Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have helped explain how the brain keeps track of the incredibly rich and complex environments people navigate on a daily basis. They discovered how the dentate gyrus, a subregion of the hippocampus, helps keep memories of similar events and environments separate, a finding they reported March 20 in eLife. The findings, which clarify how the brain stores and distinguishes between memories, may also help identify how neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, rob people of these abilities.

The Salk researchers’ findings suggest that recalling a memory-such as the location of missing keys-does not always involve reactivation of the same neurons that were active during encoding. More importantly, the results indicate that the dentate gyrus performs pattern separation by using distinct populations of cells to represent similar but non-identical memories. The findings help clarify the mechanisms that underpin memory formation and shed light on systems that are disrupted by injuries and diseases of the nervous system.

The neuroscience of finding your lost keys: How the brain keeps track of similar but distinct memories

Source: medicalxpress.com

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