The Brain Forgets Things In Our To Conserve Energy

In order to conserve energy, our brain may chuck a memory or two out of the reasoning window.

New findings published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) reveal that a theoretical learning phenomenon that has so far been difficult to understand, look at how the nerve cells learn and forget based on previous animal studies. Researchers said they believe that these mechanisms are likely to be the same in the human brain.

In this recent study, researchers subjected human or animal subjects to learning to associate a certain tone or light signal with a puff of air to the eye. While the air puff causes the subject to blink, eventually, they would blind as soon as they heard the tone or saw the light signal. However, researchers found, on the other hand, that when both tone and light were presented together (with the air puff), the learning actually got worse.

"Two stimuli therefore achieve worse results than just one. It seems contrary to common sense, but we believe that the reason for it is that the brain wants to save energy," said brain researcher and professor Germund Hesslow, in a news release.

Previous studies have suggested that when the brain learns a particular association sufficiently, certain neurons work as a brake on the learning mechanism.

As certain unnecessary association pathways may require excess energy for the brain, researchers believe that this is the reason for the brake mechanism.

"Obviously, it should be important for teachers to know the mechanisms by which the brain erases the things it considers unnecessary. You do not want to accidentally activate these mechanisms," Hesslow concluded.

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