I heard an interesting podcast recently about some biology research that had been done with determining the age of “us”. Unfortunately it had left several big questions unanswered and although it shed a flickering of light on experiences I had, there were more questions it brought forward. So I wanted to share this with the group for discussion and to see if others have had these experiences and if anyone could put a little more light on the subject.
The podcast is the link below. It was 20 minutes, but the part I was intrigued with started at around 11 minutes.
https://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/ondemand/524442
So, spoiler alert—what they discovered was that they found a way to determine the age of brain cells - (Neurons). And they found the cortex of the brain is as old as we are. But the hippocampus, the area where memories are stored produces about 1400 neurons per day. Those neurons last about 20 – 30 years. Now the discussion on the podcast goes on about the method of doing this determination method which is quite interesting in and of itself but I started thinking of something else.
They now have FRAM and MRAM (Ferroelectric RAM and Magnetoresistive RAM). Now I haven’t studied these new types of memory in depth but I have read that both types have shortcomings and can fail and that the MRAM does appear to wear out over time. So I was thinking about how these ‘chips’ wear out when I heard about the brain neurons. And I wondered how do the old neurons pass what information they have to the new neurons. If the brain can add more neurons in this region for our memories and they only last 30 years what happens to all the older memories or more importantly how does a dying neuron pass on the information to the new one.
First – logistically. Does the new neuron have to be next to the one that is going to be ‘retiring’ and who or what determines where or when the new one gets placed? Does the tired neuron knowing its time is up call for a 'backup' or does the 'backup" show up and then the neuron knows the grim reaper is knocking? Once that is done, and the transfer takes place do we have a dual memory like when I back up my hard drive with another; I have two copies until I delete one. Or does the old neuron wipe out as soon as it transfers whatever magical stuff it had to the new guy.
Second- They say that these neurons last 20 -30 years. So our memories can be trusted up to 20 -25 than after that all bets are off? So my teenager does really know more than me? They have all fresh neurons. Why do they see that difference in years? Is it because if we don’t use a memory it dies earlier (if you don’t use it you lose it?) Or does it die and still pass on the information like the others but we just don’t remember where it is? Or we can’t remember where it is because that neuron died when we were sleeping and we didn’t get a forwarding address for it. It’s still there but in the dead letter box. And if this process of generating new neurons and downloading from the old ones goes on and on what happens when there is a crash? Is there a retrieval program?
There must be a very critical and precise chemical chain reaction for this to occur. What environmental chemicals or other things can disrupt this process? Take for instance my memory of Aunt Betty’s kitchen when she was baking apple pie and the smells that wafted through the house. If the apple pie smell neuron is getting ready to shut down and is passing the data to the new one when my evening nightcap is coursing through, will my new memory of the kitchen now smell like pumpkin pie? Or watermelon?
So now to my experience. We have all had or witnessed some huge or traumatic event and we can always remember where we were and what was going on when that event occurred. My first one was when I heard the news of the Challenger explosion. I was at the Credit Union, in the loan officer’s office. Frani was the loan officer and she was a memorable sight herself. The sun was coming through the large window behind her when the radio on the file cabinet beside her broke the news. Time froze in that moment and I can still recall that time in the office.
Now jump ahead to October 2001. We lived in a rural area at this time and had recently been connected to Internet. After all the events from the month before I was perusing some history and came across some articles on the JFK assignation. I was only a year old when that happened so what little I knew was just a few paragraphs in some high school history books. So when I found a movie clip of the event I became engrossed. The memorable moment for me was a short clip that was in black and white. This clip was taken in the parade route before the Zapruder film. It showed the president’s car with a driver and another man in the front passenger seat, in the back seat was the president and Jackie. What it also showed and I had never seen before was two Secret Service men standing on platforms on the rear bumper and holding onto bars attached to the trunk on the rear of the car. The film showed the car slowing and the two agents step off the platforms looking at each other and other agents around them shrugging their shoulders and with hands out in a gesture of disbelief, while the narrator says “the agents were given the order to step away from the car so that he people could see the president better”. Knowing the outcome of events; I became enraged that anyone would make such a ridiculous order and the moment became one of those cemented images in my mind. I later saw the Zapruder film clip. Again, with a car with two seats, two people in front and the president and Jackie in the back seat.
After that, I had watched the films maybe once or twice but haven’t seen them for over 10 years or more. I rarely watch any television but recently I saw a clip from a documentary advertisement about the JFK assignation and it showed the car in the parade route but something I saw was odd. The car I saw was a three seater with some sort of glass and chrome window between the front driver’s seat and the next seat and 6 people in the car. I have not been able to find the original B&W clip that showed the agents stepping off the car and every picture I see now has the car with 3 seats and a glass barrier between the front seat and the two back seats. There are two men in the front, presumably Secret Service, Jackie and another woman in the next seat and the president and I believe the governor in the back seat.
So this is where it gets fishy for me. I have these neurons that are telling me I saw something in 2001 but what I see today does not reflect that at all. This is creating a bit of cognitive dissidence. Granted, this information was garnered from the internet so there is that caveat; so how do we know we haven’t cooked something in our own neurons. What can we really "know"? I have seen that my experience may not be the only one. (Again from the Internet) but someone has termed this as the Mandela effect. That was why I wanted to get some input from some folks I feel could shed some light on this.
thanks
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