The brain forgets on purpose to save energy – IntraMed

The brain is able to assimilate a new stimulus, however, rejects the post if they are similar in time recognize them.

It is the explanation of the results of a study led by Swedish researchers, with participation of the University Pompeu Fabra.

CCS-UPF

The brain has mechanisms to forget the unnecessary information, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), led by scientists at the University of Lund (Sweden), which has participated Riccardo Zucca, a researcher of the Research Group Perceptive Systems Emotive and Cognitive and Neuro-Center in Robotics and Autonomous Systems Department of Information Technology and Communication at the University Pompeu Fabra.

The brain is able to assimilate a new stimulus, but rejects later if they are similar in the time it recognizes. So the paradox that “two stimuli produce worse results than one, but what is really happening is that the brain active neural mechanisms to avoid the energy expense of learning” is given, the authors suggested.

The neuronal activity in charge of storing information is an additional energy expenditure, so the brain forgets intentionally

The neuronal activity in charge of storing information is an additional energy expenditure, so the brain intentionally forgotten, even temporarily, to save energy. When the brain has learned a particular association brake mechanism is activated learning.

physiological explanation Rescorla-Wagner model

In an article published in PNAS scientists experiment designed to draw the conclusions of the study are described. An audible tone or light signal and a blast of air that caused the blink of an eye: In the first phase, two stimuli the animal experimental model for the brain’s associate applied. Next, he was the subject blinked an eye on the time listening to the tone or light signal, even without air blast again.

Finally, to reapply the acoustic tone or light signal together with the rush of air, the association between stimuli became confused.

“The findings may explain why a stronger partnership leads to a value less reinforcement, “he says Zucca

As Zucca says,” the study’s findings may explain why a stronger partnership leads to a value of less reinforcement, in the context of unexperimento of conditioned behavior. “

Although it had been described earlier in the Rescorla-Wagner model, a model that has guided research in behavioral science and neuroscience for decades, this phenomenon does not still had a physiological explanation.

Scientists have studied in this work Purkinje cells from the cerebellar cortex of ferrets and found that the responses of Purkinje cells, triggers adaptive flicker conditioned temporary, deleted the conditioned stimulus gradually, providing for the first time physiological evidence of the phenomenon described in Rescorla-Wagner model

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Bibliographic reference.

Anders Rasmussen, Riccardo Zucca, Fredrik Johansson, Dan-Anders Jirenhed and Germund Hesslow (2015), “ Purkinje cell activity During classical conditioning With Different conditional stimulus Explains core tenet of Rescorla-Wagner model “, PNAS, October doi:. 10.1073 / pnas.1516986112