Scientists Search for Where Memories Are Stored in the Brain

Remember your first kiss? The first time you fell in love? The first time you tasted chocolate? Your last great success? How about the first steps of your child or your wedding day? Those memories may be more locatable and closer than you think. In fact, scientists think they may be closer to finding out exactly where in your head those memories are stored.

Scientists have assumed that memories are processed and stored somewhere in the brain's network of cells and cell connectors called neurons and synapses. But what scientists have yet to figure out is how these cells and connectors can support long-lasting memories, given that cell connectors regularly degrade and are replaced by new ones.

Researchers from the University of Alberta may have figured it out. Professor Jack Tuszynski, his graduate student Travis Craddock, and University of Arizona professor Stuart Hameroff looked at the molecular structure of proteins deep inside brain cells and connectors. They concluded that these interior components have the processing and storage capacity needed to retain memories.

So what does all this mean, practically? Well, the more information we have about how memories are created and stored, the closer we are to finding ways to accelerate our brain, treat and prevent diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia, and treat traumatic brain injury, all of which rob people of precious memories.

In my new book The Brain That Changes Everything : The Ultimate Guide to Accelerating Your Brain I share multiple methods for cognitive enhancement that may help bring those "very special moments" out of the fog and back to the surface.