New Neurons Get Timestamped

January 31, 2009 1:01 PM

Newborn brain cells "time-stamp" memories. [Via]
posted by homunculus (7 comments total)

Imaging study illustrates how memories change in the brain over time
posted by homunculus at 1:05 PM on January 31, 2009

So that's what happened.
posted by Brian B. at 1:06 PM on January 31, 2009

This fails to answer some important questions. Personally, I have to ask: Unix epoch or that strange Windows format, periods of 100 nanoseconds since January 1, 1601?
posted by adipocere at 1:14 PM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Nice homunculus, thanks. I like their stated approach, and wish more folk would adopt it: "We tried not to make any big a priori assumptions about the function of new neurons. Instead we asked, 'What is the biology, and what does the math suggest?'"
posted by stonepharisee at 1:22 PM on January 31, 2009

All they're saying is that memories that form around the same time are linked together, which is what most people would expect. They've found a mechanism for that, but to say it's a "time stamp" is a little ridiculous.
posted by delmoi at 1:54 PM on January 31, 2009

Clearly the human memory epoch starts on 10/29/-4003.
posted by troy at 2:07 PM on January 31, 2009

This isn't time stamping at all. This is like a desk weighed down in papers and assorted notes. Sure, the structure of the mess certainly holds some chronological information, but that's beside the point. It doesn't help us predict the path of that one good pencil after a few weeks, or find that bar napkin that was displaced after we went rooting through the clutter to find that lucky pencil.
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:10 PM on January 31, 2009 [1 favorite]