HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN LEARNS AND MEMORIES AND HOW IT SHOWS SIMILAR NEURAL PATTERNS TO ITS SOCIAL NETWORK

Abstract

We are continuously faced with a stream of information, which the brain needs to encode and integrate into existing knowledge.  Numerous factors affect this process, such as emotions, neurogenesis, and neuroplasticity. To explain how memory and learning are encoded in the brain, Semon's proposed the existence of engrams cells distributed across the cortex forming a network supporting a given memory, which are activated both during encoding and during recall. It appears that engrams can be either active or silent depending on the stage of memory consolidation. This would be in accordance with the system consolidation theory; however, incongruences in the literature still make it impossible to exclude other alternatives, like the multiple trace theory, as possible explanations. Moreover, it has been found that both learning and memory processes are socially affected. In fact, friendship status, social network features, and hierarchy position have an influence on how people encode information and store them.