Memory

Familiar categories of mental functions such as perception, memory and attention reflect our experience of ourselves, but they are misleading about how the brain works. More revealing approaches are emerging.

Some populations of neurons simultaneously process sensations and memories. New work shows how the brain rotates those representations to prevent interference.

Researchers see structural changes in genetic material that allow memories to strengthen when remembered.

Faced with a decision, the brain weighs its options by bundling them into rapidly alternating cycles of brain waves.

While we sleep, one kind of slow brain wave helps to reinforce memories, but a competing wave weakens them.

Researchers found that elongating certain brain signals in rats improved their memory. The work revealed a new property to look out for in the hunt for “biomarkers” of learning.

Two new studies show that the brain’s navigation system changes how it represents physical space to reflect personal experience.

The brain can’t directly encode the passage of time, but recent work hints at a workaround for putting timestamps on memories of events.

Emerging evidence suggests that the brain encodes abstract knowledge in the same way that it represents positions in space, which hints at a more universal theory of cognition.