PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

How your memory rewrites the past

Your memory is no video camera; it edits the past with present experiences

2014-02-05
(Press-News.org) Contact information: Marla Paul
marla-paul@northwestern.edu
312-503-8928
Northwestern University
How your memory rewrites the past Your memory is no video camera; it edits the past with present experiences CHICAGO --- Your memory is a wily time traveler, plucking fragments of the present and inserting them into the past, reports a new Northwestern Medicine® study. In terms of accuracy, it's no video camera.

Rather, the memory rewrites the past with current information, updating your recollections with new experiences.

Love at first sight, for example, is more likely a trick of your memory than a Hollywood-worthy moment.

"When you think back to when you met your current partner, you may recall this feeling of love and euphoria," said lead author Donna Jo Bridge, a postdoctoral fellow in medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "But you may be projecting your current feelings back to the original encounter with this person."

The study will be published Feb. 5 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

This the first study to show specifically how memory is faulty, and how it can insert things from the present into memories of the past when those memories are retrieved. The study shows the exact point in time when that incorrectly recalled information gets implanted into an existing memory.

To help us survive, Bridge said, our memories adapt to an ever-changing environment and help us deal with what's important now.

"Our memory is not like a video camera," Bridge said. "Your memory reframes and edits events to create a story to fit your current world. It's built to be current."

All that editing happens in the hippocampus, the new study found. The hippocampus, in this function, is the memory's equivalent of a film editor and special effects team.

For the experiment, 17 men and women studied 168 object locations on a computer screen with varied backgrounds such as an underwater ocean scene or an aerial view of Midwest farmland. Next, researchers asked participants to try to place the object in the original location but on a new background screen. Participants would always place the objects in an incorrect location.

For the final part of the study, participants were shown the object in three locations on the original screen and asked to choose the correct location. Their choices were: the location they originally saw the object, the location they placed it in part 2 or a brand new location.

"People always chose the location they picked in part 2," Bridge said. "This shows their original memory of the location has changed to reflect the location they recalled on the new background screen. Their memory has updated the information by inserting the new information into the old memory."

Participants took the test in an MRI scanner so scientists could observe their brain activity. Scientists also tracked participants' eye movements, which sometimes were more revealing about the content of their memories – and if there was conflict in their choices -- than the actual location they ended up choosing.

The notion of a perfect memory is a myth, said Joel Voss, senior author of the paper and an assistant professor of medical social sciences and of neurology at Feinberg.

"Everyone likes to think of memory as this thing that lets us vividly remember our childhoods or what we did last week," Voss said. "But memory is designed to help us make good decisions in the moment and, therefore, memory has to stay up-to-date. The information that is relevant right now can overwrite what was there to begin with."

Bridge noted the study's implications for eyewitness court testimony. "Our memory is built to change, not regurgitate facts, so we are not very reliable witnesses," she said.

A caveat of the research is that it was done in a controlled experimental setting and shows how memories changed within the experiment. "Although this occurred in a laboratory setting, it's reasonable to think the memory behaves like this in the real world," Bridge said.

### The research was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke grant R00-NS069788 and the National Institute on Aging grant T32AG20506, both of the National Institutes of Health.

NORTHWESTERN NEWS: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Mediterranean diet linked with lower risk of heart disease among young US workers

2014-02-05
Boston, MA -- Among a large group of Midwestern firefighters, greater adherence to Mediterranean-style diet was associated with lower risk factors for cardiovascular disease ...

Heart disease warning at age 18

2014-02-05
CHICAGO – –Elevated blood pressure as young as age 18 is a warning sign of cardiovascular disease developing later in life and the time ...

MRIs help predict which atrial fibrillation patients will benefit from catheter ablation

2014-02-05
MAYWOOD, Il. – A new type of contrast MRI can predict which heart patients with atrial fibrillation are most likely to benefit from ...

Sucker-footed fossils broaden the bat map

2014-02-05
DURHAM, N.C. -- Today, Madagascar sucker-footed bats live nowhere outside their island home, but new research shows that hasn't always been the case. The ...

New drug treatment reduces chronic pain following shingles

2014-02-05
A new drug treatment has been found to be effective against chronic pain caused by nerve damage, also known as neuropathic pain, in patients who have had shingles. The researchers hope that the drug ...

'Severe reduction' in killer whale numbers during last Ice Age

2014-02-05
Whole genome sequencing has revealed a global fall in the numbers of killer whales during the last Ice Age, at a time when ocean productivity may have been widely reduced, according to researchers ...

How states can encourage web-based health care in hospitals

2014-02-05
ANN ARBOR—In the first national look at how broadly web-based technologies are being used to provide health care, a University of Michigan researcher has found that 42 percent of U.S. hospitals use some ...

Study finds dramatic rise in skin cancer among middle-aged adults

2014-02-05
ROCHESTER, Minn — Feb. 3, 2014 — A new Mayo Clinic study found that among middle-aged men and women, 40 to 60 years old, the overall incidence of skin cancer increased nearly eightfold between 1970 and 2009, ...

Off-the-shelf materials lead to self-healing polymers

2014-02-05
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Look out, super glue and paint thinner. Thanks to new dynamic materials developed at the University of Illinois, removable paint and self-healing plastics soon could be household ...

Personal experience, work seniority improve mental health professionals' outlook

2014-02-05
One might think that after years of seeing people at their worst, mental health workers would harbor negative attitudes about mental illness, perhaps associating people with mental health ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

New jab protects babies from serious lung infection, study shows

July Tip Sheet from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center

Current application status and innovative development of surgical robot

Counterfeited in China: New book assesses state of industry and its future

Machine learning reveals historical seismic events in the Yellowstone caldera

First analyses of Myanmar earthquake conclude fault ruptured at supershear velocity

Curved fault slip captured on CCTV during Myanmar earthquake

Collaboration rewarded for work to further deployment of batteries in emerging economies

Heart-healthy habits also prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s, COPD, other diseases, Emory study finds

Scientists will use a $1M grant to build a support system addressing sea level rise and flooding in South Florida

New research examines how pH impacts the immune system

Inhaled agricultural dust disrupts gut health

New study reveals hidden regulatory roles of “junk” DNA

Taking the sting out of ulcerative colitis

Deep life’s survival secret: Crustal faulting generates key energy sources, study shows

Idaho National Laboratory to lead advancements in US semiconductor manufacturing

AI-assisted sorting, other new technologies could improve plastic recycling

More than just larks and owls!

Call for nominations: 2026 Dan David Prize

New tool gives anyone the ability to train a robot

Coexistence of APC and KRAS mutations in familial adenomatous polyposis and endometrial cancer: A mini-review with case-based perspective

First global-to-local study reveals stark health inequalities from COVID-19 in 2020–2021

rcssci: Simplifying complex data relationships with enhanced visual clarity

Why some ecosystems collapse suddenly—and others don’t

One-third of U.S. public schools screen students for mental health issues

GLP-1 RA use and survival among older adults with cancer and type 2 diabetes

Trends in physician exit from fee-for-service Medicare

Systematic investigation of tumor microenvironment and antitumor immunity with IOBR

Common feature between forest fires and neural networks reveals the universal framework underneath

New R package revolutionizes gene set enrichment analysis visualization for biomedical research

[Press-News.org] How your memory rewrites the past
Your memory is no video camera; it edits the past with present experiences