Use magnets to find forgotten memories

There is a new way to find lost memory. Scientists have used magnets to help people recall their past.

Someone reads you the phone number, you dial the number immediately, but 10 minutes later, do you still remember the phone number? People understand how the brain stores information, but how to access it easily when there is a need, is not fully understood. But this new study gives light to understanding our complex brain.

The study says that by using magnets, forgotten memories will be recovered . In the past, people thought that our "working memory" remembers important information in a short period of time. As phone dialing requires maintenance activities to keep this information. But in a new study, the University of Wisconsin-Madison team showed that the brain conceals less important information somewhere, making it difficult to regulate brain activity. accessible. Researchers can bring that information back to work intentionally, thanks to magnets .

The brain still has many mysteries about memory retention.(Photo: Getty Images)

Research can help treat people with schizophrenia or are desperate, by finding new ways to control human thinking. "Many mental illnesses involve people being unable to choose what they want to think about. What we are doing is the first step in finding a mechanism to control what people are thinking , " Important author of the study, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Brad Postle said. Professor Postle also told MailOnline: "Mental illnesses make patients' thoughts become messy. For example, frustration with thinking negative things, schizophrenia with virtual sense, get involved and create noisy signals in the brain, which people with unhealthy minds can ignore them. "

According to Professor Postle, most people feel they can focus more on their memories, compared to their working memory. Your conception of being able to perceive everything at all times, is just a kind of illusion created from your consciousness. The same is true for thinking. You have the impression that you are thinking many things at once, keeping them all in mind. But many studies have shown, you only think very few things.

A person is participating in experiments with a magnet-mounted device.(Photo: NS Rose et al)

The researchers conducted a series of experiments in which participants were asked to remember two different types of information, using words, facial expressions and direct movements. When the researchers gave attendees a suggestion, brain activity and blood flow in the brain, related to the memory of words, disappeared. But if a second suggestion is given and participants know they will be asked questions regarding those words, the brain's activity immediately moves to a highly concentrated mode. Scientists can also make forgotten memories return to the brain , without giving suggestions to participants.

Using a technology called TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) , researchers applied electromagnetic fields focused on an exact part of the brain related to words. They can then activate the type of brain activity, which represents attention. "People always think that neurons are always blinking to keep everything in memory. Most brain patterns pretend about it (remember everything). But we are witnessing people remember things one by one. almost perfectly, without showing any activity related to the flickering neuron, the fact is, you can bring back all the memories in this example, proving that everything has been forgotten. The problem is that we don't see clear evidence for active retention in the brain, " said Professor Postle.

But not all human memory is stored in this area, and researchers still need to dig deeper to know what the brain holds and what to forget."We still don't know which brain to decide to" abandon "things, and allow things to be stored in short-term memory if you need them. basic research on this issue, " Professor Postle said.