Nirmeen Jabouri
Professor Lesser
English 124
18 October 2017 What We Think We Know The brain is by far the most fascinating muscle within the human body. Separating us from other forms of animals is at the bottom of the list when it comes to the capabilities of the brain. This highly intricate piece of machinery is what hold structures that give us a peak into the primitive minds of our ancestors with fascinating features such as the amygdala. In contrast, there is also the highly important structure known as the frontal lobe. The most secretive structures of the brain are those that relate to the processing, and storage of memories. Constant evolution brings forth the possibility for our brains to be adapting to the advancing
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This structure within the brain has the basic responsibility of controlling our emotions, preparing our instincts for survival, and aiding in the formation of memories. This almond shaped segment of the brain is considered to be an archaic part of human history due to its necessity during the early times of human history. This system within the brain is responsible for the fight or flight response in humans. In the instance of Neanderthals, this response was an important aspect of life or death in the event of an emergency or conflict. In this way, the amygdala is used as a floodgate for emotions such as: sadness, anger, and fear or aggression. As for the function of memory, the amygdala is related to the storage of useful, survival related instances in order to be recalled in the future, to prevent life threatening events from occurring more than they should. This is also why the amygdala is connected and closely positioned next to the hippocampus; or the memory storage section of the brain. In modern times, the size of the human amygdala has evolved to be much smaller than it was during the times of human hunters and gatherers. This is due to the fact that we no longer face life or death situations when going in search of food; the local grocery store is far less threatening than the forest. This part of our brain is one of the more fascinating …show more content…
The human brain holds many mysteries and secrets. In relation to the aforementioned topics, one of the major mysteries of the human mind today, is still how memories are stored and retrieved. It is understood that the neurons within the brain are used in the process of memorizing, but we are still unsure what the coding of the neuron connections, and synapses in our body look like. These are directly involved in the physical changes made to the brain when new memories are formed, yet it is not understood how this change is happening. One of the major reasons that this is such a complicated aspect of the mind to study is the fact that there are many different types of memories. For example, the differences between long term, and short-term forms of memories. It is presumed that memories are not stored in single cells, but most likely large areas of neurons that have formed previous connections; known as synapses. Even with technology of today we are still unable to identify what groups of neurons belong to what memories. Although we lack the technology, it has been identified that some neurons are capable of receiving informational input from 10,000 different neurons in the brain. The clusters of neurons still remain one of the major mysteries involving the human
10. The brain structure with the most vital role in storing emotional memory is the
The definition of fear has proved to be an elusive mystery plaguing scientists. While there is much agreement as to the physiological effects of fear, the neural pathways and connections that bring upon these effects are not well understood. From the evolutionary standpoint, the theory is that fear is a neural circuit that has been designed to keep the organism alive in dangerous situations (1). How does it all work? Learning and responding to stimuli that warn of danger involves neural pathways that send information about the outside world to the amygdala, which in turn, determines the significance of the stimulus and triggers emotional responses like freezing or fleeing as well as changes in the inner workings of the body's organs and glands (1). There are important distinctions to make between emotions and feelings. Feelings are "red herrings", products of the conscious mind, labels given to unconscious emotions (2) whereas emotions are distinct patterns of behaviors of neurons. Emotions can exist of conscious experiencesas well as physiological and neurological reactions and voluntary and involuntary behaviors (3). But the components of fear goes beyond feelings and emotions. It is also the specific memory of the emotion. After a frightful experience, one can remember the logical reasons for the experience (e.g. the time and place) but one will also "feel" the memory, and his body will react as such (i.e. increased heart and respiration rate, sweating). In one recent case, after a near drowining incident, the victim could not only vividly remember each detail, but when doing so, his body reacted as though he were reliving the experience. These feelings of memory are stored in an ...
life, such as reasoning, problem solving, speaking, visual processing and the memory processing. Moreover, the brain plays a highly important role for encoding and recall different kids of memories. Since computer have been invented, people use CT and PET to discover that there have many regions in the brain are associated with memory processing. Although these technologies help people to explore better the relationship between brain and memory, however the reality cases studying can make people comprehend the impact of life closely about what if some regions of the brain have been damaged. And the experimental study in brain regions also useful for evaluating
The amygdala is located in the brain’s temporal lobe and enables us to feel certain emotions. It is our emotions that make us human and it helps in connecting us with one another. One of the most important emotions that the amygdala is responsible for is our fear response. Flight-or-fight is crucial for the survival of any living being, i.e. when an animal feels cornered and threatened, their body will respond by preparing them to flee, if able, or attack.
Definition of memory and it's functions is difficult to illustrate by a single sentence. Consequently we use several metaphors to describe memory implicitly. Our beliefs, perceptions and imagination influence memory. The fact gave rise to memory being described as a reconstructive process, explaining that memory is not an exact record of a particular experience. Instead we bring various components together and fill in the blanks with our predisposed schemas while recalling.
The focus of this literature review is on the patterns of amygdala activation and its role in attentional threat assessment, as well the effects of the neuropeptide oxytocin on the amygdala. The amygdala plays an important role in human threat assessment. In both humans and primates, the identification of facial expressions and their direction of gaze is a necessary aspect of social behavior, and the amygdala plays a large role in this function (Boll, Gamer, Kalisch, & Buchel, 2011, p. 299). From a medical standpoint, the study of the amygdala would help in understanding the neurological basis of many behavior disorders such as borderline personality disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. These studies make use of novel techniques with a combination of functional MRI and eye tracking based face perception tasks. More recent studies have involved more precise imaging in order to observe specific regions of the amygdala, rather than the amygdala as a whole structure. The amygdala is strongly influenced by fearful and angry faces, which stimulate feelings of threat. The amygdala also exhibits differential activation in different sexes, thus having extensive implications on tailoring drugs for mood disorders in the different sexes (Lischke et al., 2012, p. 1432).
and part of our limbic system, which governs our ability to bond, form and manage
Memory is a group of related mental processes that are involved in acquiring, storing, and retrieving information (Hockenberry and Hocenberry page 232). I will be addressing two specific types of memory: short-term memory and long-term memory. Short-term memory holds temporary information transferred from sensory memory or long-term memory. Sensory memory is the first stage of memory and obtains information for a brief amount of time. Short-term memory is also called active memory and is stored in the prefrontal cortex which is the most active part of the brain during an activity. Short-term memory can hold information for roughly twenty seconds, but sensory memory holds information for a shorter amount of time. We usually store things such
Memories are scattered across the brain in the many regions we have. However, there are a few different types of memories which are: Declarative (also known as Explicit) which this type of memory is about facts and events, and then there's Nondeclarative (also known as implicit) which has more to do with your skills and habits, priming, simple classic conditioning, which is where your emotional response and skeletal musculature comes in, also, nonassociative learning. The common ones that most know of are short-term and long-term memory. Have you ever wondered how the brain develops as you get older and why we remember the things we do? Our memories
The largest part of our brain is the cerebrum, which is basically what most people imagine when we
What is memory and how its work. It is usually link with the ‘thinking of again’ or ‘recalling to the mind’ of a thing learned or memorized before. Definitions of this sort imply conscious awareness in the remembered that they are recollecting something of the past. For instance, we may remember our first day of school or some information like who is the president of the country. Basically, this is just tiny part of our capacity when we check out the full human memory capabilities.
Memory has many functions in animals and humans. Without memory, animals and humans would not survive (Henke, 2010). The main idea of evolutionary psychology is that the structures in the brain that are responsible for memory are similar to one another (Nairne, 2010). It is likely that memory systems evolved due to pressures or problems that our ancestors faced (Nairne, 2010). This suggests that memory mechanisms probably come from solving problems in the environment our ancestors once lived in (Nairne, 2010). However, we cannot know exactly what our ancestral environment looked like (Nairne, 2010). We can suggest that our ancestors faced recurring problems such as: hunting for food, being hunted themselves by predators, or finding/making shelter (Nairne, 2010). These recurring problems allowed for the adaption of behavior (Nairne, 2010). Studies show that we are able to recall information easier if it has to do with survival and fitness (Nairne, 2010). This is due to the emotional arousal that is caused by a situation in which we have to survive (Nairne, 2010).
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
The human body is a complex structure. The brain being the most complex organ has the most work to do. The human memory consists of a process in which memories are stored and remembered. According to Intelegen Inc., there is this unique process of Memory in which the process only involves three stages. In the stages of this process, the memory is formed, retained, and retrieved. There are three stages of the five different types of Memory; the three stages are encoding, storage and retrieval.
Learning to tie shoes and ride a bike requires the encoding, storing, and retrieving of past observations of the procedure. With a lot of practice, children master these skills so well that they are able to remember them the rest of their lives. Memory is the storing of information over time. It is one of the most important concepts in learning; if things are not remembered, no learning can take place. As a process, memory refers to the "dynamic mechanism associated with the retention and retrieval of information about past experiences" (Sternberg 260). We use our memory about the past to help us understand the present. The study or memory in psychology is used in different ways, as well as there are many different ways to study how memory works in humans. In psychology there are many tasks used to measure memory, and different types of memory storages that human's use, such as sensory storing, or short term storing. There are also a lot of techniques that humans use to improve their memory, which they can use to learn, such as mnemonic devices. All these things can be classified as important issues in the study of human memory and ways of learning.