Memory Content

Charan Ranganath on the Search for Biomarkers to Detect Alzheimer's Disease Risk Early

Soterios J Johnson — June 26, 2023 - 10:49am

�ٺ��Ƶ psychology professor Charan Ranganath discusses how he and his colleagues are working to find biomarkers to help identify people with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Earlier detection — before the brain is significantly damaged — would allow for more successful interventions and better outcomes.

Children’s Lockdown Memories May Predict Declines in Psychological Well-being During the Pandemic

Andy Fell — August 14, 2024 - 9:22am

A new study shows how children’s and adolescents’ memories of the COVID lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 changed over time and related to their mental health. The work, published Aug. 14 in Child Development, shows how autobiographical memories are linked to mental health, and how the content of these memories is related to the negative psychological consequences of lockdown.

Revealing a Key Process in How the Brain Forms Memories

Andy Fell — March 29, 2023 - 2:00pm

The process by which memories are formed in the hippocampus region of the brain is complex. It relies on a precise choreography of interactions between neurons, neurotransmitters, receptors and enzymes.

The Nuances of Memory with Charan Ranganath

Andy Fell — February 21, 2023 - 3:04pm

Why does memory fade? Why does it stay?

These questions, among others, occupy the mind of Charan Ranganath, a �ٺ��Ƶ psychology professor in the �ٺ��Ƶ College of Letters and Science and a core faculty member with the Center for Neuroscience. But the transient nature of memory isn’t just a focal point of Ranganath’s research. It’s something that he, like the rest of us, deals with daily.

Brain Activation in Sleeping Toddlers Shows Memory for Words

Andy Fell — October 19, 2021 - 2:38pm

Very young children learn words at a tremendous rate. Now researchers at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis, have for the first time seen how specific brain regions activate as two-year-olds remember newly learned words — while the children were sleeping. The work is published Oct. 19 in Current Biology.

Hippocampus Is the Brain’s Storyteller

Andy Fell — September 29, 2021 - 8:25am

People love stories. We find it easier to remember events when they are part of an overarching narrative. But in real life, the chapters of a story don’t follow smoothly one from another. Other things happen in between. A new brain imaging study from the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis, shows that the hippocampus is the brain’s storyteller, connecting separate, distant events into a single narrative. The work is published Sept.

Making Decisions Based on How We Feel About Memories, Not Accuracy

Andy Fell — March 10, 2021 - 8:25am

When we recall a memory, we retrieve specific details about it: where, when, with whom. But we often also experience a vivid feeling of remembering the event, sometimes almost reliving it. Memory researchers call these processes objective and subjective memory, respectively. A new study from the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis, shows that objective and subjective memory can function independently, involve different parts of the brain, and that people base their decisions on subjective memory — how they feel about a memory — more than on its accuracy.

Music, Science Come Together for Faculty

Karen Michele Nikos — January 14, 2019 - 3:47pm

Charan Ranganath, �ٺ��Ƶ professor, studies memory and learning, but outside of the lab, he trades the EEG cap for an electric guitar.

Brain Wave Device Enhances Memory Function

Andy Fell — October 22, 2018 - 3:12pm

The entrainment of theta brain waves with a commercially available device not only enhances theta wave activity, but also boosts memory performance. That’s according to new research from the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis, published recently in the journal Cognitive Neuroscience.

How Experience Changes Basics of Memory Formation

Andy Fell — July 23, 2018 - 3:04pm

New research from the University of California, Davis, shows that experience also changes the way our neurons become plastic and form new memories.