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Please please don't take away from this that there are "memory cells" that "encode memories." The article is so badly written it seems to imply that. Memory is

Please please don't take away from this that there are "memory cells" that "encode memories." The article is so badly written it seems to imply that. Memory is a whole brain phenomenon, and memory formation involves connections being formed and lost constantly between all types of neurons everywhere in the brain. One small aspect of memory (episodic memory) relies more heavily on hippocampal neurons during consolidation, and a small portion of that process is what is being discussed here.

api 6y ago
Proper title: "Neuroscientists discover one potential mechanism of memory formation and make a preliminary attempt to identify the most active regions where it occurs." Less click baity.
Robotbeat 6y ago
So, isn’t the nature of memory in the brain still understood pretty vaguely? The “memory is connections and involves the whole brain” is still kind of a hypothesis and less of a hard, empirically-validated theory, no? May still be the best idea we have, but from what I understand (which isn’t much), it’s not nearly that cut and dry and we don’t really know enough to exclude a lot of the other models of memory formation.
- deepsun 6y ago
  There's no single concept of nature that's understood completely. For example, there are a lot of things still understood pretty vaguely about milk. Or apples. So you can say that about pretty much anything.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    >There's no single concept of nature that's understood completely. For example, there are a lot of things still understood pretty vaguely about milk. Or apples. So you can say that about pretty much anything. But that is practically untrue (I'm not just saying there are corner cases, but that the main topic is still very poorly understood) and a cop-out. And yet I can speak concretely about a hydrogen atom. Or even photosynthesis. Or DNA. In DNA, there are 4 base pairs. We can see how that maps to RNA and how that in turn codes to amino acids. (and exceptions exist to these things, but we have a pretty strong grasp on it.) We can even try to fold the resulting Amino Acids into shapes, although it's computationally very difficult to do so. So data storage within a cell has some concrete understanding. Empirically validated and useful (this is how we were able to engineer the mRNA vaccines). Our knowledge of memory, our knowledge of data storage in the brain is far less concrete. And not just because it's not thought to be precisely molecular like DNA or RNA (although perhaps it could be!) but we have a poor grasp of even where, precisely, information is stored in the connections. Like, sure, you can say it's not stored in a particular location in 3D space, but there must be some transformation, some (non-euclidian) representation of the connections where memories CAN be located. Because our brains are capable of recalling memories on demand. But we have only a vague understanding of how that all occurs. It's very unlike DNA or RNA or whathaveyou in that our understanding is still primitive and vague.
    - msarchet 6y ago
      > And yet I can speak concretely about a hydrogen atom You can talk about some abstractions about how a hydrogen atom works, but we don't fully understand everything about atomic structure. We don't know if there is something that makes up the structures of subatomic particles becuase we don't have particle accelerators that have enough energy for us to peer deeper into what quarks are made up of. We don't even know if we've found all the types of particles.
      - Robotbeat 6y ago
        Actually, we do fully understand everything about the atomic structure of the hydrogen atom, everything relevant to chemistry and how life (for instance) works. If we have not yet unified the fundamental forces, that doesn't mean we don't have an INCREDIBLY detailed and complete understanding of the hydrogen atom. Corner cases in several layers lower than chemistry vs not even really knowing where a memory is stored!
        Supermancho 6y ago
        > Actually, we do fully understand everything about the atomic structure of the hydrogen atom, Not sure where that hubris comes from. There are physical phenomena we have not been able to test, so there will always be unknowns and assumptions based on (abstract) modeling. eg the metallic liquid hydrogen described here https://edu.rsc.org/soundbite/hydrogen-falls-apart-under-pressure/2000532.article https://edu.rsc.org/soundbite/hydrogen-falls-apart-under-pre...
        Robotbeat 6y ago
        It comes from the unreasonable effectiveness of quantum electrodynamics. That we predicted a metallic state of hydrogen (a sort of molecular, not atomic, structure) under an extreme corner case (extreme pressure) over 80 years ago (well before it could be experimentally verified) just highlights what I mean. And I don’t mean to say that neuroscientists are doing shoddy work. Far from it! The brain is a far more complex entity than RNA or a hydrogen atom. The task is MUCH harder! But I am showing that high level of specific, concrete knowledge IS possible in the physical sciences. Memory in the Brain is a physical process as well, but we have only a relatively vague understanding of the specifics of it. We can sequence DNA or RNA accurately with relative ease. We cannot do the same with memories in the brain.
- T-A 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell
happyconcepts 6y ago
Good memories exist too (I myself still have a few). Surely there must be a better way to conduct this experiment than to terrorize innocent mice. Why can't they
hasmanean 6y ago
Interesting you should mention “whole brain” effects. Could it be that the whole brain is involved in memory formation or are these just ripple effects of ... something else? Open loop systems are simple...the effects of one block can be understood in isolation. Closed loop control systems with feedback have nonlinear responses to stimuli that can cause ripple effects across the system. By analogy, on a modern cpu with good power management, and shared memory caches, if a program heavily writes to computer memory, the effects will be on the whole computer. Not only will memory power increase, but cache use will too (causing threads on other cpus to slow down) and the chip will heat up, causing every part of the chip to throttle.

api 6y ago

Proper title: "Neuroscientists discover one potential mechanism of memory formation and make a preliminary attempt to identify the most active regions where it occurs." Less click baity.

Robotbeat 6y ago

So, isn’t the nature of memory in the brain still understood pretty vaguely? The “memory is connections and involves the whole brain” is still kind of a hypothesis and less of a hard, empirically-validated theory, no? May still be the best idea we have, but from what I understand (which isn’t much), it’s not nearly that cut and dry and we don’t really know enough to exclude a lot of the other models of memory formation.

deepsun 6y ago
There's no single concept of nature that's understood completely. For example, there are a lot of things still understood pretty vaguely about milk. Or apples. So you can say that about pretty much anything.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  >There's no single concept of nature that's understood completely. For example, there are a lot of things still understood pretty vaguely about milk. Or apples. So you can say that about pretty much anything. But that is practically untrue (I'm not just saying there are corner cases, but that the main topic is still very poorly understood) and a cop-out. And yet I can speak concretely about a hydrogen atom. Or even photosynthesis. Or DNA. In DNA, there are 4 base pairs. We can see how that maps to RNA and how that in turn codes to amino acids. (and exceptions exist to these things, but we have a pretty strong grasp on it.) We can even try to fold the resulting Amino Acids into shapes, although it's computationally very difficult to do so. So data storage within a cell has some concrete understanding. Empirically validated and useful (this is how we were able to engineer the mRNA vaccines). Our knowledge of memory, our knowledge of data storage in the brain is far less concrete. And not just because it's not thought to be precisely molecular like DNA or RNA (although perhaps it could be!) but we have a poor grasp of even where, precisely, information is stored in the connections. Like, sure, you can say it's not stored in a particular location in 3D space, but there must be some transformation, some (non-euclidian) representation of the connections where memories CAN be located. Because our brains are capable of recalling memories on demand. But we have only a vague understanding of how that all occurs. It's very unlike DNA or RNA or whathaveyou in that our understanding is still primitive and vague.
  - msarchet 6y ago
    > And yet I can speak concretely about a hydrogen atom You can talk about some abstractions about how a hydrogen atom works, but we don't fully understand everything about atomic structure. We don't know if there is something that makes up the structures of subatomic particles becuase we don't have particle accelerators that have enough energy for us to peer deeper into what quarks are made up of. We don't even know if we've found all the types of particles.
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      Actually, we do fully understand everything about the atomic structure of the hydrogen atom, everything relevant to chemistry and how life (for instance) works. If we have not yet unified the fundamental forces, that doesn't mean we don't have an INCREDIBLY detailed and complete understanding of the hydrogen atom. Corner cases in several layers lower than chemistry vs not even really knowing where a memory is stored!
      - Supermancho 6y ago
        > Actually, we do fully understand everything about the atomic structure of the hydrogen atom, Not sure where that hubris comes from. There are physical phenomena we have not been able to test, so there will always be unknowns and assumptions based on (abstract) modeling. eg the metallic liquid hydrogen described here https://edu.rsc.org/soundbite/hydrogen-falls-apart-under-pressure/2000532.article https://edu.rsc.org/soundbite/hydrogen-falls-apart-under-pre...
        Robotbeat 6y ago
        It comes from the unreasonable effectiveness of quantum electrodynamics. That we predicted a metallic state of hydrogen (a sort of molecular, not atomic, structure) under an extreme corner case (extreme pressure) over 80 years ago (well before it could be experimentally verified) just highlights what I mean. And I don’t mean to say that neuroscientists are doing shoddy work. Far from it! The brain is a far more complex entity than RNA or a hydrogen atom. The task is MUCH harder! But I am showing that high level of specific, concrete knowledge IS possible in the physical sciences. Memory in the Brain is a physical process as well, but we have only a relatively vague understanding of the specifics of it. We can sequence DNA or RNA accurately with relative ease. We cannot do the same with memories in the brain.
T-A 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_cell

happyconcepts 6y ago

Good memories exist too (I myself still have a few). Surely there must be a better way to conduct this experiment than to terrorize innocent mice. Why can't they

hasmanean 6y ago

Interesting you should mention “whole brain” effects. Could it be that the whole brain is involved in memory formation or are these just ripple effects of ... something else? Open loop systems are simple...the effects of one block can be understood in isolation. Closed loop control systems with feedback have nonlinear responses to stimuli that can cause ripple effects across the system. By analogy, on a modern cpu with good power management, and shared memory caches, if a program heavily writes to computer memory, the effects will be on the whole computer. Not only will memory power increase, but cache use will too (causing threads on other cpus to slow down) and the chip will heat up, causing every part of the chip to throttle.