Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
Cortica

Cortica Journal club

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2023): Taming the brain to better teach: To Have and To Be!

HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN LEARNS AND MEMORIES AND HOW IT SHOWS SIMILAR NEURAL PATTERNS TO ITS SOCIAL NETWORK

DOI
https://doi.org/10.26034/cortica.2023.3657
Submitted
February 17, 2023
Published
2023-03-20

Abstract

We are continuously faced with a stream of information, which the brain needs to encode and integrate into existing knowledge.  Numerous factors affect this process, such as emotions, neurogenesis, and neuroplasticity. To explain how memory and learning are encoded in the brain, Semon's proposed the existence of engrams cells distributed across the cortex forming a network supporting a given memory, which are activated both during encoding and during recall. It appears that engrams can be either active or silent depending on the stage of memory consolidation. This would be in accordance with the system consolidation theory; however, incongruences in the literature still make it impossible to exclude other alternatives, like the multiple trace theory, as possible explanations. Moreover, it has been found that both learning and memory processes are socially affected. In fact, friendship status, social network features, and hierarchy position have an influence on how people encode information and store them. 

References

  1. Falk, E. B., & Bassett, D. S. (2017). Brain and Social Networks : Fundamental Building Blocks of Human Experience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(9), 674 690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.009 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.009
  2. Guskjolen, A., Kenney, J. W., de la Parra, J., Yeung, B. A., Josselyn, S. A., & Frankland, P. W. (2018). Recovery of “Lost” Infant Memories in Mice. Current Biology, 28(14), 2283-2290.e3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.059 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.059
  3. Kitamura, T., Ogawa, S. K., Roy, D. S., Okuyama, T., Morrissey, M. D., Smith, L. M., Redondo, R. L., & Tonegawa, S. (2017). Engrams and circuits crucial for systems consolidation of a memory. Science, 356(6333), 73 78. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam6808 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam6808
  4. Klinzing, J. G., Niethard, N., & Born, J. (2019). Mechanisms of systems memory consolidation during sleep. Nature Neuroscience, 22(10), 1598 1610. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-019-0467-3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-019-0467-3
  5. Lesburguères, E., Gobbo, O. L., Alaux-Cantin, S., Hambucken, A., Trifilieff, P., & Bontempi, B. (2011). Early Tagging of Cortical Networks Is Required for the Formation of Enduring Associative Memory. Science, 331(6019), 924 928. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1196164 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1196164
  6. Parkinson, C., Kleinbaum, A. M., & Wheatley, T. (2017). Spontaneous neural encoding of social network position. Nature Human Behaviour, 1(5), 0072. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0072 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0072
  7. Parkinson, C., Kleinbaum, A. M., & Wheatley, T. (2018). Similar neural responses predict friendship. Nature Communications, 9(1), 332. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02722-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02722-7
  8. Roy, D. S., Park, Y.-G., Kim, M. E., Zhang, Y., Ogawa, S. K., DiNapoli, N., Gu, X., Cho, J. H., Choi, H., Kamentsky, L., Martin, J., Mosto, O., Aida, T., Chung, K., & Tonegawa, S. (2022). Brain-wide mapping reveals that engrams for a single memory are distributed across multiple brain regions. Nature Communications, 13(1), 1799. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29384-4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29384-4
  9. Salminen, J. (2012). Collective Intelligence in Humans : A Literature Review. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.1204.3401
  10. Tallman, C. W., Clark, R. E., & Smith, C. N. (2022). Human brain activity and functional connectivity as memories age from one hour to one month. Cognitive Neuroscience, 13(3 4), 115 133. https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2021.2021164 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17588928.2021.2021164
  11. Tonegawa, S., Morrissey, M. D., & Kitamura, T. (2018). The role of engram cells in the systems consolidation of memory. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 19(8), 485 498. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-018-0031-2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-018-0031-2
  12. Tyng, C. M., Amin, H. U., Saad, M. N. M., & Malik, A. S. (2017). The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1454. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454
  13. Voss, P., Thomas, M. E., Cisneros-Franco, J. M., & de Villers-Sidani, É. (2017). Dynamic Brains and the Changing Rules of Neuroplasticity : Implications for Learning and Recovery. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1657. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01657 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01657
  14. Weaverdyck, M. E., & Parkinson, C. (2018). The neural representation of social networks. Current Opinion in Psychology, 24, 58 66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.05.009 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.05.009