Single Brain Cell Can Hold a Memory

[n2doc]

By LiveScience Staff
posted: 25 January 2009 02:25 pm ET

Memory has long been described as a function of brain cells getting together and forming connections. A new study finds single cells can remember things.

Individual nerve cells called neurons in the front part of the brain can hold traces of memories by themselves for up to a minute, perhaps longer.

The fleeting memories, found in mice brains, are held in the most highly evolved part of the brain in a manner akin to the nonpermanent working memory of a computer.

"It's more like RAM on a computer than memory stored on a disk," said Don Cooper, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "The memory on the disk is more permanent and you can go back and access the same information repeatedly. RAM memory is rewritable temporary storage that allows multitasking."

more:

http://www.livescience.com/health/090125-memory-cell.html


A neuron receives and processes information through a network of branches called dendrites. Once it processes the signal, the brain cell relays it along an axon to a terminal linking to another cell's dendrites. When millions of brain cells communicate with each other at once, cognition occurs. Credit: L. Kibiuk for Society for Neuroscience

[Taverner]

1. My question is: is it binary, hexidecimal or other?

If other - what?

[NOW tense]

2. It is similar but looks like this

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765


:humor attempt:

[AdHocSolver]

5. What the Fibonacci are you trying to pull? n/t

[Beregond2]

3. I can't even begin to imagine how they could prove this.

[applegrove]

4. I can believe it. I have a context dependant memory. Not surprised memories are alot

more complex and simpler than they initially thought. There is also an element of repression in how I remember things because memories and everything flows more freely when I drink.