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Your Einstein body process change depending on whether you ’re recall a true or a false memory , new research suggests . A " pretended " memory refer to when you remember something that did n’t happen or that actually occur at a unlike time or piazza .

Remembering past result , experiences or information tied to a specific context , such as a natal day party , first appointment or late trip to the grocery fund , is eff asepisodic memory ; that ’s oppose to semantic memory , which is relate to general knowledge and facts untethered to a time or place and not related to one ’s own past . occasional memories are largely control by a learning ability region called thehippocampus , but what encounter in the brain social system when hoi polloi misremember events has been a enigma — until now .

Close-up of a neuron on a black background that is firing (as shown by yellow glowing dots) with interconnected neurons in the background

A specific pattern of electrical activity can be detected in neurons in the hippocampus of the brain before a false memory is recalled.

According to the new written report , published Sept. 26 in the journalPNAS , a specific pattern of electrical activity erupts in the hippocampus immediately before someone return a false retention — and it differs from the electrical body process that takes place when multitude think of an case correctly .

" Whereas prior bailiwick deploy the role of the genus Hippocampus in event memory , we did not jazz that electrical signals mother in this region would differentiate the impending callback of on-key from false memories,“Michael Kahana , senior study author and a prof of psychological science at the University of Pennsylvania , say in astatement .

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Side view of 3D illustration of the human brain with the hippocampus region highlighted in red

The hippocampus, pictured above, is key for recalling memories of events or experiences that happened in specific contexts.

A better understanding of this brain activeness could help prognosticate when people are die to recall a distressing false memory , far take out from its original context , the cogitation authors propose .

For example , people withpost - traumatic stress disorder(PTSD ) " often receive retention intrusions of their traumatic experiences under setting that are safe and dissimilar to the traumatic incident , " they wrote in the paper . In possibility , new medical intervention could be design to monitor and disrupt this brainpower activity to put a full point to the disturbing flashback , the bailiwick source propose .

In the new survey , the investigator recorded electric activity in the genus Hippocampus of patients withepilepsy , who ’d already had electrodes implanted in their brain so doctors could track their seizures . The team ab initio ask the affected role to study a list of unrelated Book , such as " pizza " and " clock , " and then retrieve them in any society after a brief break . Before studying the " fair game " word list , the participant had been shown a different list of Good Book that could potentially turn on up their retentivity . In such tests of occasional memory , the words are contextually bound together by their source , mean the word list on which they ’re present .

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The rhythm of electrical activity in the hippocampus differed dramatically when patients correctly call back a intelligence from the fair game list or falsely remembered one that had n’t been included . This electrical bodily process seem less than a second before they enounce the word and then fade quickly afterward .

Interestingly , if a patient incorrectly recalled a word from the other list they ’d been shown , their hippocampal rhythms were more similar to those hear when they recollect right words . The calendar method differed most importantly when they sound out a Son they ’d never been show . The author hypothesized that this was likely because the affected role were in the same situational context — sitting at the same seat in the same elbow room — when they hive away the retentiveness of the Christian Bible on both lists . In other words , the share circumstance made the memories more similar to one another in the brain .

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In a 2nd experiment , the source asked the patient to study and recall related password , categorized as flowers , fruits and louse . The importance of situational linguistic context was also express in this trial . For example , after a patient studied the efflorescence list , if they recalled an wrong but similar word of honor , such as " sunflower " instead of a " lily , " their hippocampal rhythm was more similar than if they ’d call back a word that was completely unrelated , such as " clock . "

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The authors wrote that these finding may explain how the hippocampus distinguishes between similar memories made in dissimilar contexts — for exemplar , what you cooked for dinner tonight versus last dark . And it may pave the way for fresh therapies to treat diseases where memory recollection goes haywire . However , it ’s still unclear whether these electrical signature are really responsible for for the assumed computer storage or just go on at the same time . Future studies could search this by by experimentation cook brain action , the authors indite .

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