The Neuroscience of Finding Lost Keys Fri, 2013-03-22 10:33 Ever
find yourself racking your brain on a Monday morning to remember
where you put your car keys? When you do find those keys, you
can thank the hippocampus, a brain region responsible for
storing and retrieving memories of different environments- such
as that room where your keys were hiding in an unusual spot.
Now, scientists have helped explain how the brain keeps track of
the incredibly rich and complex environments people navigate on
a daily basis. They discovered how the dentate gyrus, a
subregion of the hippocampus, helps keep memories of similar
events and environments separate, a finding they reported in
eLife. The findings, which clarify how the brain stores and
distinguishes between memories, may also help identify how
neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, rob
people of these abilities. "Everyday, we have to remember subtle
differences between how things are today, versus how they were
yesterday- from where we parked ou