BG 15.15 – I am seated in everyone’s heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas am I to be known; indeed I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.
PURPORT BY SRILA PRABHUPADA
The Supreme Lord is situated as Paramatma in everyone’s heart, and it is from Him that all activities are initiated. The living entity forgets everything of his past life, but he has to act according to the direction of the Supreme Lord, who is witness to all his work. Therefore he begins his work according to his past deeds. Required knowledge is supplied to him, and remembrance is given to him, and he forgets, also, about his past life. FULL PURPORT
“Secrets of the Brain: The Mystery of Memory”
by Tonia E. Chrapko, B.Ed.
Even though science continues to give us ever increasing insights into what memory is, much of it remains a mystery. Researchers consider memory a process, and when you remember you are actually reconstructing the event from bits of information stored in various parts of the brain.
But the mystery is, what initiates the reconstruction? Is it, as some suggest, directed from outside the physical body, from the energy body? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, let’s look at what science can tell us about some of the chemical activity in the brain.
The Location of Memory
In the past, it was thought that all memory was in the brain. However, Gazzaniga (1988) reports that memory occurs throughout the nervous system. So every thought you have is “felt” throughout your entire body because the receptors for the chemicals in your brain are found on the surfaces of cells throughout your body. Thus when the chemicals are activated across synapses in the brain, the message is communicated to every part of your body by chemotaxis, a process that allows cells to communicate by “radar” or remote travel using blood and cerebrospinal fluid.
In more extreme cases, the body sometimes buries intensely painful memories in muscle tissue so that the conscious mind is spared the depth of trauma. Then when that person receives deep tissue massage or bodywork such as Rolfing, and the muscles are stimulated, the memories can be reactivated, causing the person to experience the repressed emotions. Another example of muscle memory is evident with organ transplants. People who have received donor organs have reported experiencing cravings or emotional reactions to certain incidents that they never had before.
The Biology of Memory
What it comes down to is brain cells, or neurons, communicating with each other through electo-chemical pathways. An electrical impulse travels down the axon or “outgoing branch”. Then the “fingers” at the end are stimulated to release chemicals called neurotransmitters (tiny molecules that send specific messages). The dendrites or “incoming branches” of other neurons pick these up. The space between the axon and dendrites is called a synapse.
Solidifying the Synapse
For learning to “stick”, the synapses need time to “gel”. If the synapse doesn’t “gel” then recreating the event, i.e. recalling the memory is difficult, if not impossible. A research team comprised of scientists from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and the University of Houston reported the discovery of a new protein – transforming growth factor-B (TGF-B) that acts to solidify the new synapses (Science, March 1997).
However, if there is too much protein it can build up and “clog” the synapse, thus reducing memory recall. Usually the neurotransmitter calpain, found in calcium, keeps the buildup of protein down. So, inadequate dietary calcium means that too much protein can build up because there is not enough calpain to keep the synapses clean. Unfortunately, an excess of calcium in the diet also creates a problem because the calpain starts to interfere with proper neural transmissions.
A drastic way to remove excess protein from the synapse is by electric shock. Acetylcholine, one type of neurotransmitter, is important for three reasons: it is necessary for activating REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, it keeps neural membranes in tact so that they don’t become brittle and fall away, and it breaks down the excess build up of amyloid protein at the synapses found in Alzheimer’s patients (Robert Wurtham, director of the Clinical Research Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Stress Erodes Memory
Excessive stress and obesity produce an over-production of a complex set of stress hormones called glucocorticoids (cortisol being one example). Over exposure to glucocorticoids damages and destroys neurons in the brain’s hippocampus – a region critical to learning and memory. One really good way to burn off excess cortisol is through exercise. So for those experiencing particularly high stress levels exercise is not only beneficial, it is necessary. Full article
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