Forgotten but not Gone

There's an interesting article on Science Daily titled Forgotten but not Gone, How the Brain Relearns.

"Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have been able to show that new cell contacts established during a learning process stay put, even when they are no longer required. The reactivation of this temporarily inactivated "stock of contacts" enables a faster learning of things forgotten."

The brain leaving tracks, as it were, reminds me of Theseus who used a ball of string to navigate his way out of the labyrinth after slaying the Minotaur at Knossos on the island of Crete.

Following this notion of time saving connectivity, other scientists are using fMRI to see the striking similarity of thought patterns of memories past and imaginations about the future.

"Psychologists have found that thought patterns used to recall the past and imagine the future are strikingly similar. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to show the brain at work, they have observed the same regions activated in a similar pattern whenever a person remembers an event from the past or imagines himself in a future situation. This challenges long-standing beliefs that thoughts about the future develop exclusively in the frontal lobe."

"Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future" - Steve Miller. - Fly Like an Eagle