Summary: Researchers have discovered that ripple-type mental waves are essential for the organization of memory storage and segmentation. They discovered ripples that marked event boundaries in the brain while aiding in cerebral area data processing by recording mental activity in seizures patients watching a Television episode.
This classification serves as grammar, facilitating the formation of clear episodes from experiences. The findings may help to guide the development of therapies for remembrance loss by examining how the brain organizes information.
Important Information:
- Ripples are used to mark the brain recollection show boundaries.
- Natural Environment: A study examined ripple dynamics during a TV show-like encounter in real life.
- Medical Potential: Improved details segmentation could serve as a guiding principle for memory disorders.
University of Barcelona
For the first time in humans, and in a realistic setting, a research team from the University of Barcelona, the UB Institute of Neurosciences ( UBneuro ), and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute ( IDIBELL), has discovered a pivotal neurophysiological mechanism in memory formation: ripple-type brain waves, high-frequency electrical oscillations that identify and organize the various episodes or fragments of information that the brain stores as memories.
These findings, which were published in the journal , Nature Communications, expand our knowledge of how storage is organized in the mind and provide new strategies for treating memory-related disorders.
Lluis Fuentemilla, a researcher at the IDIBELL and UBneuro Cognition and Brain Plasticity research group, is in charge of the study, which is part of the doctoral thesis being written by Marta Silva, the first author of the article, who is currently a student at Columbia University ( USA ). Additionally, experts from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich ( Germany ), Columbia University, Ruhr University Bochum, and the Epilepsy Unit at Hospital Cléni de Barcelona – August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute ( IDIBAPS) took part in the study.
The foundation of storage is the recall of particular shows. Although experience is frequent, there is information that the brain can be changed to segment information when it is undergoing a memory-transformation process.
These sections indicate the point at which the mind begins to recall and record an event. For instance, when you are doing something and you get a phone or the bell rings, the mind determines that there has been a shift in the course of the encounter and uses these events as if they were punctuation marks, a complete stop in a sentence, to move on to keep what you were doing in the form of an episode, says Lluis Fuentemilla.
Earlier research on mice demonstrated that ripples are essential components of memory development.
” These waves are thought to organize the transfer of information between the historical and lateral cortex, which are thought to be the historical and front cortex, thereby facilitating the integration of new memories. This neural sign is essential for the brain’s ability to fix and combine a memory, according to the researchers. Synaptic potentiation is key to this process.
A ground-breaking research
Although animals and other animals have been thoroughly studied for these signals, only their examination for humans has been done. Because they originate in brain regions that require the use of cerebral sensors, this is because it is challenging to record them.
However, in this study, researchers were able to interpret these ripples in a natural setting, in conditions that were typical.
In order to accomplish this, they watched the first season of the BBC series , Sherlock, which was 50 minutes long, while recording the cerebral electrophysiological action of ten patients with epilepsy who had undergone surgery for medical reasons.
This kind of narrative format, as it does in real life, features scene changes that the brain interprets as event boundaries. The authors explain that the participants were then asked to recall and share what they thought about the plot.
During memory encoding, the results revealed a dynamic pattern of ripple wave activation.
These waves can be found in both the hippocampus and the neocortical regions, according to the researchers. They adhered to a different temporal pattern, which is consistent with their role in segmentation: in contrast, in cortical regions, their presence was higher during the internal development of events, says Marta Silva.
This pattern, in the opinion of the researchers, suggests coordination between the two brain regions as if they were” an orchestra”: the neocortical regions actively process information, and the hippocampus begins when the scene changes to “pack and consolidate” the memory.
Creating memory segments
These findings reinforce the idea that segmentation and structuring play a significant role in memory formation.
It is important to organize information in the context of the constant flow of information, as we see both in this study and in related work.
In other words, activating the brain’s machinery while it is recording information also means playing the role of an orchestra conductor, which determines the beginning and end of a memory.
These signals aid in both recording what is happening as it occurs and putting the information together, they claim.
The outcomes may also have significant effects on advancing research into memory disorders and developing new therapeutic strategies.
When faced with an amnesic problem, we have historically thought about attention deficits or learning difficulties. Our findings point to a possible failure in how information is organized in the brain in terms of these segmentation signals, they say.
In this regard, the study opens the door to developing treatments that consider how information is organized at the brain’s level.
It might be beneficial to present information in a more structured way, with clear pauses between relevant events, in older people, for example, who are beginning to show memory impairment. They draw their conclusion,” not just as a matter of cognitive rhythm, but also because it might be able to encode and store data correctly.”
About this news about neuroscience and memory research
Author: Rosa Martnez
Source: University of Barcelona
Contact: Rosa Martínez – University of Barcelona
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Open access to original research.
Llus Fuentemilla et al.,” A naturalistic study reveals that episodic memory formation is tracked by ripples in the human temporal cortex.. Nature Communications
Abstract
A naturalistic study reveals that episodic memory formation is tracked by ripples in the human temporal cortex.
Ripples are fast oscillatory events that are widely accepted as important indicators of memory consolidation and neural plasticity.
These transient bursts of activity provide a temporal framework that facilitates the stabilization and integration of new memories, according to theories that coordinate information transfer between the hippocampus and the neocortical areas.
However, it is still undiscovered how important they are in naturalistic memory encoding.
We captured the intracranial electrophysiological data of ten moviegoers with epilepsy.
Ripples were analyzed in the temporal and frontal cortex, respectively, as well as the hippocampus and neocortical regions.
Our findings revealed a differential dynamical pattern of ripple occurrence while encoding.
Higher ripple rates were observed within an event for cortical electrodes with higher ripple occurrence at the temporal cortex, reflecting whether an event was later recalled, whereas hippocampal involvement in event segmentation was seen at event boundaries.
These findings provide insight into the potential role of ripples in an event’s encoding, bringing about the formation of long-term memories of distinct episodes and provide insight into the neural mechanisms underlying memory encoding.
