

Stem Cell Transplants Can Restore Lost Memory - MikeCapone
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2009/07/stem-cell-transplants-can-restore-lost-memory.php

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electromagnetic
This is a bit of a misnomer, you _can never_ restore a lost memory.
Information that no longer exists, no longer exists, simple as fact.

The brain is a computer, and I wouldn't be surprised if our brain has
developed redundancies and possibly even data retrieval methods that outstrip
anything we have today. However if a memory is truly lost, it really is and
restoring neuronal connections will not return it.

An analogy would be saying 'New York City' is gone because the roads are out
to it. There's a big difference between gone and _gone_ as in a smoking
nuclear crater.

In patients with Alzheimer's of dementia, if the neurone has been disconnected
for too long it will die and likely so will any information it held (unless
it's stored elsewhere or retrievable like Par files for a download). However
even any of these 'backups' will eventually disappear too if those neuronal
connections go and the nerves will starve.

For instance alcohol doesn't kill a single neuron, it inhibits the electrical
connections and prolonged isolation will kill the cell.

~~~
ars
We don't know anywhere near enough about how the brain stores memories to be
able to say that.

It's quite possible memories are distributed over the entire brain, and not
stored in any one neuron.

For example, if you have a lens projecting a picture, and you cover half the
lens, you don't get half a picture, you get a dimmer and fuzzier images, but a
whole one.

Perhaps the brain works the same way? We really don't know enough about memory
to say.

