New research shows how the brain reactivates different memories to link them across time.
Credit: Stellate Communications
Credit: Stellate Communications
Mount Sinai researchers have discovered for the first time a neural mechanism for memory integration that stretches across both time and personal experience. These findings, reported in Nature, demonstrate how memories stored in neural ensembles in the brain are constantly being updated and reorganized with salient information, and represent an important step in deciphering how our memories stay current with the most recently available information. This discovery could have important implications for better understanding adaptive memory processes (such as making causal inferences) as well as maladaptive processes (such as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD).