Memories not only help us remember the past, but also help us assess the situation on the spot.

Scientists have long known that the brain’s hippocampus is essential for long-term memory. A new medical study from the Northwest now reveals that the hippocampus also plays a role in short-term memory and guides decision-making.

The findings reveal how the hippocampus contributes to memory and exploration, and may lead to treatments that restore hippocampal function that affects neurodegenerative diseases such as memory-related aging and dementia. The study authors said.

In this study, scientists monitored participants’ brain activity and tracked eye movements by viewing a variety of intricate photographs. Scientists say that when we visually scan the environment and absorb new information, the hippocampus is activated, using short-term memory to better process new visual information and quickly reassess the situation. I found that I could do it.

How our memory helps us scan new environments

Imagine walking down the street and noticing a car parked awkwardly on your neighbor’s lawn. Maybe you’ll immediately dismiss it and move on. But when you see an ambulance and a fire engine approaching your location, you can connect the dots and return to the scene of the accident. The hippocampus can re-examine the car and form a lasting memory of the accident using short-term memory to indicate where it is looking.

“At any point in time, your brain is rapidly starting eye movements that you are not normally aware of,” said corresponding author James Craigel, postdoctoral fellow at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. “Our results suggest that the hippocampus uses memory to tell where your eyes are looking, thus preparing your visual system to learn and re-evaluate our environment on the fly. Make.

“If you don’t look back and see the crash, you can’t encode this important information, Short term memory Research allows you to combine these clues and memorize details that provide better memory clues. It all comes down to making connections between these different elements. This makes it much easier for you to remember it later. “

This study will be published in the journal on June 18. Scientists progress..

“These findings underscore that hippocampal dependent memory is generally considered a thing of the past, but in fact it works when it comes to optimizing our behavior and decision making,” Medical Science said. Joel Voss, associate professor of social sciences and senior research author, said. , Neurology and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences by Feinberg. “This is the key to understanding how the hippocampus works and developing effective treatments for memory loss.”

“It’s like using your memory to plan out what to expect, and when that doesn’t match up with what’s really going on, what’s happening to your hippocampus. It is activated to reassess and update your current perception of. the hippocampus, ”Craigel said.

Track eye movements to learn more about memory

The study was conducted in patients with epilepsy who were undergoing neurosurgical monitoring at Northwestern Memorial Hospital to determine the cause of the seizures. They had electrodes implanted in the brain to map brain activity associated with seizures. While in the Epilepsy Surveillance Unit, participants perform memory tasks and are complex with multiple people and things (for example, people sitting on a park bench with food on a table, this happening in the background). I looked at the scene list. Memory test.

During the test, participants showed whether the scene presented was old or new. Throughout the task, the author recorded eye movements and neural activity simultaneously to correlate hippocampal activity with memory-based behavior.

When studying the scene for the first time, participants often turned their eyes to the place they had just seen a few hundred milliseconds ago. These “recoveries” Eye movement Improve the spatio-temporal memory of the scene (remembering where the object was placed or the sequence in which something happened). Brain recording brain The network involved in generating these “revisits” since hippocampal activity changed shortly before execution. Brain activity Craigel believes that subsequent revisits can form a lasting memory of the scene and its elements.

“It’s Kaiba Memory Deploy in a few hundred milliseconds during an action in progress. This is surprising considering the length of his involvement. Long term memory Searches are usually seen as days or years, ”says Voss.