Remembering

Researchers have for the first time demonstrated that the same neurons that fire when a memory is made are also active when the memory is recalled:

The new study moved beyond most previous memory research in that it focused not on recognition or recollection of specific symbols but on free recall — whatever popped into people’s heads when, in this case, they were asked to remember short film clips they had just seen.

This ability to richly reconstitute past experience often quickly deteriorates in people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, and it is fundamental to so-called episodic memory — the catalog of vignettes that together form our remembered past.

While this intuitively makes sense, it had never been shown before and opens the door to further investigation into how one of our most intriguing capabilities works.