How do humans consolidate memory?

Written | nagashi editor | Wang Duoyu typesetting | Water-written memory is a very magical thing.
When awake, humans will continue to learn new things that appear around them and form instantaneous or short-term memories.
These memories are continuously consolidated after continuous consolidation.
Long-term memory will be formed
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From the point of view of neuro-molecular mechanism, the formation of memory is embodied in the formation or coordination of connections between neurons
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From the perspective of this concept, whether it is instantaneous memory or long-term memory, whether it is rote memorization or flexible memory, they are essentially the same
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Therefore, the memory itself is not mysterious, but the structural complexity and unpredictability of its formation, consolidation, and forgetting have always plagued human beings
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Recently, the National Institutes of Health, the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center in France, and the University of Leipzig Medical Center in Germany have jointly published a research paper titled: Consolidation of human skill linked to waking hippocampo-neocortical replay in the Cell Reports.

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The study shows that neural replay during waking and rest may help humans to consolidate the memory of action sequences
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The brain imaging results show that a neural network representing the behavior sequence that people are learning will reactivate and replay quickly and repeatedly at a speed of 20 times during the rest interval of the exercise, thereby strengthening and consolidating this memory
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When learning a new skill, if we often intersperse practice modules during rest, the consolidation and performance of memory will be significantly improved.
This phenomenon is also known as the "spacing effect"
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In fact, studies have shown that memory consolidation during wakefulness occurs within a few seconds or minutes, and its intensity is about four times that of classic studies of overnight consolidation that requires sleep
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But what is not yet clear is how the brain combines discrete motor representations into unified, time-accurate skills during waking periods
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Among them, one possible mechanism is neural replay, that is, the neural activity pattern that represents the behavior sequence is reactivated under time compression during the rest period
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Ethan R.
Buch, the first author and corresponding author of the study, said that replaying during waking hours, through offline retelling of previous exercises, may promote the consolidation of waking skills, but this problem has not been in human or animal models.
Researched
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"To test this idea, the researchers used a brain imaging technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG)
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30 subjects repeatedly typed as fast as possible on the keyboard in 36 10-second trials.
" 41324" and interspersed with a 10-second rest between the trials
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The magnetoencephalogram test pattern of this study is interesting.
The magnetoencephalogram data shows that the neural replay of the key sequence occurs during the awake rest period
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This neural replay only Lasted for 50 milliseconds-20 times faster than the actual behavior! Compared with the rest time before or after training, the frequency of these neural replays is about three times during the rest period between two rounds of training
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Neural replay Not only that, in 36 trials, compared with the last 11 trials, participants learned faster in the first 11 trials and the frequency of neural replay was also higher
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In addition, during the rest interval between the two exercises, participants showed greater skill consolidation and more frequent neuroreplay events
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During waking periods, participants showed more frequent neural replays.
More importantly, this study unexpectedly found that this neural replay event recruited the brain including the hippocampus, sensorimotor and entorhinal areas.
Network
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Ethan R.
Buch stated that the strong involvement of hippocampus and middle temporal lobe activity during the playback of procedural motor memories is surprising, because this type of memory is generally considered to not require the contribution of the hippocampus
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In general, these data indicate that frequent and rapid wakefulness replays strengthen the connection between the hippocampus and neocortex learned in previous exercises—a process that is related to improving subsequent performance and the consolidation of wakefulness skills
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The spatial distribution characteristics of neural replay events in the human brain.
In future research, the research team plans to use non-invasive brain stimulation to test whether neural replay during wakefulness plays a causal role in early skill learning, and to determine rapid consolidation Whether to support other types of memory
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This will help humans understand the important characteristics of neural replay for skill learning when awake, and help doctors optimize brain treatment strategies to improve the rehabilitation effect after stroke and other brain injuries! Link to the paper: https:// open for reprinting, welcome to forward to Moments and WeChat groups