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Neuroscientists find a key to reducing forgetting: It’s about the network

wildcat2030:

A team of neuroscientists has found a key to the reduction of forgetting. Their findings, which appear in the journal Neuron, show that the better the coordination between two regions of the brain, the less likely we are to forget newly obtained information. The study was conducted at New York University by Lila Davachi, an associate professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, and Kaia Vilberg, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas’ Center for Vital Longevity and School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences in Dallas. “When memories are supported by greater coordination between different parts of the brain, it’s a sign that they are going to last longer,” explained Davachi. It is commonly understood that the key to memory consolidation — the cementing of an experience or information in our brain — is signaling from the brain’s hippocampus across different cortical areas. Moreover, it has been hypothesized, but never proven, that the greater the distribution of signaling, the stronger the memory takes hold in our brain. In the Neuron study, Davachi and Vilberg sought to determine if there was scientific support for this theory. To do so, they examined how memories are formed at their earliest stages through a series of experiments over a three-day period.

Neuroscientists find a key to reducing forgetting: It’s about the network