4 ms·

This is a bit of a misnomer, you can never restore a lost memory. Information that no longer exists, no longer exists, simple as fact. The brain is a computer,

This is a bit of a misnomer, you can never restore a lost memory. Information that no longer exists, no longer exists, simple as fact. The brain is a computer, and I wouldn't be surprised if our brain has developed redundancies and possibly even data retrieval methods that outstrip anything we have today. However if a memory is truly lost, it really is and restoring neuronal connections will not return it. An analogy would be saying 'New York City' is gone because the roads are out to it. There's a big difference between gone and gone as in a smoking nuclear crater. In patients with Alzheimer's of dementia, if the neurone has been disconnected for too long it will die and likely so will any information it held (unless it's stored elsewhere or retrievable like Par files for a download). However even any of these 'backups' will eventually disappear too if those neuronal connections go and the nerves will starve. For instance alcohol doesn't kill a single neuron, it inhibits the electrical connections and prolonged isolation will kill the cell.

reasonattlm 17y ago
Word choice counterpoint: keys that are lost still exist. On the other items, there is a healthy amount of experimental evidence to suggest that Alzheimer's memory loss is reversible - that the memory-encodings still exist. See for example: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/view_news_item.cfm?news_id=4191 http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/view_news_item.cfm?news_id... Later on in the disease progression is where your points are valid due to widespread neuron death. It's sliding scale.
ars 17y ago
We don't know anywhere near enough about how the brain stores memories to be able to say that. It's quite possible memories are distributed over the entire brain, and not stored in any one neuron. For example, if you have a lens projecting a picture, and you cover half the lens, you don't get half a picture, you get a dimmer and fuzzier images, but a whole one. Perhaps the brain works the same way? We really don't know enough about memory to say.

reasonattlm 17y ago

Word choice counterpoint: keys that are lost still exist. On the other items, there is a healthy amount of experimental evidence to suggest that Alzheimer's memory loss is reversible - that the memory-encodings still exist. See for example: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/view_news_item.cfm?news_id=4191 http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/view_news_item.cfm?news_id... Later on in the disease progression is where your points are valid due to widespread neuron death. It's sliding scale.

ars 17y ago

We don't know anywhere near enough about how the brain stores memories to be able to say that. It's quite possible memories are distributed over the entire brain, and not stored in any one neuron. For example, if you have a lens projecting a picture, and you cover half the lens, you don't get half a picture, you get a dimmer and fuzzier images, but a whole one. Perhaps the brain works the same way? We really don't know enough about memory to say.