In nature, almost all processes tend to seek the Balance, whatever area they are.
This fact has been the basis of discoveries as revolutionary as that of the antimatter, according to which all the subatomic particles that make up matter have a contrary particle, with opposite charge.
And if antimatter revolutionized the field of physical imagine what could happen in the neurosciences if research on anti-memory, recently described in a magazine article Neuron, they will come to fruition.
What is antimatter?
antimatter_hydrogen_antihydrogen
Before delving into the definition of anti-memoryIt would not be wrong to remember what the antimatter.
As I was saying, in broad strokes, the antimatter it’s kind of mirror image of matter that we know and is made up of particles equal to those of matter, but of opposite charge. For example, while the electron is negatively charged; its opposite called anti-electronic, it is positive.
Surely you know that the matter we know, a hydrogen atom has an electron and a protonso that the total charge is neutral. So what about antimatter? Well exactly the same thing happens, the charge is canceled, but this time due to a positively charged antielectron and a negative antiproton.
What does antimemory have to do with antimatter?
Actually talking about antimatter first helps us understand the need for some processes to have a opposite that balances its effects.
In the case of memory, when our brain creates a memory, establishes and strengthens new brain connections. This involves a dose of electrical activity which can lead to pathologies like epilepsy, autism, or schizophrenia; so it stands to reason that there must be some compensatory process to avoiddamaging overstimulations.
This is what a group of scientists from the Oxford University and the University College from London, who decided to check if there is any brain mechanism that compensates for the excess electrical activity generated by the creation of new memories.
The results of previous studies in rats and mice were positive, but their main objective was human mind, something that was not easy, given the need to put electrodes inside the brain, a simple process in model animals; but, logically, frowned upon in humans.
The experiment that allowed to find the antimemory in humans
After the positive results in rodents, these scientists designed an ingenious experiment that allows locating the presence of antimemory in human brains.
To do this, they took a group of volunteers, who were made to learn the association of a series of colored cubes; generating, therefore, new memories in your brain.
Within hours of teaching the subjects the new task, their brain underwent a magnetic resonance, verifying that there was no type of brain activity in the regions involved in memorypossibly due to the stabilization produced by anti-memory. However, when applying a weak flow of electricity In these regions, it was possible to inhibit the effect of the anti-memory, achieving that the hidden memory was revealed.
This process can be well understood if we go back to our high school days when they told us that if we did some operation on one side of an equation, we had to do the same thing on the other, so that we could generate changes, while maintaining the result. Something similar happens here. Our brain generates new memories, but brain activity is maintained, avoiding excessive excitement that could generate damage.
In any case, despite the verifications made in this experiment, these hypotheses are very theoretical, and therefore require a longer period of experimentation before the existence of the anti-memory can be firmly assured. But if it is achieved, we would be facing a new revolution, similar to the one that occurred after the discovery of antimatter, because thanks to this a large number of mental diseases from the root of the problem. We will wait expectantly.
