How Memories Form and Fade

Ever wonder why you can remember the name of your childhood best friend that you haven’t seen in years yet easily forget the name of a person you just met a moment ago?

New research done in the laboratory of TCCI®-affiliated biology professor Carlos Lois at Caltech, uses mouse models to determine that strong, stable memories are encoded by “teams” of neurons all firing in synchrony, providing redundancy that enables these memories to persist over time.

Lois’ research has implications for understanding how memory might be affected after brain damage, such as by strokes or Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more on Caltech’s website