Walter Finch
A GROUNDBREAKING study out of Catalunya has observed for the first time how memories are stored in the human brain – and it’s completely different from in animals.
Researchers from Barcelona’s Hospital del Mar have discovered that neurons can distinguish objects or people regardless of context, allowing them to establish higher and abstract relationships – which constitutes ‘the basis of human intelligence’.
Until now, studies conducted on animals showed significant differences in how concepts were encoded when the context changed.
Neurons ‘responded very differently’ if a rat found an object in one place versus another, leading scientists to believe that memories were stored in different groups of neurons.
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However, the study, headed by Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, coordinator of the Research Group on Neuronal Mechanisms of Perception and Memory, has yielded ‘surprising’ responses that contradict previous publications.
The research team observed that neuronal responses to a specific concept ‘remain the same when the context changes.’
For example, when remembering seeing a person in different locations, the neuronal activity is identical – the ‘opposite’ of what has been observed in animals until now.
The study collected data from nine patients with refractory epilepsy from centres in Argentina and the United Kingdom.
These patients had electrodes implanted to monitor the functioning of specific neuron groups individually.
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Patients were told two stories with supporting images, featuring the same person but in different contexts. Researchers verified that ‘the response to the person’s image was the same,’ activating the same group of neurons in both stories.
Furthermore, when patients narrated the stories themselves, ‘these neurons were already activating’ seconds before referring to the protagonist, in the same manner for both stories.
Quian Quiroga explained that ‘memories are stored in a much more abstract way in humans’ than in other animals, suggesting this could be the foundation of human intelligence.
