Memory systems of the brain Alvaro Pastor Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications Department, Barcelona, Spain
[email protected] January 1, 2020 Abstract Humans have long been fascinated by how memories are formed, how they can be damaged or lost, or still seem vibrant after many years. Thus the search for the locus and organization of memory has had a long history, in which the notion that is is composed of distinct systems developed during the second half of the 20th century. A fundamental dichotomy between conscious and unconscious memory processes was first drawn based on evidences from the study of amnesiac subjects and the systematic experimental work with animals. The use of behavioral and neural measures together with imaging techniques have progressively led researchers to agree in the existence of a variety of neural architectures that support multiple memory systems. This article presents a historical lens with which to contextualize these idea on memory systems, and provides a current account for the multiple memory systems model. Introduction Memory is a quintessential human ability by means of which the nervous system can encode, store, and retrieve a variety of information [1, 2]. It affords the foundation for the adaptive nature of the organism, allowing to use previous experience and make predictions in order to solve the multitude of environmental situations produced by daily interaction. Not only memory allows to recognize familiarity and return to places, but also richly imagine potential future circumstances and assess the consequences of behavior. Therefore, present experience is inexorably interwoven with memories, and the meaning of people, things, and events in the present depends largely on previous experience.