That favorite childhood memory of yours—you know, the one that still seems like just yesterday, the one that you can still smell and taste—may actually be the result of a select few neurons firing deep within your brain.
According to a recent MIT study, Strong memory fragments known as engrams may actually be the result of a small number of neurons residing in the hippocampus, the brain's memory center. The team employed a technique known as optogenetics—one that electrically stimulates genetically-modified neurons that are designed to light up when active—to identify in mice the neurons responsible for long term memories. "We demonstrate that behavior based on high-level cognition, such as the expression of a specific memory, can be generated in a mammal by highly specific physical activation of a specific small subpopulation of brain cells, in this case by light," says Susumu Tonegawa, a researcher at MIT.
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