Search Here

The brain remembers certain memories that make us happy. Some of them get prioritized over others. They get replayed when we are at rest so that they can get reinforced, says a new study from scientists at the University of California.

"Rewards help you remember things because you want future rewards," Charan Ranganath, senior author on the paper, said in a press release. "The brain prioritizes memories that are going to be useful for future decisions."

Ranganath explains that our minds tend to retain some memories from our daily events. They can be so overwhelming, that the brain needs to filter out what it does not need to remember.

With the help of functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) imaging to scan brains of persons who responded to a few questions, the persons were given some background images in order to fix a context, along with some rewards, either in big money, dollars or short change of cents.

The subjects were scanned during rest, and then given a memory test that had been shown in the initial experiment. The results showed that people tend to remember scenes that brought them higher rewards.

"Also, when an object was associated with high reward, people remembered better the particular background scene that was on the screen during scanning," said Matthias Gruber, first author of the study.

The brains could also forecast memory performance. The scans of subjects at rest after the initial test showed a similar pattern of activity as seen during those that asked for higher rewards. Hence, the brains replayed the rewarding memories so that the neural connections could be strengthened to consolidate the memory.

"It speaks to a memory process that is normally hidden from us," Ranganath said. "Are you remembering what you really need to know? It could depend on what your brain does while you are at rest."

The findings were published in Feb. 11,2016 issue of Neuron.