How does the brain remember the falling New York towers on 9/11? You recall those images, because specific visual cells recognize the 9/11 related emotions and fire. Both research and personal experience contribute to this explanation. Science has acknowledged that visual images travel in parallel projections from your eyes to be mapped exactly as seen, in your visual cortex. Visual images are also known to be received and recalled from the same regions of the visual cortex. You know from experience that each image you recall is related to an emotion. Emotions are known to be signaled by nerve cells. Strong emotion signals record the images of the 9/11 falling towers into the receiving visual cells. At the point of recall, the same visual cells, which recorded the 9/11 emotion signals, fire again. The image signals reach RI in your prefrontal regions. On receiving those impulses, your RI recalls the image. That is how the brain does remember.
How Does The Brain Remember - Recognition of Combinations A Nobel Prize was awarded in 2004 for the discovery that the olfactory networkrecognizes combinations. On this basis, a neuron with 100 dendrites can recognize 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 unique combinations! The human visual system has not 100, but millions of individual pixels, which can represent an infinity of combinations! Combinatorial recognition enables the kind of ability, which enables people to remember and recognize any one of 10,000 images, shown to them at one second intervals. That is how the brain does remember.
How Does The Brain Remember - The Relevance of Parallel Projections Parallel projections enable nerve cells to transmit combinations. Throughout their growth, the axons of nerve cells extend and map on to specific target regions in parallel projections. Consider the messages carried by a bundle of glass fibers. If each fiber carries an individual message, the relative location of the fibers will be irrelevant. But suppose each fiber carries one pixel of a black and white picture. In this case, if the relative positions of the fibers change between the sending and receiving ends, the black and white picture will be lost. If the objective is to transmit a combinatorial picture, the fibers have to be projected in parallel.
Each area of the somato-sensory cortex is proportionally linked to the number of nerve endings in the corresponding part of the body. Touch sensory cells in your fingertip have identical proximity relationships when they finally report touch to the cortex. Similar parallel projections exist in numerous other regions. Such mapping implies a combinatorial purpose in the nervous system. The brain does remember combinations.
How Does The Brain Remember - Pixel Specific Barrels Visual receptors send signals of each pixel of light to cells in the visual cortex. Each pixel is recorded by a vertical barrel of thousands of nerve cells within a diameter of 200 to 500 microns, extending through all layers of the cortex. Each barrel is linked by a single axon which transmits that pixel to the cortex. Thousands of neurons in it act together, with connected timings, when a stimulus is received from its receptor field. These vertical barrels represent pixel specific information, which is further interpreted by other regions of the cortex.
The visual system has dedicated functional groups of over 30 processing centers, which categorize, the color, texture, outlines and edges. Any image finally received by RI is a sophisticated interpretation, which fills in gaps and identifies an object. A rabbit behind a picket fence is not seen as the slices of a rabbit, but as a whole animal. When the related barrels fire, you will recall the image and know it is a rabbit.
How Does The Brain Remember - An Emotions Broadcast The vertical barrels in the cortex have both radial and parallel fibers. Radiating downwards from the cortex are millions of fibers which directly link the Barrels through the thalamus to all sensory and motor functions. This link is called the "specific link". The cortex also had a surface layer which runs a thick network of fibers parallel to the surface. These fibers are also linked to the thalamus.
The link was recognized when it was discovered that stimulation of the "non-specific nuclei" of the thalamus led to wide-spread "recruiting activity" in the outer layers of the cortex. The emotion signals are broadcast in the outer layers, accessing every barrel in the cortex. Those barrels, which recognize a specific emotion signal, fire to recall an image. That is how the brain does remember.
How Does The Brain Remember - The Hippocampus The hippocampus is known to assist the formation of memory, while older memories of a patient persist, even if the organ is damaged. Researchers at MIT trained rats to run along a circular track for a food reward. Their brain activity was monitored during the task and during sleep. While the animal ran, its brain created a distinctive pattern of neurons firing in the hippocampus. The researchers then examined more than 40 REM episodes recorded while the rats slept. About half repeated the unique signature of brain activity that was created as the animal ran.
The correlation was so close that the researchers found that as the animal dreamed, they could reconstruct where it would be in the maze if it were awake and whether the animal was dreaming of running or standing still. During sleep, the thalamo-cortical link enables the hippocampus to dispatch impulses, which reinforce emotion memories in the vertical barrels of the cortex during sleep. Subsequently, the emotions are recognized by the barrels, which fire to recall sensory memories. That is how the brain does remember.
How Does The Brain Remember - Emotions Dominate Your mind is dominated by a single group of emotions. An intuitive decision making process selects the current emotion. Since the current emotion is broadcast in the outer layers of the cortex, the emotion affects your recalled memories and motor responses. How the brain does remember is pivotal. If you are angry, you remember the wrongs committed by your opponent. If you are fearful, you remember the previous instances, where you failed. Your motor responses also respond to your emotion. Your emotions grant you a partisan view of life. When your emotions are quieted, your RI has a global view and your actions have a calm wisdom.
How Does The Brain Remember - REFERENCES
Emotions are neural signals Scar tissue in the cerebral cortex is one of the causes of epilepsy. When operating to remove the scar tissue, the surgeon has to stimulate the brain electrically on the conscious patient to locate the problem area. Excitation of certain parts of the temporal lobe produces intense fear in the patient. Other parts cause feelings of isolation, of loneliness or sometimes of disgust. The Oxford Companion to The Mind, 1987, Richard L.Gregory, Nervous System, P.W.Nathan, Page 527.
The septal area has been shown to be a pleasure zone for rats. Experiments were conducted on the animals with electrodes planted in this area where they could self stimulate themselves by pressing on a lever. They were observed to continue until they were exhausted preferring the effect of stimulation to normally pleasurable activities such as consuming food. The Oxford Companion to The Mind, 1987, Richard L.Gregory, Centers in The Brain, O.L.Zangwill, Page 129.
Feelings are nerve signals Nerve endings or sensors relay relay from tissues all over the body sensations including sharp pain, burning pain, cool or warm temperature, itching, muscle contraction, muscle burn because of lactic acid, joint movements, soft touch, mechanical stress, tickling, flushing, hunger and thirst to two thumb-size parts of the cortex called the insula, one on the left and one on the right side of the brain. Further information on bodily states like temperature or the need for water, that need to be monitored to keep the body stable, in equilibrium, sensory news from internal organs are also sent to the insulae. Dr. Arthur Craig, Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, in a series of recent articles published in leading neuroscience journals.
An emotions channel The limbic system of the brain contains a ring of interconnected neurons containing over a million fibers connecting the thalamus, the hippocampus, the septal areas and the amygdaloid body. The ring transmits impulses in both directions. In 1937 Papez postulated that these parts of the brain constitute a harmonious mechanism which may elaborate functions of central emotion as well as participate in emotional expression. The Human Nervous System, 1983, 4th Edition, Murray L. Barr and John A. Kiernan, Regional Anatomy of the Central Nervous System, Circuits of the Limbic System, Page 268.
Mapping Throughout the growth of the nervous system, axons grow from one region to another and "map" on to specific target regions. The Oxford Companion to The Mind, 1987, Richard L.Gregory, Brain Development, Colwyn Trevarthen, Pages 101-110.
Emotions recall memories Stimulating the amygdala is the surest way to “replay” a full experience, such as an autobiographical memory...” Phantoms In the Brain, (1999) Sandra Blakeslee & V.S.Ramachandran, Do Martians See Red? Page 245.
Emotions broadcast In the early forties, Dempsey and Morison reported that repeated electrical stimuli into the "non-specific" nuclei of the thalamus resulted in widespread activity in the outermost cortical layers. The activity appeared to be of a "recruiting" nature. In 1960 Jasper again suggested that the synaptic termination of the fibers of the "non-specific" system in the cortex travels parallel to the surface and is widely distributed in all layers, but the principal functional processes appear to be within the outermost layers. The Human Nervous System, 1975, 6th Edition, Raymond C. Truex and Malcolm B. Carpenter, The Cerebral Cortex, Nonspecific Thalamocortical Relationships, Page 582-584
The Human Memory Research Mistake The human memory research mistake is that science has not yet focused on explaining its massive capacity and precision.
Daniel Amen The unique ability of Dr Daniel Amen to link brain images to behavioral problems is inexplicable to a large section of the medical community.
A Nobel Prize was awarded in 2004 for the discovery that the olfactory networkrecognizes combinations. On this basis, a neuron with 100 dendrites can recognize 1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 unique combinations! The human visual system has not 100, but millions of individual pixels, which can represent an infinity of combinations! Combinatorial recognition enables the kind of ability, which enables people to remember and recognize any one of 10,000 images, shown to them at one second intervals. That is how the brain does remember.
Your mind is dominated by a single group of emotions. An 
