1. In many sci-fi movies, the hero can obtain various superpowers including extraordinary memory through a certain drug. Many people complain about their poor memory and envy their unforgettable friends. I used to be old at the age of forty or fifty, and my memory almost resigned. At this age, life has just begun, and 60-70 years old is still "middle age". In this case, memory loss worries many people. By 2 150, the average life expectancy will reach 95 years, and memory decline will be a big problem in an aging society. Most nerve cells in the brain will not regenerate, so the memory stored in the neural network will inevitably decrease with age. So, can you use technology to improve your memory ability by a thousand times? The answer is yes, you have already felt it: smartphones follow you every day, leaving a lot of photos, videos and voices. Using this information, we can retrieve the long-forgotten memories. However, this "memory" always feels inconvenient to use. What should I do if my memory is so bad that I can't even remember my photos?
What I'm going to discuss next is the "enhanced version" of memory, which is really super good memory. For the convenience of discussion, let's first understand the memory of the human brain. Human memory can be divided into "explicit" memory and "implicit" memory. Explicit memory can be expressed in words and can be divided into "declarative memory" and "event memory" The content of declarative memory is mainly knowledge, such as the Tang poems you recite. Event memory is an experience, such as remembering what you had for breakfast the day before yesterday. Implicit memory is mainly "procedural memory", such as learning to ride a bike, ski and dance, as well as learning Mandarin and foreign languages. Once the hidden memory is formed, it can be stable for life, so you learned to ride a bike at an early age. Even if you don't ride a bike for many years, you can ride it at the touch.
Conclusion The key nodes of explicit memory and implicit memory in the brain: A The key node of explicit memory is hippocampus (purple structure in the figure), and the key node of implicit memory is basal ganglia (green structure in the figure). The illustration in the upper right corner shows the position of hippocampus and basal ganglia in the brain. B the coronal section of the human brain specimen (that is, the section between the ears, and the position of the plane is marked with a dotted line in Figure A). The hippocampus and basal ganglia form a highly interactive network with the cerebral cortex to store memories. (The cerebral cortex is the outer ring of the brain in Figure B, which is the darker layer) C Compared with the real hippocampus (left), the hippocampus of the human brain is similar in size and shape.