How the brain decides what to remember and what to forget, according to science

OUR brain It is the boss who chooses what remains in our memory and what goes into oblivion . This is what he assured a recent study carried out by scientists from New York University, who discovered the process of this organ in which it decides what to remember.

According to the results published in the journal Science— During the day, when we are awake, the brain begins to label memories to store during the night, when it is “asleep.”

This is what happens next in our heads.

A biological process in our brain while we sleep He would be responsible for classifying the memories we keep and those that are thrown into oblivion. These are signals between neurons that “scream” in order to activate them.

In this line, When we dream, if the memories of the day do not “scream” enough, they do not solidify and end up being forgotten. However, Events that successfully activated neurons ended up being consolidated as permanent memories.

In other words, and in the words of the main author of the research, György Buzsaki , “Our study revealed that high-pitched waves are the physiological mechanism the brain uses to ‘decide’ what to keep and what to discard.”

If you had a memory of the day when the brain decided to call it permanent, because of the sudden waves it caused, during sleep The brain “replays the recorded event thousands of times per night”, thus strengthening the connections between the neurons involved and thus permanently solidifying the memory.