In article <robbiep-2610951505250001 at 198.236.126.103> Billy Bob Bud,
robbiep at riverdale.k12.or.us writes:
>and networks. I was wondering basicly how we remember things and more
>about how we consciously and unconsciously think. I know that the cells
Hi Robbie,
You're asking a lot in this post. Right now, neuroscience doesn't have
any real answer for how we remember things or how we think, at least in
terms of a completely developed picture. But there are some pretty strong
candidate theories about the fundamental processes involved in memory.
The main ones these days are long term potentiation (LTP) and long term
depression (LTD). These are processes in which the strength of the
synaptic connection between one neuron and another is altered under
certain conditions. For example, the size of an excitatory postsynaptic
current (EPSC) can be increased by high frequency stimulation of the
presynaptic nerve (LTP), and this increase can last for hours, days or
weeks. The synapse functions more efficiently after LTP than it did
before, and one could say that it "remembers" the high frequency
stimulation and acts accordingly. LTP and LTD have properties that are
similar in some ways to memory processes in animals: conditioning,
associativity, forgetting, saturation, etc. In addition to LTP/LTD,
there're probably morphological changes that accompany memory storage,
that can be likened to the re-wiring of a computer. It's not yet known
exactly how these small scale processes give rise to real memory or
thinking, but it's sort of a central tenet of neuroscience that the large
scale processes must somehow arise from the small scale ones.
Other readers of this group can discuss all of these issues much better
than I can. But I can suggest an excellent source of information that's
not filled with technical jargon: Scientific American (September 1992,
Mind and Brain) had a whole issue devoted to modern views of the brain
and how it works. Maybe your school or public library has it.
Good luck
-Matt Jones
