香港六合彩中特网

The long-held theory that our brains use different mechanisms for forming long-term and short-term memories has been challenged by new research from 香港六合彩中特网, published in PNAS.

Neuroscientists formed this theory based on observation of patients with amnesia, a condition that severely disrupts the ability to form long-lasting memories. Typically, amnesia is caused by injury to the hippocampi, a pair of brain structures located in the depth of the temporal lobes.

The team studied patients with a specific form of epilepsy called 鈥榯emporal lobe epilepsy with bilateral hippocampal sclerosis鈥�, which leads to marked dysfunction of the hippocampi. They asked the patients to try and memorise photographic images depicting normal scenes, for example chairs and a table in a living-room. Their memory of the image was tested and brain activity recorded using MEG (magnetoencephalography) after a short interval of just five seconds, or a long interval of 60 minutes.

Nathan Cashdollar, (Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy) first author of the paper, said: 鈥淩ecent behavioural observations had already begun challenging the classical distinction between long-term and short-term memory which has persisted for nearly half a century. However, this is the first functional and anatomical evidence showing which mechanisms are shared between short-term and long-term memory and which are independent.鈥�

鈥淭hey also highlight that patients with impaired long-term memory have a short-term memory burden to carry in their daily life as well.鈥澛�

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Reference >> Cashdollar,N., Malecki,U., Rugg-Gunn,F.J., Duncan,J.S., Lavie,N., Duzel,E. 鈥楬ippocampus dependent and independent theta-networks of active maintenance鈥� is published in the (PNAS)聽Monday 9th November聽online early edition.