Does Memory Reside Inside the Brain

On Jun 2, 2005, NBC Philadelphia had an interesting report. Christina Santhouse had caught a virus that caused a rare brain disorder known as Rasmussen's Syndrome at an age of 8. And her doctor had to perform hemispherectomy, removal of half of the brain, on her. After 10 years, Christina was about to graduate from high school with honors. After the surgery, she had a slight limp and her left hand didn't work at all. She had also lost her peripheral vision, but otherwise, she was an ordinary teen. A similar case was reported on Telegraph (UK) on May 29, 2002, a girl named Bursa had the same disorder and her left brain was removed when she was 3, she became fluent in Dutch and Turkish when she was 7. In 1987, A. Smith reported that one patient with hemispherectomy had completed college, attended graduate school and scored above average on intelligence tests. Studies have found no significant long-term effects on memory, personality, or humor after the procedure, and minimal changes in cognitive function overall.

The outcome of hemispherectomy is surprising. Neuroscience tends to suggest memory is stored in the neurons in the brain. If that premise stands true, removing half of the brain would destroy one's memory if memory is stored in the network structure of neurons as one school of cognitive physiology suggests, or at least destroy half of the memory if bits of memory information are stored in individual neurons in the brain as suggested by another school of cognitive neuroscience. But it is apparent that the results disagree with either of the explanations. Removing part of the brain has been one of the standard surgical operations for severe epilepsy and has been performed thousands of times. Many of the results are quite similar to those of hemispherectomy.

The orthodox explanation for the observation is that information stored in the infected brain areas is duplicated in the health part of the brain prior to the surgery. This rationalization is still inadequate when you take into account how a brain surgery is performed. Surgeon has to remove the infected area and some surrounding health tissue, sometimes a much larger tissue than the infected area, to make sure infection does not spread. If the information stored in the infected areas is reproduced somewhere in the brain before surgical procedure, some information is still lost when surrounding health brain tissue is removed, consequently the memory would suffer.

This is not observed after the surgery. So it is necessary to assume that the memory stored in the neighboring health tissue is also replicated in other parts of the brain. This raises a question: how does the brain know how much health tissue is going to be taken out? If the brain does not know, surgeries will inevitable destruct part of the memory. The belief that memory is stored in the brain (in neurons or in the network of neurons) apparently contradicts with findings in brain surgeries.  

In the 1920s Karl Lashley conducted a series of experiments trying to identify which part of the brain memories are stored. He trained rats to find their way through a maze, and then made lesions in different parts of the cerebral cortex in an attempt to erase its original memory trace. His experimental animals were still able to find their way through the maze no matter where he put lesions on their brains. He therefore concluded that memories are not stored in any single area of the brain, but are instead distributed throughout it. Distributing the memory of every single event over the whole brain is energetically inefficient and mathematically impossible. If his reasoning is not confined to the brain, the logical conclusion should be that memory is not stored in the brain.

Instincts are obviously inherited and nobody has any slight idea where the information making up the instincts is stored, and cognitive memory is thought to be acquired through experience and stored by changing the signal chemicals in the neurons in the brain.

New research reveals that even cognitive memory can be inherited. A study by Larry Feig at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston indicates that mother mice that receive mental training before they become pregnant can pass on their cognitive benefits to their young even there is no direct contact among the mothers and their offspring. It is obvious that the cognitive memory is not acquired by the young through experience, and there is no apparent way for the young to store the information in their neurons, then where do the young retrieve the memory from? Maybe from where they store their instincts information, a place nobody knows yet.

"Brain areas such as the hippocampus, the amygdala, the striatum, or the mammillary bodies are thought to be involved in specific types of memory. For example, the hippocampus is believed to be involved in spatial learning and declarative learning, while the amygdala is thought to be involved in emotional memory. Damage to certain areas in patients and animal models and subsequent memory deficits is a primary source of information. However, rather than implicating a specific area, it could be that damage to a pathway traveling through the area is actually responsible for the observed deficit" (excerpt from http://www.wikipedia.com). If one stores all his possessions in a warehouse connected to his house through a highway, he would not be able to get anything from the warehouse if the highway is broken down. To infer that everything is stored on the highway based on the facts he can not get anything when the highway is interrupted is ridiculous. Even the connection between the brain and memory is well established, it is beyond logic to conclude that memory reside inside the brain. 

Wilder Penfield was a pioneer in associating particular type of memory with specific area in the brain. When he was conducting surgeries to remove specific types of temporal lobe loci which were causing epilepsy, he made ground-breaking discoveries by taking notice that his un-anesthetized patients (with local pain blockers) could listen and respond to his questions while their temporal lobe was being operated upon. Indeed, the verbal feedback by the patient was an essential requirement so that Penfield could determine that he was excising exact portion of the brain which was the cause of the neurological symptoms being treated. He would insert an electrode into patient's brain and provide electrical stimulation to see how the patient responds.

One of Penfield's patients heard a specific music selection being performed by an orchestra "when a point on the superior surface of the right temporal lobe was stimulated after removal of the anterior half of the lobe." The sound was so clear that the patient believed that there was a phonograph in the operating room. As the same point was re-stimulated (without withdrawing the electrode, only stop and re-supply electrical stimulus) the music began at the same spot in time where it had previously begun.

When Penfield withheld the electrode, the patient heard nothing. He found that the patient could not guess what was to happen after the electrode had been withdrawn. "L.G. saw a man fighting. When the point was re-stimulated he saw a man and a dog walking along a road." Often the memory is no longer able to be recalled.

At the beginning of his career in brain surgery, Penfield reasoned memory must be stored somewhere in the brain and the stimulus opened the gate of river of memory. His work originated numerous researches to associate memory and emotion to specific area in the brain. Penfield's continuous research convinced him that memory can not exist in the brain. He and his colleague reported that removing more cortex after injury to the brain raised the Intelligence Quotient. In one case, he was surprised to find out that his patient's Intelligence Quotient went from 75 to 80 - 95 after he made extensive bilateral removal of the prefrontal lobes. William Cone reported similar result after removing part of his patient's brain. Penfield's continued work, especially on hippocampus and cortex, had changed his views on brain, consciousness and memory mechanism. He late suggested that the interpretive cortex of the temporal lobes acts as a bridge, and the hippocampus holds "keys of access" to those past recorded experiences which are located somewhere outside of the brain.

Philosopher William James had a technically different but very similar view on consciousness as Penfield. He held that consciousness operates through the brain rather than the brain producing consciousness. The notion that consciousness is separated from the body has a long tradition in the west thinkers. Plato portrayed the earthly body as a limiting factor on conscious experience. Kant insinuated the body as "an imposition to our pure spiritual life". The idea matured into a proposition called Transmission Hypothesis --- brain and body serve not as the originators of consciousness but rather as its trans-receiver. The cited supporting evidences for this hypothesis are mostly in the typically considered unscientific fields, such as, psychedelic research, psi effect, after death experience, etc.. As a result this hypothesis is ill received within the philosophic and scientific community. But that does not mean they are wrong, to separate consciousness from body might a very sensible thing to do in the light of above facts.  

Since memory does not reside inside the brain, the functions of the brain need to be reinvestigated. It is possible that the brain acts as a bridge to consciousness as suggested by Penfield, or a trans-receiver suggested by William James. The similarity between the two is obvious, and the brain is the only pathway to consciousness and memory for both cases. The importance of brain to memory has been supported by a vast number of critical researches over a long history. But the evidence to suggest that the brain is the only organ associated with memory is lacking, on the contrary, some evidences suggest that the heart might be associated with memory too. 

Does the heart have memory? The question has been around for years. The question arises anew after years of transplanting the heart or other organs into human beings and noticing some changes in the recipients. After having had heart transplants some recipients have noticed profound changes in their personalities. For some, there is an overwhelming need to consume quantities of Mexican foods when that type of cuisine was never a favorite. For others, a sudden love for football, when sports were previously hated, comes into play.

How can these phenomena be explained? Can the heart actually feel, think, and remember? The answer could shed light on how memory is handled by human.

Rollin MacCraty from California's Hearthmath University has devised tests which show how the heart processes information. His tests showed that the heart responded before the brain when encountering an emotional event. He concluded the heart must have the ability to process emotional data.

To associate heart with memory is a legitimate proposition based on these findings. But there is no medical evidence indicating that changing the heart to a mechanical heart leads to memory loss. This implies memory is not stored in the heart. Could it be because that heart does not store memory but is a gateway to the memory? What kind of memory can be accessed through heart? Are other organs gateways to limited memory too? These questions ask for expanding memory research to a much wider ground besides the brain.

The inevitable question is, if memory is not inside the brain, where does memory reside? The short answer is: we don't know. Scientific pursuit has always been looking for evidence to support a logic conclusion derived from a general theory. If the general theory is fundamentally flawed, the progressing of science will stop and wait for convincing evidence to overturn the general theory. Only from there, science will flourish again on the new foundation. Materialism has been very successful for the advancement of living standard and scientific queries. Recent research in quantum mechanics suggests reality in a more basic level might not be materialism at all. Memory might be in a physical form we do not know or reside outside our physical world. We shall wait for new evidence to emerge.

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The memory in the brain

On June 2, 2005, NBC Philadelphia, had an interesting report. Christina Santhouse had a virus that is a rare brain disease caused by Rasmussen's syndrome, at the age of eight prisoners known. And the doctor had to perform hemispherectomy, removing half the brain of this. After 10 years, Christina was about to finish high school honors. Postoperatively, there was no work in a leg and left hand. He also lost his peripheral vision, but otherwise it was anormal teenager. A similar case was reported Bursa Telegraph (UK) 29 May 2002, called the disease as a child and he left hemisphere was also removed when she was three years, was fluent in Dutch and had turkish 7. In 1987, A. Smith reported that a patient with hemispherectomy had completed college, completed his university studies and scored above average in intelligence tests. The studies found no significant long-term memory, personality, mood, or afterMethods and minimal change in cognitive function in general.

The result is surprising hemispherectomy. Neuroscience tend to suggest that memory is stored in neurons in the brain. If this premise is true, removing half the brain may be to destroy the memory when the memory is in the structure of the neural network, such as cognitive physiology school, or at least to destroy half the memory when the bit information stored in the memory of each are neurons in the brainSuggested by another school of cognitive neuroscience. But it is clear that, unlike the results obtained with one of these statements. Remove the part of the brain is one of the standard operations for severe epilepsy and has taken thousands of times. Many results are quite similar to those of hemispherectomy.

The orthodox explanation for the observation that the information is stored in the affected areas of the brain, in part, duplicate the health of the brainoperation. This rationalization is still insufficient in view of brain surgery is performed. Surgeon infected area and some surrounding healthy tissue, sometimes a screen much bigger than the infected area to ensure that infections do not spread to delete. If the information is reproduced stored on the infected area is somewhere in the brain surgery is always a certain loss of information when healthy tissues surrounding the brain is removed so that theMemory suffer.

This was not observed after the operation. Therefore, it is necessary to assume that the data stored in memory to the health of adjacent tissue in other parts of the brain reproduced. This raises a question: How does the brain know the amount of healthy tissue is removed? When the brain does not know, inevitably destroy some memory operations. The belief that memory is stored in the brain (or neurons of the neural network) seem to contradictThe results of operational research on the brain.

In 1920, Karl Lashley conducted a series of experiments is to determine which part of the brain, memories are stored. That rats trained to find their way through a maze, then made lesions in various parts of the crust in an attempt to erase the memory trace of origin. Their animals were still able to find their way through the maze, regardless of where they had lesions in the brain. he concluded that memoriesstored in any region of the brain, but spread across it. The memory allocation for every event unique and whole brain energy inefficient and mathematically impossible. If your reasoning is not limited to the brain, the logical conclusion that the memory is not stored in the brain.

The instincts are hereditary and apparently has no idea that the information is stored in memory instincts, cognitive, and suppose thatacquired through experience and stored by the chemical signal in the nerve cells of the brain.

New research shows that cognitive memory can be inherited. A study conducted by Larry Feig, Tufts University School of Medicine shows in Boston, the mice, the mother received a mental training before pregnancy are at their service knowledge to their children spend the same direct contact between mothers and their descendants be. It 'clear that no cognitive memorythrough the experience gained by young people, and there is no obvious way for young people, the information stored in neurons, and where young people go to the store? Perhaps where to store the information instincts, you do not know the place.

"The areas of the brain thought as the hippocampus, amygdala, striatum, or mammillary bodies are involved in some types of memory. For example, the hippocampus is thought to be involved in spatial learning anddeclarative learning, while the amygdala is believed to be involved in emotional memory. Damage to certain regions of patients and in animal models and memory deficits following is a primary source of information. However, rather than involve a specific area, it is possible that the damage was along a journey through the area actually observed in the deficit "(From http://www.wikipedia.com). If all that was stored in a tank connected to your home for aThe road would not be able to get something out of the field when the road will be reduced. To assume that everyone on the road, you actually can do anything if the road is interrupted was saved ridiculous. The connection between the brain and memory is well established, which is beyond logic to conclude that memory is in the brain.

Wilder Penfield was a pioneer in the distribution of certain types of memory in certain brain areas. Iftransactions in certain types of temporal lobe epilepsy loci resulted in the elimination of the breakthroughs made the decision that patients without anesthesia-(block with local pain) was able to listen and answer your questions as temporary began as a. In fact, the answer given by the patient's verbal is essential for precise cutting Penfield this part of the brain that was involved, couldThe neurological symptoms are treated. Put an electrode in the brain to see the patient and electrical stimulation, as the patient.

A patient of Penfield has a selection of music is played by an orchestra particular, "if an item is on the upper surface of the right temporal lobe stimulated after removal of the front half of the fin." The sound was so clear that the patient believes that there is a phonograph in the operating room. In the same positionwas stimulated again (without removing the electrode and to stop the supply of new electrical impulses), the music at the same time, he had started earlier.

When the electrode maintained Penfield, heard nothing of the patient. Found that the patient could not guess what happened after the electrode was removed. "LG is one man's struggle. If the point was again suggested that he saw a man and a dog along a path." Often, memory is not powerhe said.

Early in his career in brain surgery, Penfield motivated memory must be stored somewhere in the brain and the appeal opened the door to the river of memory. His works have been numerous studies memory and emotions related to a specific area of ​​the brain. Penfield ongoing research convinced him that the memory can not exist in the brain. He and his colleague reported that changes is the cerebral cortex after injury to the intelligence quotient. In one caseHe was surprised to learn that his patients had IQ of 75 80 to 95, after the extension of the bilateral removal of the prefrontal lobes. William Cone reported similar results after removing a portion of the patient's brain. other articles of Penfield, in particular the hippocampus and cortex had changed their views on the brain, consciousness and the mechanism of memory. Suggested that the interpretation of the crust of the temporal lobe end serves as a bridge, and the hippocampus is a keyAccess to the experience of the passage is located somewhere outside the brain.

The philosopher William James had a different opinion, but technically very similar to how consciousness Penfield. He argued that consciousness works through the brain, rather than the brain produces consciousness. The idea that the mind is separated from the body has a long tradition in Western thinker. Plato describes the earthly body as a limiting factor for the conscious experience. Kantborne by the body as "an imposition on our pure spiritual life." The idea of ​​paying a fee, known as the scenarios of transmission --- the brain and the body serves as the manager of consciousness, rather than their trans-receiver. The evidence cited in support of this hypothesis are usually in government and scientific sectors, such as the psychedelic research, the psychological effect, after the experience of death, etc. In consequence of this hypothesis has been patient in the philosophical and scientificCommunity. But this does not mean they are wrong to separate from the consciousness of the body is a very sensible thing to do, given the events mentioned above.

Since memory is not in the brain function of the brain to be studied again. It 'possible that the brain itself as a bridge to the conscience of Penfield, or a trans-receiver William James proposed. The similarity between the two is obvious, and the brain is the only form of consciousnessand memory in both cases. The importance of the brain in the shop has a variety of support to critical research on a long history. But the evidence that the brain is the only body with the missing memory is allocated to the contrary, some evidence suggests that the heart is associated with memory.

At the heart of memory? The matter has been for years. The question was raised again after years of heart transplants and other organsPeople and notice some changes in the receiver. After heart transplantation have been perceived by some profound changes in personality. For some, there is an urgent need to consume the quantities of Mexican food, if this type of cuisine has never been a favorite. For others, a sudden love for football is so hated sports game before.

How to explain this phenomenon? The heart can feel, think and remember? The answer could provideLight on how the memory of those treated.

HeartMath MacCraty Rollin University of California looked at how the heart develops display process information. Their tests showed that the heart before the brain reacts in front of an emotional event. Closed heart has the capacity to process emotional information they have.

Thus, a link to the memory of the heart is a legitimate movement is based on these results. But there is no medical evidence that a change of hearta mechanical heart leads to memory loss. This means that memory is not stored in the heart. Perhaps because the heart does not remember, but it is a gateway to the store? What kind of memory can get to the heart? Gateway to other organs are very low memory? issues related to the development of research on memory to a much wider field to side of the brain.

The inevitable question is, if my memory is not in the brain, where memory alive? The short answer is: I do not know.scientific research always arises for a reference to a logical conclusion of a general theory of support. If the general theory is fundamentally flawed, the progress of science is to stop and wait for convincing evidence to refute the theory. But from there, again flourishing of science in the new database. The material was very fruitful for the promotion of living standards and scientific issues. Recent research suggests the reality in quantum mechanicsa basic level, the material can not. The memory can be in a physical form, do not know or do not live beyond our physical world. Await further testing.

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