Research Suggests Memory Also Exists Outside the Brain
Our brain isn’t the only place memories form in our body. New York University (NYU) researchers have discovered learning through repetition may be fundamental to all of our cells
The process may also help explain why taking breaks is such a powerful learning tool.
“Learning and memory are generally associated with brains and brain cells alone, but our study shows that other cells in the body can learn and form memories, too,” says neuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin.
Better understanding of how this process works could lead to more effective treatments for learning and memory problems, Kukushkin explains.
Many learn the hard way that cramming for exams doesn’t create the most reliable or long term memories. Multiple cycles of chemical activity through a repeated behavior is what triggers the memory-formation process among our neurons, encoding incresasingly stronger memories.
This phenomenon is called the massed-spaced effect and is highly conserved in all animals at both the cellular and behavioral levels.
By exposing non-brain nerve and kidney cells to similar chemical patterns in the lab, Kukushkin and colleagues showed for the first time that these tissues experience massed-spaced effect too.
Genes associated with memory formation in neurons also seemed to be activated within these cells, based on measures of a byproduct of the genes’ expression called luciferase.
“The ability to learn from spaced repetition isn’t unique to brain cells, but, in fact, might be a fundamental property of all cells,” explains Kukushkin.
How the nerve and kidney cells responsed depended on the number of rounds of protein kinases A and C (PKA and PKC) they were treated with. These chemical ‘training pulses’ are known components of memory forming signaling cascades.
“A three-minute pulse did turn on the ‘memory gene,’ but only for an hour or two, whereas after four pulses, the gene was turned on stronger, and stayed on for days,” Kukushkin writes for Psychology Today.
The cell responses also depended on the time between pulses. These factors varied how strongly the memory-forming molecules were activated, and for how long – exactly what happens with our neurons.
“Memory exists not only in the brain, but throughout our body, and this ‘body memory’ could play a role in health and disease,” writes Kukushkin.
There’s still much to learn about how this all works inside human bodies. Previously the researchers found increasing interactions between PKA and enzymes called extracellular signal-regulated kinases in sea hares (Aplysia) – animals commonly used to study neuron behavior – not only enhanced learning but could repair learning deficits too.
“We will need to treat our body more like the brain,” Kukushkin recommends. “For example, consider what our pancreas remembers about the pattern of our past meals to maintain healthy levels of blood glucose or consider what a cancer cell remembers about the pattern of chemotherapy.”
This research was published in Nature Communications.
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Howdy
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May I suggest memories are not stored by the body at all, but exist outside of time and space…
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Chris
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Yes, and this has been suggested by almost every ancient culture on earth. That the unseen parts of our structure (health, emotion, cognition) in fact precede our physical interaction with those phenomena. In India, they call them “bio-energy bodies” and, in succession moving outward from the physical body are the vital body, astral body, and lower mental body. Robert Monroe gets into this in his books though without using the same words:
https://www.thearchitect.global/the-25th-page-of-the-cias-gateway-report-on-astral-projection-has-been-discovered/
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Howdy
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Hello Chris,
Yes I’ve known about the mental, causal, and the other layers to the onion, but it’s not my thing.
Time has diluted the truth, and Humans are more convinced than ever that they are imbued with divinity, thus able to do anything.
Have sex while astral travelling. Really? The spirit realm is as corrupt as the solid form if people are to be believed.
The true Goddess has now become the serpent power, that can be bent to do a person’s bidding, and yet, serpents are simply the visualization of an energy, not a description of it. All this is blasphemy, and I’m to believe people are Divine?
Souls that walk in and out of bodies, self actualization, self-realization, that’s a good one, DIY Kundalini, the third eye, the akashic records etc etc.
Look over to the “masters of health” publication on the right that displays, ‘Bodhisattva Betty’. This is claiming to be the equal of Christ. On a front cover? I think not.
People have an inner need that is pushing them to second grade attempts to be what their ‘soul’ yearns, to such an extent they create an imaginary world to accommodate it.
I’ve been studying this for years. The only way to know something is to become it, so I have done. It makes no sense now, other than why it is happening at all..
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Howdy
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The Bodhisattva that stayed behind:
https://www.holymtn.com/homepage/gods-goddesses/quan-yin-goddess-mercy/
A rather lovely image of the same deity:
https://www.deviantart.com/phaedris/art/Kwan-Yin-Guanyin-II-252657405
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Frank S.
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“Muscle memory: has been known about for years.
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Howdy
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If I drive up a hill I haven’t used before, I still climb that hill appropriately without even thinking about my foot position. So-called muscle memory requires training to achieve that, which since I didn’t take that route before, memory does not exist. Thus it is an unrealistic notion.
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Frank S.
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Muscle Memory: The ability to reproduce a particular movement without conscious thought, acquired as a result of frequent repetition of that movement.
Example: Driving – An experienced driver can drive without having to think about their every movement.
This pertains to the repetitive practice of driving, regardless of familiarity with a given route.
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Howdy
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“frequent repetition of that movement.”
As initially explained, and unlike the clutch pedal, which moves very slowly as the friction material wears, thus easy for muscle memory to explain, there is no frequent repetition of that movement to the correct pressure of the foot since the situation has not been done before. No previous training to know the correct position to provide sufficient power for the hill.
Snooker players don’t just take shots without thinking regardless of how many years they played, because every shot is different. No muscle memory possible
Anything else is wishfull thinking in the face of no actual evidence
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