memory formation

[devloid]

how are memories physicaly manifest in brain structure

[bernardo]

Exercising the brain is a bit like exercising muscles.  If you do the same thing over and over again, the connections of nerve-endings in the brain will get stronger and stronger, and it will be easier for the brain to do the same thing next time.  If you haven't done the thing for ages, the nerves will weaken and you will forget again (like practising something regularly, and then not doing).

[stevie21]

There isn't one part of the brain that physically stores all memories - that's simplifying how your brain works too much. In fact, that's almost going back to phrenology.

The brain is the single most complex thing in the known universe so don't expect to get any easy answers when you ask about it.

A bit of a change of subject but one small aspect of an answer here is that well rehearsed/automated memories (I think, specifically of movement, like how to ride a bike) are stored in the cerebellum rather than the cortex.

Also, I agree with bernardo's practice/exercise comments.

[BetsyLou]

Except.. they aren't 'nerves' they're synapses. And the rehearsal thing is a (proposed) way of explaining how things are remembered, not how they are stored.

I don't think anyone really knows the answer to your question, but (from what i remember) Stevie above is right about the episodic (memories of things that have happened to you), semantic (memories of facts eg knowing the alphabet) and procedural (remembering how to ride a bike/ play the piano etc) memory are definitely stored separately. Well, procedural memory is separate, anyway.

[Peter Pedant]

Oh God if you find out you get a Nobel prize.

JZ Young wrote a lot about this in the fifties.

Other experiments are: if you teach a rat a learned thing, and then take away bits of its brain, you cant cut out the memory unless - you virtually take out the whole brain.

Clin Blakemore Prof phys Ox, did a series on this a few years ago. Even with wonky glasses a good games player can relearn hand to eye coo-rodination within a minute or so.

In short they still, after a hundred or so years have very little idea.....