How the Brain Weaves Place and Emotion into Memory |
The hippocampus replays emotional experiences during sleep.
The brain binds the place where something happened with the feeling it carried.
Threatening experiences may return during sleep with greater precision than rewarding ones.
"It is a poor sort of memory that only works backward.”—Lewis Caroll’s The Red Queen
"It is a poor sort of memory that only works backward.”—Lewis Caroll’s The Red Queen
Memory and imagination may be two sides of the same coin. Both our memories and imaginations recreate images of the past and future from existing fragments. So too for dreams, according to a recent study.
A new study in Nature Neuroscience centers on how the brain remembers an experience that carries both a location and emotional charge. A memory is rarely a plain record of where we were. It carries tone, consequence, and bodily feeling. Place and emotion often fuse in our minds. This study investigates how that fusion may occur in the hippocampus, a brain structure long associated with memory.
The hippocampus has two main poles. Its dorsal portion helps represent space and supports the........