Summary Of How Our Brains Make Memories Greg Miller

I was assigned to read How Our Brains Make Memories by Greg Miller. The question that I found relevant for this paper is, “can memory be changed over time?” The article cites Karim Nader a neuroscientist McGill University in Montreal, Canada. As reported in this article according to Nader the very act of recalling a memory can actually change the memory. Memories of major events, known as flash bulb memories are more likely to change since people replay them over and over in their minds. Nader, for example, remembered that on 9/11 he saw television footage of the first plane hitting the north tower of the World Trade Center. He was surprised to learn later that this footage wasn’t shown until the next day. Nader believes that in order to bring a memory to mind you have to alter it in some way. If this is true it could be helpful for people with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, because, they can change traumatic memories by recalling them. Some scientists believe that each memory adjusts a tiny subset of the neuron in the brain, changing the way our memories communicate. However other scientists, like neuroscientist, Eric Kandel, suggest that once the memory is constructed it is stable and can't be easily undone or changed. Nader decided to challenge that idea. He taught four rats that a high …show more content…
The challenge with treating patients who suffer PTSD through memory reconsolidation is that long term memory is much more solidified and takes more time to change. A report on this topic was posted in The Atlantic, “…with reconsolidation, the researchers explain, consciously recalling a memory is also what allows it to be manipulated. “[Memories] are not necessarily fixed but can be changed long after storage…seemingly stable memories may re-enter an unstable state when they are retrieved, from which they must be re-stabilized … During reconsolidation, memories are susceptible to modification again.”