The Importance Of Memory

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Memory in humans is a complex process and is divided into multiple components. Different areas of the brain are responsible for varying functions relating to memory such as short term memory and long term memory, which can further be broken down into subcategories such as emotional and semantic memory. Using fMRI, brain regions that participate in memory can be pinpointed and changes to memory that are resultant of aging or other neurological diseases and the pathology of the underlying brain structures can be detected as well. An example of a study done on memory was performed by Todd and Marois, with a goal of observing the role of the posterior parietal cortex in visual short term memory. To achieve this, seventeen subjects were given a visual delayed match to sample task during which the subjects were first shown a display of one to eight colored discs and after a timed delay had to indicate whether a probe disc matched one of the discs from the initial sample. In addition, to reduce any effects of the subjects using verbal strategies, the subjects had to simultaneously maintain a two digit number across the delay period. The results showed that the accuracy of responses decreased as the number of discs presented at the start of the trial increased. Moreover, it was established that the average visual short term memory capacity was capped at three to four objects. fMRI data was collected and analyzed from three brain regions: the intraparietal sulcus/inferior occipital sulcus (IPS/IOS), the ventral-occipital cortex (VO) and the anterior cingulate cortex (AC). Activity in the IPS/IOS seemed to increase as the load of the task increased and it was shown that this region was active during maintenance and encoding. On the other h... ... middle of paper ... ...Alzheimer’s, the roles cognitive reserve and compensatory recruitment can be observed. For example, education level and overall intelligence might alleviate some of the cognitive and memory deficits seen with age and disease related brain changes. Compensatory recruitment, such as bilateral activation of frontal regions on a verbal memory task compared to the left-lateralized activation seen with younger adults during the same task, is observed in older adults as well. These articles illustrate the point that there are multiple memory systems with differing functions. Taken together, these findings help explain why patients with brain damage to different regions do not always exhibit the same neurological deficits associated with memory. The use of fMRI has been extremely successful in identifying which brain regions are necessary for the multiple types of memory.

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