Human memory is a complex process developed in different areas of the brain. It’s an ability to receive information, encode it and give it a meaning, and store it in a short or long term memory, in order to be able to retrieve it at a later point in time.
Our brain creates our memory by processing the neural information received as a signal from the five senses. Then, it integrates those facts, data, images, sounds, sensations, and events. After the process of encoding, the processed information is stored so that it can be later retrieved.
Which Parts of the Brain Are Involved in Memory?
The processes of storing memories in the brain involve many parts of the brain that support our ability to remember some events, feelings, or facts in both the long and the short term. In other words, different types of memory are stored in different areas of the brain.
The hippocampus, the amygdala, the putamen, the cerebellum, and the prefrontal cortex are the five main brain regions involved in the memory process.
Hippocampus
This part of the brain is in charge of the consolidation of the declarative, episodic, and recognition memory, as well as the knowledge associated with spatial awareness. It helps transfer immediate thoughts and sensory data into short and long term memories.
Amygdala
As a part of the limbic system, the amygdala regulates many aspects of memory and emotion. It consolidates and associates the intensely powerful emotions associated with fear, anger, sadness, or joy.
Furthermore, the amygdala has a big role in forming new memories, especially the ones related to fear. This is the reason why the amygdala is also labeled as the brain’s center of fear.
Cerebellum
This part of the brain is responsible for cognitive functions, such as the formation of short-term memory. The cerebellum also has a role in the processing of procedural memories, as well as motor learning, such as learning how to play the guitar.
Prefrontal cortex
The prefrontal cortex of the brain regulates the memorizing of passing situations, such as the visual-spatial awareness of current surroundings. It is also involved in remembering semantic tasks. It is associated with both short and long term memory.
The Putamen
By supporting various types of learning, this part of the brain aids the storage of declarative and working memory, both stored in the short-term memory areas of the brain. In this way, the putamen is actively involved in the consolidation and storage of episodic memory.
How Is Memory Formed?
To begin with, the human brain receives information from the stimuli via the five senses. The neurons of the brain transform the data into electrical impulses in order to transmit the information to the dedicated brain centers.
The brain encodes the impulses from the sensory organs and gives them meaning, after which the formation of short-term memory begins by our brain processing and integrating the received sensory information with the corresponding and associated data which has been previously stored in the brain’s short or long term memory.
To Sum Up
Memory is a series of processes activated in dedicated brain centers that include the receiving, encoding, classifying, and storing of the information received via the sensory organs. It enables us to process our environment, improve behavior, and give context to our lives.
Due to some medical conditions or physical damage to the brain, loss of memory can occur. Stress, anxiety, and depression can also trigger the decay of memory by interrupting the natural flow of the processes in the brain that establish memories.
Our stored memories do not contain only previously learned knowledge about the world that surrounds us, but also heartwarming episodes of our lives which we try to relive by recalling them often.
On the other hand, our brain helps us heal by consciously forgetting traumatic events. The less we try to retrieve a memory from the storage area in the brain, the less powerful it will become. Consequently, it will lose its place in our memory, thus becoming unable to trigger the trauma.
From this point of view, what we keep in memory helps us organize or lives, but it also defines us in a very emotionally rewarding and uplifting way.
Fun Facts
Did you know?
- We forget as a result of the inability of our brain to recall memory.
- People with excellent memory usually have an eidetic or photographic memory. In such a case, the individual is able to remember information only after taking just a glance over a text, image, etc. Leonardo Da Vinci, Nikola Tesla, Johannes Kepler, and C. S. Lewis are only a few of the famous people who are claimed to have possessed eidetic memory.
- Working memory is the shortest type of memory – it stores the information for only a few seconds. It retains what we see (visual-spatial working memory) and what we hear (auditory working memory).
- There are several types of forgetting: memory decay, the fading of memory with the passage of time, amnesia, conscious effort to forget a traumatic experience, structural amnesia, motivated forgetting, prescriptive forgetting, etc.
- We can sharpen our memory in a natural way by exercising, doing brain training (i.e. solving puzzles, learning foreign languages, etc.), getting enough sleep, maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding alcohol, as well as reading out loud.
- The capacity of long-term memory is unlimited – it can last a lifetime!
- Procedural memory is a type of memory responsible for storing the information we learn about how to do things, for instance, how to make a cake, write an essay, or ride a bike.
- Declarative memory stores information about the date of our best friend’s birthday, the date when our favorite band performs in our city, etc.
- By frequently accessing and recalling memories, they become more permanently stored in the memory of our brain. In this way, short-term memories can become long-term memories.
- Memories of events are retrieved in the same order they were experienced in the first place.