Our memory helps make us who we are. From fondly recollecting childhood events to remembering where we left our keys, memories plays a vital role in every aspect of our lives. It provides us with a sense of self and makes up our continual experience of life. It’s easy to think of memories as a mental filing cabinet, storing away bits of information until we need them. In reality, it is a remarkably complex process that involves numerous parts of the brain.
Memories can be vivid and long-lasting, but they are also susceptible to inaccuracies and forgetting.
Memories can be vivid and long-lasting, but they are also susceptible to inaccuracies and forgetting.
The hippocampus is a horse-shoe shaped area of the brain that plays an important role in consolidating information from short-term memory into long-term memory. It is part of the limbic system, a system associated with emotions and long-term memories. The hippocampus is involved in such complex processes as forming, organizing, and storing memories. The hippocampus can also decline with age. By the time people reach their 80s, they may have lost as much as 20 percent of the nerve connections in the hippocampus.
Must Read: Amazing facts about the Human Brain
Here are interesting facts about the human Memory – if you can remember them!
- Scientific research has shown that the human brain starts remembering things from the womb—memory begins to work 20 weeks after conception.
- Memories has two components—short term and long term. Most short-term memories only last 20 to 30 seconds.
- Memory is influenced by a variety of factors. Memory based on what you saw vs. what you hear is called visual and auditory memory.
- The storage capacity of the human brain is virtually limitless.
- Caffeine doesn’t maintain memory performances, it only increases alertness.
- It is believed that an adult can remember twenty to one hundred thousand words.
- Sleep is important to memory. Although scientists don’t know exactly how it affects the brain, it has been shown that sleep aids storage and retrieval of long-term memories.
- Many people associate memory loss with aging. However, the memories loss we see the older we get is generally because we tend to exercise our brains less as we age.
- Your memories can associate a scent with a certain event or occurrence. A smell can trigger the memory in your mind associated with it. The hippocampus is the part of the brain largely responsible for the formation of new memories and directly interacts with our sense of smell.
- There is such a thing as “false memory”. Researchers are beginning to understand that the human mind can create, exaggerate, distort, or re-invent a memories after a traumatic experience or something that impacted them greatly.
- The mind must be exercised just like any other muscle in the body. The harder you think about memories, the more likely you are to remember it accurately. Thinking will create a stronger link between active neurons.
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