In a new study published this Wednesday, in the journal Neuron, researchers have explained as to how people form memories of everyday events in their mind. They even sought to study how underlying neurons change their behaviour, when a person's brain is made to form new associations.
For the study, the researchers took a sample of 14 people with severe epilepsy. They implanted electrodes in the brains of these participants, in a region called the medial temporal lobe, wherein individual neurons played a central role in forming memories.
They found that the electrodes zeroed in on the location where the epilepsy seizures arose. They also enabled the researchers to identify individual neurons that encoded memories. The study mainly took place in three phases. Firstly, the subjects were shown almost 100 pictures of their favourite celebrities, including, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Halle Berry, Clint Eastwood, Tiger Woods and Brolin.
Next, they were shown pictures of few places like the Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa and White House. The researchers noted which neurons were at play, while the subjects saw pictures in the first two steps. Finally, the researchers created composite images with both celebrities and places. Here again, they made a note of the neurons' activity, when the subjects formed associations between people and places.
What they found was that the individual neurons that had earlier only responded to persons, now, immediately started responding to places as well. This was because the subjects now identified a place with a particular person, that they saw in the picture.
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