Struggling to Remember :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Struggling to RememberThe oral sex gathers, paradees, and stores information in a occur of ways. When we perceive something, a set of cells in our brain is touch off in a specific sequence. If not fully pursued, the perception fades and the cells return to their pilot light state (1). However if the thought or perception is entertained, the cells interact, forming a network of communication and signal transmission. The set of cells becomes a retention computer memory trace a neuronal network representing encoded fragments of past experiences. The set of cells with facilitated synapses is now the anatomical tally to the memory (1). Recollection of an event or rather activation of an engram can occur via a stimulus to any of the parts of the brain where a neural connection for the memory exists. Once the engram is activated the hippocampus facilitates activity at the synapse, strengthening the relationship between neurons in the network, thus solidifying the memory (1). The ch ances of remembering improve by this process of consolidation. Thus, memories play an integral role in our lives they are the bits and pieces of our experience. Just as remembering plays a critical role in shaping or lives, so does the process of forgetting. What happens when we forget or lose our memories? Perhaps forgetting is collect to poor encoding, an error in the process transforming something a person sees, hears, thinks, or feels into a memory (2). Maybe the absence of proper stimulus prohibits recuperation of information or maybe forgetting serves as a drive to substantiate us sane, purging the brain of irrelevant data. If we remembered everything, we should on most do be as ill of ass if we remembered nothing (William James, The Principles of Psychology).Memory plays a central role in mental health and thus its deterioration is one of the most distressing psychological dysfunctions. Amnesia or memory loss is an extreme case of forgetting that occurs often as a issui ng of severe brain injury or traumatic experience. The term brownout is associated with a broad category of memory deficits ranging from Alzheimers disease and anterograde and retrograde amnesia to infantile and childhood amnesia and progressive memory loss due to aging (3). However, clinical cases of amnesia tend to resolve into two main categories-psychogenic amnesia and organic amnesia. Psychogenic amnesia refers to instances in which memory loss is presumed to have a purely psychological basis. traumatic events may have altered the patients brain scarcely no physical damage is observed.