I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
marvellous are Thy works;
Psalm 139:14
"Our memories are rich in detail: we can vividly recall the color of our home, the layout of our kitchen, or the front of our favorite café. How the brain encodes this information has long puzzled neuroscientists.
In a new Dartmouth-led study, researchers identified a neural coding
mechanism that allows the transfer of information back and forth between perceptual regions to memory areas of the brain. "We found that memory-related brain areas encode the world like a 'photographic negative' in space," says co-lead author Adam Steel.
The results showed that
---when light hits the retina, visual areas of the brain respond by increasing their activity to represent the pattern of light.
---Memory areas of the brain also respond to visual stimulation, but, unlike visual areas, their neural activity decreases when processing the same visual pattern.
The second is that this visual code is upside-down in memory systems. "When you see something in your visual field, neurons in the visual cortex are driving while those in the memory system are quieted," says senior author Caroline Robertson.
Third, this relationship flips during memory recall. "If you close your eyes and remember that visual stimuli in the same space, you'll flip the relationship: your memory system will be driving, suppressing the neurons in perceptual regions," says Robertson."
The second is that this visual code is upside-down in memory systems. "When you see something in your visual field, neurons in the visual cortex are driving while those in the memory system are quieted," says senior author Caroline Robertson.
Third, this relationship flips during memory recall. "If you close your eyes and remember that visual stimuli in the same space, you'll flip the relationship: your memory system will be driving, suppressing the neurons in perceptual regions," says Robertson."
MedicalXpress
