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I also think there are a lot of connections we make in relation to our muscles : after some decades my hands can still play piano pieces I learned when young an

I also think there are a lot of connections we make in relation to our muscles : after some decades my hands can still play piano pieces I learned when young and my torso and legs can balance and ride on a bicycle immediately after many months of not. Perhaps the brain is not the only store of memory.

magicalhippo 5y ago
Not sure if it's outside of the brain, but it seems to me that indeed different types of memories are stored differently. As an example, I can only recall my own phone number if I try to type it on a keypad, either a real phone or mentally visualizing me hitting the digits. I only have this for a few phone numbers though, and not other numbers in general. I also have some childhood memories that on the one hand seem vivid when I recall them, yet I struggle to describe when I want to tell others about them. Then the memory suddenly feels elusive, like a dream. Yet when I think about them, it's like I'm there in the moment... Other childhood memories are crystal clear and I can tell you all about them in great detail. I also have a sequencing error, I'll fairly consistently swap the last two digits of a sequence when recalling. This was especially annoying when I worked at a grocery store, and would tell the customer the total was 371 say rather than 317 as the register showed. Yet I've never noticed any other sequencing issues, and being a programmer there's plenty of opportunity for noticing.
- HKH2 5y ago
  Yes, there is declarative, procedural and episodic memory, and they are stored in different ways. If you take away the hippocampus (if I'm not mistaken), you can still form procedural memories but not episodic memories. There was a relatively famous case of that happening.
azeirah 5y ago
It is notable that the cerebellum, a very important part of our brain that controls voluntary movement as well as balance, coordination and posture is incredibly dense. > The cerebellum makes up just 10% of the total volume of the brain, yet it contains an estimated 50% to 80% of the brain's neurons. I wonder if "muscle memories" are just a side-phenomenon of involving more neurons in this densely populated area of the brain.
wahern 5y ago
The spinal cord does provide autonomous gross stimulus responses, like pulling away a burning hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_reflex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_reflex It doesn't seem surprising that it may exhibit more complex behaviors, such as suggested in this study about learning complex motor tasks: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26125597/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26125597/

magicalhippo 5y ago

Not sure if it's outside of the brain, but it seems to me that indeed different types of memories are stored differently. As an example, I can only recall my own phone number if I try to type it on a keypad, either a real phone or mentally visualizing me hitting the digits. I only have this for a few phone numbers though, and not other numbers in general. I also have some childhood memories that on the one hand seem vivid when I recall them, yet I struggle to describe when I want to tell others about them. Then the memory suddenly feels elusive, like a dream. Yet when I think about them, it's like I'm there in the moment... Other childhood memories are crystal clear and I can tell you all about them in great detail. I also have a sequencing error, I'll fairly consistently swap the last two digits of a sequence when recalling. This was especially annoying when I worked at a grocery store, and would tell the customer the total was 371 say rather than 317 as the register showed. Yet I've never noticed any other sequencing issues, and being a programmer there's plenty of opportunity for noticing.

HKH2 5y ago
Yes, there is declarative, procedural and episodic memory, and they are stored in different ways. If you take away the hippocampus (if I'm not mistaken), you can still form procedural memories but not episodic memories. There was a relatively famous case of that happening.

azeirah 5y ago

It is notable that the cerebellum, a very important part of our brain that controls voluntary movement as well as balance, coordination and posture is incredibly dense. > The cerebellum makes up just 10% of the total volume of the brain, yet it contains an estimated 50% to 80% of the brain's neurons. I wonder if "muscle memories" are just a side-phenomenon of involving more neurons in this densely populated area of the brain.

wahern 5y ago

The spinal cord does provide autonomous gross stimulus responses, like pulling away a burning hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_reflex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_reflex It doesn't seem surprising that it may exhibit more complex behaviors, such as suggested in this study about learning complex motor tasks: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26125597/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26125597/