Memory lapse could be linked to a necessary part of the brains ability to consolidate long-term memories

Updated on: Wednesday, April 24, 2013

British neuroscientists may have found an explanation for why we seem to forget the name of new acquaintances.

University of Sussex researchers believe the memory lapse could be linked to a necessary part of the brain's ability to consolidate long-term memories.

Their study, published today in the journal 'Nature Communications', may offer reasons why such a phenomenon is common and leaves us feeling embarrassed soon after meeting someone new.

"Scientists have long wondered why the brain shows these memory lapses. Here we showed that lapses in memory coincide with periods when consolidation of memory is susceptible to disturbances from outside the memory network.

Changes in the molecular pathways underlying consolidation are responsible for these periods of vulnerability," Dr Ildiko Kemenes, who led the study, told the 'Daily Telegraph'.

The researchers used snails as part of their experiment and introduced them to an unfamiliar substance during feeding so that the animals would learn to recognise it as food.

When they were fed later, scientists found the snails responded to the stimulus, with memory lapses after 30 minutes and two hours, before the memory became consolidated at about four hours.

But if the snail received another different stimulus during the memory-lapse periods, the memory consolidation became disrupted.

"Memory formation is an energy-consuming process. The brain would need to decide if it was worth expending energy for the consolidation of that particular memory. The brain has a restricted capacity to learn things and preventing some memory formation would be a way to avoid overload," Dr Kemenes added.

The next stage of the study, titled Susceptibility of memory consolidation during lapse in recall, will investigate what happens to the brain during the memory disruption.

Memory lapse could be linked to a necessary part of the brains ability to consolidate long-term memories

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