Neuron information stored/moved to other parts of brain

[zombie]

I remember hearing or reading something about people who have had brain damage, and the information that was lost or hindered was moved elsewhere to another part of the brain, (as I understand it, similar to RAID configuration with Hard drives, but instead, with neurons).

 

Is this true? and is it possible? I cant recall if I read an article on it, or if I saw a movie and it had that in there.

 

When 1 neuron (or whatever stores information in the brain) is damaged, or pathways severed, the information is often stored/backed up in another neuron?

 

So here I will present an example of I think happens, and someone please tell me whether this is true/possible:

 

One Neuron has a stored a memory about a cat I had, the pathways to that neuron slowly but eventually go offline.

 

Was the information in that neuron backed up by the surrounding neurons? And if the pathways to that neuron (or a new neuron) are restored, will that information be secure and flow back into the new/original neuron?

 

And also, is information stored between a collection of neurons, or just one?

 

If its a collection of neurons, this leaves open the ability to make an artificial, mechanical, inorganic neuron that performs the same function, and eventually replace each neuron, one by one, as information is secured into the new neurons, while removing the old ones (one by one) and eventually replacing the organic neurons entirely, correct? Creating a more reliable, disease free, semi-immortal brain?

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I guess this also falls under the categories, Medical Science/Neuroscience a little bit too

[Edtharan]

The brain stores information as a distributed associative network. This means that there isn't just one neuron that stores the information about you cat, but in how the specific inputs associated with your cat trigger a cascade of neuron firings in many different regions of the brain.

 

Yes, the masses of information from your various senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell) does go through a kind of "bottle neck", but this "bottle neck is not just in one part of the brain and is far more than just 1 neuron.

 

The distributed nature of the associations within the network of neurons does mean that your brain is quite robust, but it also means that it can still be damaged and memories lost (or even changed).

 

In the case of brain damaged people recovering their memories, this is because in the initial damage, the connections for the associations were damaged, but if only some of the connections are damaged, then there are still connections that keep some of the associations. Over time the person with the brain damage can reconnect to these areas (the brain is constantly making and breaking connections between neurons all the time).

 

If the bottle neck is the part that is damaged, then it is possible for the entire set of memories to be retained, just that the person can no longer access them. However, because of the network of the brain, it might be possible for those memories to still be accessed through other associations than the one that initially formed them. It is then possible to recover those memories over time as you access and re-associate with them.

 

Now, above I stated that the brain is making and breaking neural connections all the time. Breaking connections tends to occur when an association is not used. It is a case of "use it or loose it".

 

And, as with brain damage, these connections breakages do not occur through a particular association, but occur in fragments through out the brain. This means that over time, if you don't keep up an association, you will eventually loose it. But it also means that memories don't just vanish in a "puff of smoke" from your mind and they can be re-associated again.

 

The down sides of this type of system is that the brain doesn't really distinguish between different associations, even ones that are not real.

 

It is possible to force associations to form. This can be used to change the memories of people (one study I heard about they were able to implant a memory in a person of meeting Bugs Bunny at Disney Land - the problem is that Bugs Bunny is a product of a competitor of Disney and would never have appear at Disney Land and the extra fact that the subjects had never been to Disney land in their life). It can also lead to psychological conditions like phobias and such.

 

Many people make the statement that the Brain is like a computer. Well only in the most general of terms. The brain is quite different in it construction and function. It is a Distributed Associative Network processing inputs (sensory information) and its own internal states, and producing outputs (behaviours and changing its own internal states).

 

The distributed nature and the plasticity (the ability to change - reform or break connections between neurons) of it allow it to recover from sometimes even huge amounts of damage, but it also means that nothing in the brain is ever stored for ever.

[granpa]

functions of damaged areas can be taken up by adjacent areas but the patient has to re-learn them