories. These include their emotional content novelty,  and the amount of effort that we make to practise recall. A list of irrelevant words are not how to test memories, that are irrelevant.

Types of Memory;

(1) Episodic Memory;

The path of the brain involved in episodic memory depends on the content of the original experiences. Highly visual experiences, or highly emotional experiences, for example will activate visual areas of the brain, while remembering a person’s voice that will activate the auditory area.

(2) Cortical Areas;

Episodic memories activate the area originally involved in the experience that is being recalled.

(3) Frontal Lobe;

Activity here ensures that episodic memories are not mistaken for real life.

(4) Semantic Memory;

Semantic memories are facts that may have had a personal context, but now stands as simple knowledge. The fact that a man once walked on the moon for example may once have been part of your personal experience, but now is “knowledge.” 

(5) Temporal Lobe;

The temporal lobe encodes factual information and activity, and here is a marker of facts being “recalled.”

(6) Frontal Lobe;

Semantic memories are activated by the Frontal Lobe area, that draws or stores knowledge to guide current behaviour. So we have different types of memory for particular purposes. Episode memory comprises of reconstruction of past experiences, including sense intake, sensations, or feelings, colours, smell, audition, tone of voice, articles of importance and feelings about articles that usually unfold like a movie,  and are experienced from one’s own point of view.

Semantic memory can be non – personal and factual knowledge or very detailed memories of facts, or “knowledge” that others cannot carry because they were not there, and you stand alone.

(7) Working Memories;

It is the capacity to (a) “Hold Memory” (b) “Hold Experience” and to use those said memories as a construct for a “Procedural Body to act on,  for others. Memories learned in detail of sense intake, action taken, implicit memories are those we do not know we have until working memories are recalled. They affect our actions, behaviours, thinking, feelings, in subtle ways you might not be aware of, or in constant awareness, because they remind you of something very “nasty.” 

Learning involves making new connections between clusters of neurons in different parts of the brain. This builds up the brain making it fitter.

For example; Practise special skills such as finding, your way around, in appartied group of behaviors, or segregated groups of behaviours and remaining focused on the original reason I am here, is an learning experience. The more connections you create, it creates the “Hippocampus” memory, and the better you can use what you learned, and the longer it takes to forget that data. “Enlarged areas.”

(1) Phonological Loop; when the sound of words are kept in mind.

(2) Central Executive; Holds the entire pathologies, including language component.

(3) Language Scratch pad; uses Brocca’s area as inner voice that repeat information.

Visual Scratch;

Maintains an image of what needs to be done by activating areas of the visual cortex – left and right side and Parietal and Occipital areas and all Commissary, Associated, and Projection pathways from stored information.

Central Executive Memory;

Holds entire plan, and includes entire plan and visual element.

Caudate Nucleus Memory;

Instinctive action such as grooming is stored here.

Putmen; Learned skills such as riding a bike – autonomous and stored here for adaptation and survival. 

Cerebellum; Body skills dependent on the cerebellum to direct timing coordination.

Procedural Memory; Body memories allow us to carry ordinary motor actions autonomously once we have learned them. Such skills are stored but is beneath the cortex and remains unconscious until studied by MRI studies, empirically. The “Memory Web” is Long term “Potentiation” into kinetic energy of  job well done. (Page 156 of “The Brain.” and Hosper’s Analytical Analysis, and Understanding the Brain and all Optimum Brain Studies). 

Traumatic Memories; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition in which people have vivid “Flashback” and memories of experienced caused Traumatic events in which a person can out of the blue be plunged back into the events by an environmental trigger,  with the emotions experienced at the time. Emotionally experienced by their very nature are remembered because “emotions amplify every detail of experiences.” 

Strong incentives are used to put these memories out of the mind and the brain did have a mechanism to “Let it be,” however memories thought to be gone can resurface. Blocking might be an avoidance technique. You can up to a point move on with your life but since the gun issue shooting children, resurfacing tightness of muscles. broken sleep, breathing faster with non diaphragm breaths,  have resurfaced,  so one must make every effort to “Let go.” Writing and recognizing my self – sabotage is occurring at this time. It was for a reason. 

Written by Carolyn D Hogarth Canada