Year in review: Memories vulnerable to manipulation
Experiments reveal how brain forms, stores recollections
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Memories can often seem hazy, but the brain creates and destroys them with exacting precision. New experimental results reported in 2014 helped bring scientists closer to understanding how the brain manipulates memories to make sense of
the world.
The results have practical implications, too: By picking apart the memory process, scientists may ultimately be able to intervene in cases when bad memories become problematic. “Right now it may sound like science fiction,” says neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa of MIT. But in the next few decades, scientists and clinicians may develop sophisticated ways of tapping into certain brain regions to ease bad memories that can contribute to problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, he says.