A good memory or a bad one? One brain molecule decides

[gofreddygo]

My view of the human brain at this point is a massive excel spreadsheet.

Some cells depend on others. Some dont. Change one cell and it usually has an effect on others. Some changes are instantaneous, some takes longer. Some take long enough that you can't figure what caused this effect.

The only difference vs excel is here is we only get to see the cells, and their values, not the formulae behind it. And we are systematically trying to reverse engineer the formulae from the changes we see. We find some patterns, think its a formula, only to later find a contradiction, and that we don't know enough of the formulae yet. In some cases, the contradictions haven't been found just yet.

Theory after theory, change after change.

[specialist]

Ya, cool metaphor. Boids meets reactive programming.

In a book stuffed with ideas, Lingua ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky [2001] had two metaphors that have stuck with me.

There are Darwinian processes within the brain. Like your ear hears some noise, could be interpreted as either "cap" or "cat", those two possibilities fight it out until one wins.

There's a song, some kind of pattern sequence, weaving back and forth, which might be how parts of the brain intracommunicate, which might be how memories are encoded and retrieved (and may also explains why memories are changed by being recalled).

https://www.amazon.com/Lingua-Machina-Reconciling-Darwin-Cho...

I also remain enthralled by the notion that our brains are prediction engines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Intelligence https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Brains-New-Theory-Intelligen...

I want some kind of synthesis of your spreadsheet and Hawkins' prediction engine metaphors to be true. That'd be cool.

[skohan]

A spreadsheet with probably at least thousands of columns and billions or trillions of rows.

[polishdude20]

It seems like this microcosm is akin to the macrocosm of human emotions, memories, psychology etc.

[causality0]

Interesting. I wonder how common miscalibrations are. Personally I've noticed that my overall impression of experiences is usually much more positive than they should be. I'll think back to, say, a business trip I didn't want to take and think of it fondly even though almost every individual memory I have of it I was either bored or miserable.

[bheadmaster]

> Personally I've noticed that my overall impression of experiences is usually much more positive than they should be.

I envy you a little bit.

I've noticed that my overall impression of experiences is usually extremely negative, as no matter how many positive memories I have, the negative experiences always overwhelm me so much that the positive ones don't even feel real.

I remember going to a vacation, and while there were a few pleasant moments, I can't really recall them and re-experience them - I just know rationally that they did happen. But recalling unpleasant moments brings all the unpleasantness back to the present moment.

I really wish it was the other way around.

[tluyben2]

I have been training for almost a decade to flag all experiences as positive. It works; things that were objectively bad (chemo, having covid, getting robbed, business partner stealing money from the company, horrible clients etc) are all positive memories in my head. The only thing that I couldn’t manage was my dogs death; he was mauled to death by a pitbull right in front of me. I used to be quite a negative person and many earlier memories that were not that terrible are all giving me over the top bad feelings: when my grandfather died, I was wallowing so much in negativity that I decided to stop doing that once and for all. It works: live feels very positive and nice even though it of course often is not.

[davidhay]

Checkout the Pollyanna principle [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle

[NavinF]

Highly relevant: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-10-04

[djoshea]

Summary from the abstract with acronyms expanded:

“In sum, we have identified NT (neurotensin) as a neuropeptide that signals valence in the BLA (basolateral amygdala) and showed that NT is a critical neuromodulator that orchestrates positive and negative valence assignment in amygdala neurons by extending valence-specific plasticity to behaviourally relevant timescales.”

[pcthrowaway]

Love the artwork for this. Off topic, but when I see art like this I now have to wonder if it was produced through AI-assisted generation

[quantumsequoia]

I notice AI generated artwork is very good at getting an accurate main subject of the artwork, but seems to lack having small sized details of an image be consistent with the broad message

Things like having a waterfall on the positive side seem very human to me and I doubt it was done by AI

[echelon]

Quanta has the following roles [1], though I wonder how much duplication there is given that several cite "illustration" :

- Art Director

- Graphics Editor

- Visual Designer

Once these AI/ML tools become better, I think a lot of magazines and news orgs will lower their staffing for this role and redeploy the capital to other efforts.

Hopefully existing illustrators can stay on board and work in other creative areas.

[1] https://www.quantamagazine.org/about/

[zeknife]

It's credited to Jason Lyon

[siavosh]

Related, does this happen to anyone else: you're going about your day, then a random memory comes to you? My theory is something subtle/unconscious makes me remember it (something I saw or felt). I asked my wife if it happens to her, but she said no. Happens to me a few times a week.

[zdragnar]

I get this semi-frequently, though almost exclusively those with negative emotions attached to them. It has either contributed to, been the cause of, or an effect of (or combination) chronic depression for over half of my life now.

Between medication and some therapy, I'm stable and high functioning, though I feel like I'm always one traumatic experience away from losing it.

I wish I could donate my active brain to science as it feels like there is clearly something not quite well adjusted about it, but alas, I'm still using it (most of the time anyway).

[whalesalad]

Yep, happens to me all the time. Since introducing psychedelics into my life I’ve been able to gain more awareness of this and can usually trace things back to what triggered the memory. Like a smell, or a food, music, or a pile of mail/clutter sitting on the counter, an advertisement, etc. I’ve been on a declutter/organization mission lately to help mitigate this. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

[bambax]

> Those feelings aren’t just linked to the memory; they are part of it: The brain assigns an emotional “valence” to information as it encodes it, locking in experiences as good or bad memories.

I have doubts about the "locking" part. Many of my memories don't age well: as I revisit them I find that what felt like good memories, in fact weren't.

Sometimes it's because I changed my mind; but often it's because I forced myself to enjoy something I actually didn't care for, and as time passes my willingness to fake enjoyment, fades.

[bl4ckm0r3]

Your memories (and feelings lovked to them) age well. You had to revisit to change that locked feeling, or it would have stayed the same ;)

[Gatsky]

Confusing title. This is talking about a positive or a negative reminiscence, not the faculty of memory.

[pupperino]

Funny thing, every time I'm using an umbrella, it seems to be raining! Neuroscience is plagued by poor philosophy of mind, someday it'll do better I hope.

[dmarchand90]

I just feel like brain science is such a shit show that we really need to wait at least 20 years to find out if any of this is really true. Very cool to read about but I feel like we should remain extremely skeptical of everything out of that field

[mountainriver]

And that molecule is THC

[danielunited]

TLDR?

[andsoitis]

“a small peptide molecule, neurotensin, as the signal that determined whether memories were encoded as positive.”