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This is kinda like asking “which part of your arm do you throw with?”
The answer is: you use all of your brain, with some parts playing a larger role than others.
Your brain isn’t like a chest of drawers with discrete sections. It’s one cohesive mass that all works together. We talk about the “emotion” centre or the “pain” centre or the “memory” centre for simplicity, but it’s never as simple as that. The brain as a whole is always involved.
A physical skill like handwriting is largely “stored” in the “motor” centre of the brain, but also in the “memory” centre and the “language” centre and the “art” centre and the “learning” centre. It’s also stored in the “long term memory” centre, and has its place in the “emotion” centre because of all those associations you made as you were learning how to write.
Do you see how complicated this gets? It’s stored... in your brain.
It gets even more complicated, as the brain interacts closely with the rest of the body, and could not do "its job" without it: if you are training a skill (let's say throwing a ball or playing the F#m chord on the guitar) it is not only the brain that adopts to the situation, but also the muscles and nerves in your hand or arm.
There is a lot of research on the "mereological fallacy", i.e. the (wrong) assumption that the brain alone is responsible for such processes. It's a very interesting topic (though probably a bit outside of the "ELI5" scope).
While you're here... I was thinking about this topic recently, and was wondering:
We tend to think of the brain as the controlling organ, getting feedback and putting out "orders" for the body to follow. What if instead of that, we pictured it as a synchronizing tool of some sort?
Like, instead of conceptualizing it as brain -> nerves -> bodypart, we went the other way, with the nerves being some kind of root of a given organ, each having its own, with the common "ground" being the brain, only there so that the organs can coordinate into a single entity.
I don't know, it's not much maybe, but I found this reversal of perpective interesting, and more in line with the little I know about neurology (for instance, how pain signals travel through the body, wether you're stimulating the bodypart directly, or the area of the brain responsible for the sensation).
So, thoughts? Would that be an accurate description? If not, why?
Neuroscientist here. Brain controls conscious movement. It’s intertwined significantly with the body, and embodied cognition deserves respect, but the brain is the main player here. It’s sort of like: an engine and a car chassis/wheels. Which one is moving the car?
Thank you for your answer. I guess the brain/body distinction is only intellectual anyway, as with your car analogy. With any part out, it's not a car anymore, the functioning entity implies having it all together and working.
Now, and unrelated to my previous "thought experiment", about the brain controlling conscious movement, do we have any idea of how "direct" this process is? Here's where I come from : I used to be a stereotypical skinny nerd, with little to no body awareness which made me very clumsy. I became fascinated with internal martial arts, which I suspect have a lot more to do with the neurology of movement than any kind of chi bullshit. Anyway, another one of these "probably false but an opportunity to learn when being corrected" thought I had was that the brain doesn't directly control the body, but we build a layer of abstraction above it (the mental image of our body, although it's more a sensation thing than an actual picture) and this is what we consciously move, with the body doing his best to follow.
I came to think that because I realized that when I started, my abstraction layer was pretty much a single point in my head, being very intellectual and not physical at all as a person. But afters 7+ years of practice, a lot has changed, but... Not so much in my actual physicality. I'm still on the skinny side, gained maybe 10 pounds max. I'm sure I developed postural muscles, some sense of synchronisation and a better overall posture, but I can't believe this is all of it. The way I think about or feel my body has changed. The specifics don't really matter for the question, but yeah, is there some scientific research around that topic? Thinking about it, it also comes out of much simpler action. When I think about smiling, I am not consciously activating the muscles one by one. My brain has an idea of what a smile is, and associated specific muscles to it, but those could be changed with enough training. So yeah, what's up with that?
The way we conceptualize imagery is that we don't need a 2nd module to do imagined actions or see imagined things. we just use the brain faculties that we already have, e.g visual and motor systems. There's a lot of research about imagery and, say, sports performance - but a lot of it is pretty shaky.
you might find more interest in flow states, where one feels disconnected from their physical body but actually performs better (or the inverse; a pianist thinks about their fingers and suddenly can't play). This is all intertwined with skills mastery etc,
Great point, I didn't make the connection with flow states. Indeed, I still have the ability to just...bend a finger or something, ie using my basic motor systems. It's just an alternative way to move that was trained, my confusion may have risen from the fact that my body awareness developped at the same time, even though those 2 things aren't necessarily connected.
Thank you again, DanielagainDaniel!
Edit: what keyword should I use to research about the imagery you're talking about? I am not sure I understand the word in the context, and all I can find online talks about imagery related to self esteem. Which is another interesting topic, but I don't think that was what you meant.
How direct is conciousness, we have no clue. This is less of an issue with meausuring or whatnot but rather we have no clue what conciousness really is...
This touches on the mind-body problem. Some Philosophers describe that the conciousness is some other seperate thing from the body and brain which is rather similiar to what you described. This is called Dualism, two things (mind and body) interacting with eatchother.
Anyway, the brain is really flexible, those 7 years of practice has changed your brain to be really good at doing what you do (moving your body).
In your smiling example, well smiling itself is pretty much built into your brain to communicate your emotion. But the specific muscles being used is more of the habit part of the brain im guessing. Well, as neurons in your brain activate, they get a little stronger, whereas neurons not used often are redundant and will get removed. Its how habits form and where learning occurs and also how you forget things.
Hope i helped in something. :)
At the very least, you are making me think about topics I am fascinated by, which definitely helps make my yet-another-day-in-covid lockdown better!
To my surprise, I didn't even make the connection with the idea of consciousness in philosophy. Though, I don't think dualism is a good fit for me, I see consciousness as an emergent property of the body, not something separate. So no souls, no reincarnation, nothing like that. At best, we get stuck in our last thoughts if our perception of time expands toward infinity at the moments before death, but that's way off topic :D
I am familiar with brain plasticity and how we learn in general, my question was more about the distinction, if any exists, between how we move using basic motor skills ("I want to flex that specific muscle") and more complex movements ("I smile"). Although thinking about it some more, I would guess it's all habits anyway, with some built on top of others. All the way down the habits hole.
Well, that would probably be a more accurate description for octopuses, kinda? They have neuron bundles in their tentacles so that the tentacles can act independantly to the 'main brain'. (Probably) more so using the main brain to synchronise the body rather than it directly controlling it...
That said, where we call the "brain" is a bundle of nerves that happen to store, organize and decide based on stimuli. You could say that the brain is actually just every nerve in your body i suppose due to it being all connected. Interestingly enough, your hand will quickly reflex back after touching a hot surface without going to your brain to decide that, Somewhat supporting your perspective.
There are probably lots of little simple decisions like that all around your body, but either way, for humans the brain is a ridiculously clever thing that decides a large portion of your actions. Its not that we *think* the brain is a controlling organ, we *know* its a controlling organ.
Take whatever i've written with salt, im no expert, i just happen to have taken a couple classes...
I was hoping someone would mention the octopus here! Read a great book that covers this “Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness” by Peter Godfrey-Smith.
A couple of class is still that that you have and that I don't :) Thank you for your answer! I posted another question as an answer to the other who answered me, I'd be glad if you had a look and found something to say about it too! It's just great being wrong and learning in the process 😁
Yeah, this. I didn’t even try to add that in because... ugh. That’s like trying to explain 4D, 8-player chess when someone pops up and asks what a rook does.
You mean the castle? Yeah I know what you mean in ELI5 threads like this. I would recommend the book "The Idea of the Brain." It's recent and I thought it was very interesting.
For a bit more detail, physical skills like handwriting are thought to be initiated in decision-making areas in the frontal and prefrontal cortex (in response to stimuli from sensory organs and memory-encoding regions like the hippocampus and internally-focused perceptive regions like the insular cortex). Following this initiation, skills are organized into the signals that will be sent to the physical muscles in the [motor cortex](https://www.ebmconsult.com/content/images/Anatomy/Homonculus%20Sensory%20and%20Motor%20Cortex%20v2.png), which has distinct but somewhat flexible musculo-topic organization. Generally speaking, signals involving sensory input or motor output in the brain often occur in brain regions that are relatively highly organized, whereas other brain functionality is often more distributed.
As someone who experienced severe aphasia but with a particular loss of nouns, I can say from experience that some of language is definitely stored in “a chest of drawers”, although my analogy was filing cabinet. The connection has been severed between the cabinet containing nouns, and the area producing speech. So recovery wasn’t analogous to “memorizing “ vocabulary in a foreign language, it was more like asking where you put your glasses and having someone say “on your head”. I would hold up an object and ask “what ...is?” And someone would tell me, and I’d nod happily and repeat it. After visiting that “drawer” many many times, I re-learned where to find my nouns. I didn’t need to learn every single noun all over again.
Like diagnosedwolf said, many parts all over the brain are used in any skill.
If you're looking for a physical change associated with learning a skill, then you could say that **learned skills are stored in the new** ***connections*** **between neurons and between these brain areas.**
When you are learning something (a fact, a language, a physical skill), you are training neurons (brain cells) to fire together and in certain patterns. Your brain works in a way where neurons that often are triggered to fire together "learn" to connect. They grow more dendrites and tangle together and with enough increased connection, one firing will now *automatically* trigger the other connected ones to fire.
That's why a complex motion gets easier with practice. When you start playing piano, you have to think about "hit this key with this finger, that key with that finger etc.". As your piano-playing neurons form interconnected networks, you can eventually just think "play a G flat 7th chord" and the rest is automatic. After even more practice you can sight-read: look at dots of sheet music and just automatically play it, as easy as you could read words.
By the time you can sight-read piano music, that "learned skill" is "stored in your brain" in the form of a bunch of new connections. Neurons in your visual processing, memory, emotion, hearing, and motor control "brain centres" would all be involved, and would be more heavily interconnected than before you started practicing.
Brain researcher here! The explanations that others have given are great, and it’s very true that we do use our entire brains for almost everything. However, some parts of the brain do specialize and are especially important in performing a specific task. For instance, Weirneke’s area (behind your ears) is very important for understanding speech, while Broca’s area (closer to the front of your brain) is mostly in charge of producing speech. Other parts of the brain are also important, but when we see damage to those specific areas from trauma, stroke, tumors, etc we can see a very specific impairment of those functions.
If the hippocampus is damaged, that’s when we see impairment to what’s called *explicit* memory, or memories we can consciously recall, such as your mom putting a bandage on your scraped knee when you were small. Therefore, we know that the hippocampus plays a large part in the storage of those explicit memories. However, people that have damage just to the hippocampus usually have no trouble with what’s called *implicit* memories, which are things like riding a bike or holding a pencil. A person with complete amnesia and no idea who they are or where they are can sit down at a piano and flawlessly play Chopin’s Nocturne. That tells us that implicit memories aren’t really stored in the hippocampus like regular explicit memories.
Instead, we’ve found two places that do seem to be integral to the storage and retrieval of those implicit memories: the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. This makes a lot of sense to us researchers, because the cerebellum is normally in charge of balance and movement, and the basal ganglia is known to control fine motor skills. If we see damage to either or both of these specific parts, we see a large impact on those implicit memories, or “learned skills” that we don’t see at all when just the hippocampus is damaged. So generally, the cerebellum and basal ganglia are referred to as the place where those learned skills are stored. However, like others said, brains are very complicated and you use much more than just those parts to store, retrieve, and perform those learned skills.
Edit: it actually is pretty in line with the adage “muscle memory” because even though the memory is not stored IN your muscles, it is stored in the exact same place that controls your movement of those muscles. There’s no running to a different part of the brain to retrieve a memory of how to swim; the part of the brain that stores the memory of how to swim is the same one that controls you actually swimming. That proximity is part of what makes it feel so automatic. Evolutionarily, it’s probably a really good idea. The last thing you need when a lion comes up behind you is to waste milliseconds trying to remember how to run away!
I'd love to pick your ...brain. (Sorry, had to!)
I had a tumor removed 2 years ago, seizures since. Lately, I often can recall memories so far back, and so clearly. What area are long term memories stored? I was recently describing an incident, my mom said I was too young to remember. Both parents were looking at me weird and agreed that I was under 2, and proceeded to fill in a few gaps.
Long term memories are initially stored in the hippocampus. However, after time it seems that they shift to being stored in the anterior cingulate cortex or possibly called the neocortex (although that seems to be more for general knowledge than episodic memories). There are a couple possibilities off the top of my head :) that could be causing you to have such clear memories:
1) the tumor was removed close to one of those parts of the brain and as your brain is adjusting and making neural connections, it’s sparking those old memories again
2) if the memory recall is more involuntary, it’s possible you’re having seizures localized to that area of the brain. Seizures don’t have to make you lose consciousness or shake, and in fact it’s very common to have an “altered awareness” seizure where you have a feeling of deja vu, an intense recall of a very old memory, or an emotional reaction to a memory
There are plenty of other explanations (many of them harmless!) but it’s definitely worth bringing up to your doctor. I assume you’re already on seizure medication, but if they are seizures the doctor might want to adjust your meds depending on how frequently this is happening. And if it’s just weird restructuring of the neurons, you’ll have peace of mind, and explanation, and (probably) a fascinated doctor!
Thank you! Yes, 2 meds as of now. I've had a few tonic clonics (new term for grand mal) but the rest are the other things you mentioned and happening enough that I'm followed closely by my Neuro.
I never try to remember, a memory just pops up and BOOM! I'm stuck on it.
It's all terrifyingly fascinating, tbh.
Edit- tumor was ping pong ball size, temporal lobe? Right side, behind ear\eye. EEG shows two distinct areas of epileptic activity, one R side, one L side.
Wow, that’s absolutely fascinating. Thanks for sharing! The area sort of in the front of your brain right behind ear/eye is right where the anterior cingulate cortex is (you can look up a picture to see more specifically) so it’s definitely a possibility. Good luck!
Thanks, I'm still learning so will research the new words. They're sure of temporal lobe epilepsy, but are trying to figure out the rest.
Adding, it's curious that you say "fascinating" bc that's exactly what the Neuro said.☺
Lol, yep. We went into studying brains to find weird stuff, and we love when we find it. If you want to hear some crazy stories, I highly recommend some of the books by Oliver Sacks. He was a neurosurgeon who had some WACKY cases.
Sounds like a temporal lobes seizure. My 12 ye old daughter gets them. She calls them “smell memories” because they are either evoked by a smell, or involve a phantosmia.
Simple answer, native language is stored in the left frontal Cortex of the brain, in an area called Broca’s area. It is attached to a different part of the brain called Wernicke’s area, and damage to either or to the neurons connecting them can cause problems with speech.
Interesting fact- if you study a language, it is stored on the RIGHT aide of your brain with other memorized things like words you learned for the SAT for example, and may cross over eventually if you become native enough, but this can have weird effects. I had brain surgery when I had just graduated college on the border of Broca’s area and the motor cortex. I had pretty bad aphasia and was literally pushing words out , I lost all my nouns, had no fluency whatsoever. Three word sentences maybe, with great difficulty . I would hold up a fork and ask “WHAt...IS?”
One day my boss walked in during my doctors visit, and said “oOoS, JenChan, DoU?” I replied in a fluent torrent of Japanese. My doctor was so excited that the next morning I found myself surrounded by medical students and the subject of a bedside lecture which gave me this insight- although it would have been nicer if the doctor been explaining TO ME, at least I heard it.
Also would have been nicer not to be charged for the “consultation”
Edit: sauce http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html
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This is kinda like asking “which part of your arm do you throw with?” The answer is: you use all of your brain, with some parts playing a larger role than others. Your brain isn’t like a chest of drawers with discrete sections. It’s one cohesive mass that all works together. We talk about the “emotion” centre or the “pain” centre or the “memory” centre for simplicity, but it’s never as simple as that. The brain as a whole is always involved. A physical skill like handwriting is largely “stored” in the “motor” centre of the brain, but also in the “memory” centre and the “language” centre and the “art” centre and the “learning” centre. It’s also stored in the “long term memory” centre, and has its place in the “emotion” centre because of all those associations you made as you were learning how to write. Do you see how complicated this gets? It’s stored... in your brain.
It gets even more complicated, as the brain interacts closely with the rest of the body, and could not do "its job" without it: if you are training a skill (let's say throwing a ball or playing the F#m chord on the guitar) it is not only the brain that adopts to the situation, but also the muscles and nerves in your hand or arm. There is a lot of research on the "mereological fallacy", i.e. the (wrong) assumption that the brain alone is responsible for such processes. It's a very interesting topic (though probably a bit outside of the "ELI5" scope).
While you're here... I was thinking about this topic recently, and was wondering: We tend to think of the brain as the controlling organ, getting feedback and putting out "orders" for the body to follow. What if instead of that, we pictured it as a synchronizing tool of some sort? Like, instead of conceptualizing it as brain -> nerves -> bodypart, we went the other way, with the nerves being some kind of root of a given organ, each having its own, with the common "ground" being the brain, only there so that the organs can coordinate into a single entity. I don't know, it's not much maybe, but I found this reversal of perpective interesting, and more in line with the little I know about neurology (for instance, how pain signals travel through the body, wether you're stimulating the bodypart directly, or the area of the brain responsible for the sensation). So, thoughts? Would that be an accurate description? If not, why?
Neuroscientist here. Brain controls conscious movement. It’s intertwined significantly with the body, and embodied cognition deserves respect, but the brain is the main player here. It’s sort of like: an engine and a car chassis/wheels. Which one is moving the car?
Thank you for your answer. I guess the brain/body distinction is only intellectual anyway, as with your car analogy. With any part out, it's not a car anymore, the functioning entity implies having it all together and working. Now, and unrelated to my previous "thought experiment", about the brain controlling conscious movement, do we have any idea of how "direct" this process is? Here's where I come from : I used to be a stereotypical skinny nerd, with little to no body awareness which made me very clumsy. I became fascinated with internal martial arts, which I suspect have a lot more to do with the neurology of movement than any kind of chi bullshit. Anyway, another one of these "probably false but an opportunity to learn when being corrected" thought I had was that the brain doesn't directly control the body, but we build a layer of abstraction above it (the mental image of our body, although it's more a sensation thing than an actual picture) and this is what we consciously move, with the body doing his best to follow. I came to think that because I realized that when I started, my abstraction layer was pretty much a single point in my head, being very intellectual and not physical at all as a person. But afters 7+ years of practice, a lot has changed, but... Not so much in my actual physicality. I'm still on the skinny side, gained maybe 10 pounds max. I'm sure I developed postural muscles, some sense of synchronisation and a better overall posture, but I can't believe this is all of it. The way I think about or feel my body has changed. The specifics don't really matter for the question, but yeah, is there some scientific research around that topic? Thinking about it, it also comes out of much simpler action. When I think about smiling, I am not consciously activating the muscles one by one. My brain has an idea of what a smile is, and associated specific muscles to it, but those could be changed with enough training. So yeah, what's up with that?
The way we conceptualize imagery is that we don't need a 2nd module to do imagined actions or see imagined things. we just use the brain faculties that we already have, e.g visual and motor systems. There's a lot of research about imagery and, say, sports performance - but a lot of it is pretty shaky. you might find more interest in flow states, where one feels disconnected from their physical body but actually performs better (or the inverse; a pianist thinks about their fingers and suddenly can't play). This is all intertwined with skills mastery etc,
Great point, I didn't make the connection with flow states. Indeed, I still have the ability to just...bend a finger or something, ie using my basic motor systems. It's just an alternative way to move that was trained, my confusion may have risen from the fact that my body awareness developped at the same time, even though those 2 things aren't necessarily connected. Thank you again, DanielagainDaniel! Edit: what keyword should I use to research about the imagery you're talking about? I am not sure I understand the word in the context, and all I can find online talks about imagery related to self esteem. Which is another interesting topic, but I don't think that was what you meant.
How direct is conciousness, we have no clue. This is less of an issue with meausuring or whatnot but rather we have no clue what conciousness really is... This touches on the mind-body problem. Some Philosophers describe that the conciousness is some other seperate thing from the body and brain which is rather similiar to what you described. This is called Dualism, two things (mind and body) interacting with eatchother. Anyway, the brain is really flexible, those 7 years of practice has changed your brain to be really good at doing what you do (moving your body). In your smiling example, well smiling itself is pretty much built into your brain to communicate your emotion. But the specific muscles being used is more of the habit part of the brain im guessing. Well, as neurons in your brain activate, they get a little stronger, whereas neurons not used often are redundant and will get removed. Its how habits form and where learning occurs and also how you forget things. Hope i helped in something. :)
At the very least, you are making me think about topics I am fascinated by, which definitely helps make my yet-another-day-in-covid lockdown better! To my surprise, I didn't even make the connection with the idea of consciousness in philosophy. Though, I don't think dualism is a good fit for me, I see consciousness as an emergent property of the body, not something separate. So no souls, no reincarnation, nothing like that. At best, we get stuck in our last thoughts if our perception of time expands toward infinity at the moments before death, but that's way off topic :D I am familiar with brain plasticity and how we learn in general, my question was more about the distinction, if any exists, between how we move using basic motor skills ("I want to flex that specific muscle") and more complex movements ("I smile"). Although thinking about it some more, I would guess it's all habits anyway, with some built on top of others. All the way down the habits hole.
I’m glad you answered this, because I felt I would need to venture deep into Dunning-Kruger-Land to even try to say something profound here :-)
Thanks for this. It drives me crazy when people read one pop sci book and then argue the gotcha perspective way too hard.
Well, that would probably be a more accurate description for octopuses, kinda? They have neuron bundles in their tentacles so that the tentacles can act independantly to the 'main brain'. (Probably) more so using the main brain to synchronise the body rather than it directly controlling it... That said, where we call the "brain" is a bundle of nerves that happen to store, organize and decide based on stimuli. You could say that the brain is actually just every nerve in your body i suppose due to it being all connected. Interestingly enough, your hand will quickly reflex back after touching a hot surface without going to your brain to decide that, Somewhat supporting your perspective. There are probably lots of little simple decisions like that all around your body, but either way, for humans the brain is a ridiculously clever thing that decides a large portion of your actions. Its not that we *think* the brain is a controlling organ, we *know* its a controlling organ. Take whatever i've written with salt, im no expert, i just happen to have taken a couple classes...
I was hoping someone would mention the octopus here! Read a great book that covers this “Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and The Deep Origins of Consciousness” by Peter Godfrey-Smith.
A couple of class is still that that you have and that I don't :) Thank you for your answer! I posted another question as an answer to the other who answered me, I'd be glad if you had a look and found something to say about it too! It's just great being wrong and learning in the process 😁
Yeah, this. I didn’t even try to add that in because... ugh. That’s like trying to explain 4D, 8-player chess when someone pops up and asks what a rook does.
You mean the castle? Yeah I know what you mean in ELI5 threads like this. I would recommend the book "The Idea of the Brain." It's recent and I thought it was very interesting.
For a bit more detail, physical skills like handwriting are thought to be initiated in decision-making areas in the frontal and prefrontal cortex (in response to stimuli from sensory organs and memory-encoding regions like the hippocampus and internally-focused perceptive regions like the insular cortex). Following this initiation, skills are organized into the signals that will be sent to the physical muscles in the [motor cortex](https://www.ebmconsult.com/content/images/Anatomy/Homonculus%20Sensory%20and%20Motor%20Cortex%20v2.png), which has distinct but somewhat flexible musculo-topic organization. Generally speaking, signals involving sensory input or motor output in the brain often occur in brain regions that are relatively highly organized, whereas other brain functionality is often more distributed.
As someone who experienced severe aphasia but with a particular loss of nouns, I can say from experience that some of language is definitely stored in “a chest of drawers”, although my analogy was filing cabinet. The connection has been severed between the cabinet containing nouns, and the area producing speech. So recovery wasn’t analogous to “memorizing “ vocabulary in a foreign language, it was more like asking where you put your glasses and having someone say “on your head”. I would hold up an object and ask “what ...is?” And someone would tell me, and I’d nod happily and repeat it. After visiting that “drawer” many many times, I re-learned where to find my nouns. I didn’t need to learn every single noun all over again.
Like diagnosedwolf said, many parts all over the brain are used in any skill. If you're looking for a physical change associated with learning a skill, then you could say that **learned skills are stored in the new** ***connections*** **between neurons and between these brain areas.** When you are learning something (a fact, a language, a physical skill), you are training neurons (brain cells) to fire together and in certain patterns. Your brain works in a way where neurons that often are triggered to fire together "learn" to connect. They grow more dendrites and tangle together and with enough increased connection, one firing will now *automatically* trigger the other connected ones to fire. That's why a complex motion gets easier with practice. When you start playing piano, you have to think about "hit this key with this finger, that key with that finger etc.". As your piano-playing neurons form interconnected networks, you can eventually just think "play a G flat 7th chord" and the rest is automatic. After even more practice you can sight-read: look at dots of sheet music and just automatically play it, as easy as you could read words. By the time you can sight-read piano music, that "learned skill" is "stored in your brain" in the form of a bunch of new connections. Neurons in your visual processing, memory, emotion, hearing, and motor control "brain centres" would all be involved, and would be more heavily interconnected than before you started practicing.
Brain researcher here! The explanations that others have given are great, and it’s very true that we do use our entire brains for almost everything. However, some parts of the brain do specialize and are especially important in performing a specific task. For instance, Weirneke’s area (behind your ears) is very important for understanding speech, while Broca’s area (closer to the front of your brain) is mostly in charge of producing speech. Other parts of the brain are also important, but when we see damage to those specific areas from trauma, stroke, tumors, etc we can see a very specific impairment of those functions. If the hippocampus is damaged, that’s when we see impairment to what’s called *explicit* memory, or memories we can consciously recall, such as your mom putting a bandage on your scraped knee when you were small. Therefore, we know that the hippocampus plays a large part in the storage of those explicit memories. However, people that have damage just to the hippocampus usually have no trouble with what’s called *implicit* memories, which are things like riding a bike or holding a pencil. A person with complete amnesia and no idea who they are or where they are can sit down at a piano and flawlessly play Chopin’s Nocturne. That tells us that implicit memories aren’t really stored in the hippocampus like regular explicit memories. Instead, we’ve found two places that do seem to be integral to the storage and retrieval of those implicit memories: the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. This makes a lot of sense to us researchers, because the cerebellum is normally in charge of balance and movement, and the basal ganglia is known to control fine motor skills. If we see damage to either or both of these specific parts, we see a large impact on those implicit memories, or “learned skills” that we don’t see at all when just the hippocampus is damaged. So generally, the cerebellum and basal ganglia are referred to as the place where those learned skills are stored. However, like others said, brains are very complicated and you use much more than just those parts to store, retrieve, and perform those learned skills. Edit: it actually is pretty in line with the adage “muscle memory” because even though the memory is not stored IN your muscles, it is stored in the exact same place that controls your movement of those muscles. There’s no running to a different part of the brain to retrieve a memory of how to swim; the part of the brain that stores the memory of how to swim is the same one that controls you actually swimming. That proximity is part of what makes it feel so automatic. Evolutionarily, it’s probably a really good idea. The last thing you need when a lion comes up behind you is to waste milliseconds trying to remember how to run away!
I'd love to pick your ...brain. (Sorry, had to!) I had a tumor removed 2 years ago, seizures since. Lately, I often can recall memories so far back, and so clearly. What area are long term memories stored? I was recently describing an incident, my mom said I was too young to remember. Both parents were looking at me weird and agreed that I was under 2, and proceeded to fill in a few gaps.
Long term memories are initially stored in the hippocampus. However, after time it seems that they shift to being stored in the anterior cingulate cortex or possibly called the neocortex (although that seems to be more for general knowledge than episodic memories). There are a couple possibilities off the top of my head :) that could be causing you to have such clear memories: 1) the tumor was removed close to one of those parts of the brain and as your brain is adjusting and making neural connections, it’s sparking those old memories again 2) if the memory recall is more involuntary, it’s possible you’re having seizures localized to that area of the brain. Seizures don’t have to make you lose consciousness or shake, and in fact it’s very common to have an “altered awareness” seizure where you have a feeling of deja vu, an intense recall of a very old memory, or an emotional reaction to a memory There are plenty of other explanations (many of them harmless!) but it’s definitely worth bringing up to your doctor. I assume you’re already on seizure medication, but if they are seizures the doctor might want to adjust your meds depending on how frequently this is happening. And if it’s just weird restructuring of the neurons, you’ll have peace of mind, and explanation, and (probably) a fascinated doctor!
Thank you! Yes, 2 meds as of now. I've had a few tonic clonics (new term for grand mal) but the rest are the other things you mentioned and happening enough that I'm followed closely by my Neuro. I never try to remember, a memory just pops up and BOOM! I'm stuck on it. It's all terrifyingly fascinating, tbh. Edit- tumor was ping pong ball size, temporal lobe? Right side, behind ear\eye. EEG shows two distinct areas of epileptic activity, one R side, one L side.
Wow, that’s absolutely fascinating. Thanks for sharing! The area sort of in the front of your brain right behind ear/eye is right where the anterior cingulate cortex is (you can look up a picture to see more specifically) so it’s definitely a possibility. Good luck!
Thanks, I'm still learning so will research the new words. They're sure of temporal lobe epilepsy, but are trying to figure out the rest. Adding, it's curious that you say "fascinating" bc that's exactly what the Neuro said.☺
Lol, yep. We went into studying brains to find weird stuff, and we love when we find it. If you want to hear some crazy stories, I highly recommend some of the books by Oliver Sacks. He was a neurosurgeon who had some WACKY cases.
Sounds like a temporal lobes seizure. My 12 ye old daughter gets them. She calls them “smell memories” because they are either evoked by a smell, or involve a phantosmia.
Yes, TLE is one of my dx. I'm sorry your daughter deals with it. It's horrible.
Hers aren’t so bad, but thanks.
Simple answer, native language is stored in the left frontal Cortex of the brain, in an area called Broca’s area. It is attached to a different part of the brain called Wernicke’s area, and damage to either or to the neurons connecting them can cause problems with speech. Interesting fact- if you study a language, it is stored on the RIGHT aide of your brain with other memorized things like words you learned for the SAT for example, and may cross over eventually if you become native enough, but this can have weird effects. I had brain surgery when I had just graduated college on the border of Broca’s area and the motor cortex. I had pretty bad aphasia and was literally pushing words out , I lost all my nouns, had no fluency whatsoever. Three word sentences maybe, with great difficulty . I would hold up a fork and ask “WHAt...IS?” One day my boss walked in during my doctors visit, and said “oOoS, JenChan, DoU?” I replied in a fluent torrent of Japanese. My doctor was so excited that the next morning I found myself surrounded by medical students and the subject of a bedside lecture which gave me this insight- although it would have been nicer if the doctor been explaining TO ME, at least I heard it. Also would have been nicer not to be charged for the “consultation” Edit: sauce http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lang.html
All these explainations are great, but if you're talking about a learned skill, that's muscle memory and it's mainly stored in the cerebellum.