-
Asked by to Alan, Deepak, Francesca, Lilly, Nick on 18 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
Question: what causes memory loss. and what triggers our memory to return again??
-
Francesca Day answered on 18 Mar 2014:
There are many different causes of memory loss, and we certainly don’t understand it fully! It’s generally to do with a connection going wrong in your brain, so that it can’t retrieve the memories its stored. I’m afraid I’m by no means an expert on this area though!
-
-
Lilian Hunt answered on 18 Mar 2014:
Memory loss can happen in extreme cases because of swelling on the brain which when they’re reduced can come back. Day to day memory loss is a lot different. We think that we do have those memories somewhere but struggle to retrieve them without a queue (like a key word to remember a sentence when revising). So often we can remember when the queue is there. The problem is we really don’t understand the brain that well. Some people think that a new group of stem cells discovered in the brain are used to form new connections for new memories and when some cells die we will forget those things forever. People with dementia often forget and it’s thought to be because the network of cells in their brains get clogged up with proteins and some cells die. We’re really not certain but there’s a lot of research in this area!
-
Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 18 Mar 2014:
There are many causes of memory loss, but I’m not a doctor so I don’t know exactly what happens. Like Francesca and Lilian said, memories are stored in the brain, through the connections between billions of brain cells. So some memories can be lost by a brain injury or a disease, if those connections are broken. If we can get a memory back, it means those connections are still there, but for some reason we couldn’t get to them for a while.
-
Nick Wright answered on 21 Mar 2014:
Good question! Our brains are actually really complex and we still don’t fully understand how our brains gather and store memories. Because of this we don’t know why our memories can fade or disappear as we get older, or why something can somehow trigger some of those memories to return at a later date.
Scientists are trying to study our brains in a lot more detail because we think there is a lot we could learn about how our brains work that might help us understand brain diseases and illnesses, as well as understand how intelligence and things like memory work. Would you like to be a scientist and study human brains in the future?
Comments