Hello there :)
There is something fundamentally mischievous about the human memory, have you noticed? We might remember an incident from when we were ten years old, perhaps of a rainy day when our mom let us buy butterscotch ice cream at the kiosk next to school. But most of us don't remember what we wore three days ago.
You could argue that a critical component of memory is attention and emotion. That ice cream from ten years ago is memorable because it was an anomaly, or because it made our day. The shirt from three days ago did not. But in that case, why is it that I forgot the important lectures from college, where I definitely paid close attention? Or what I did on my eleventh birthday, which I'm sure was joyful and memorable? This isn't to say none of you do. I've met people who had super-heroic memory, being able to list the names of all their teachers from school. Yet, what is this fiendish mechanism that lets us learn new information limitlessly, but acts so poorly in maintaining that and retrieving it when there's a need at hand?
In a way, learning and memory share a lot of the underlying electrochemical mechanisms. Learning a new piece of information means that in a certain part of our brain, thousands of neurons are firing neurotransmitters and action potentials between each other. Memory is pretty much the second step to that process of learning. It is the concept that helps us retain what we learnt, and hopefully recall when we need it. Memory is more explicit though, but no different than learning because the same process of neuronal firing takes place when you recall something.
That simplistic view soon gets complicated when we realize we have 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses. Numbers too big for our own brain to comprehend, ironically. But, keeping that aside for a moment, memory is known to be associated with certain parts of the brain more than others.
"Explicit memory depends on the integrity of temporal lobe and diencephalic structures such as the hippocampus, subiculum, and entorhinal cortex. Implicit memory includes simple associative forms of memory, such as classical conditioning, and nonassociative forms, such as habituation, and relies on the integrity of the cerebellum and basal ganglia."
In the history of memory studies, there is a particular one from 1957 that stands out. It stands out because it was an unexpected case study. A serendipity, if I may. It involves Henry Gustav Molaison, a name well-known to anyone in the neuroscience community, who suffered from epilepsy that was caused by a head injury when we was very young. At age 27, he decided to undergo surgery performed by William Scorville and Brenda Miller, a pioneering neurosurgeon and his doctorate student.
Scorville performed what is called a bilateral medial temporal lobe resection, essentially removing parts of Henry's temporal lobe, hippocampus, and amygdala. However, his epilepsy was not the only thing the surgery took awayβ¦
Read on to understand in detail how a concept called long-term potentiation plays a role in memory and ways to improve yours using a concept called spaced repetition.
Tangent: I gave a π£οΈ on maximizing the summer at an e-conference that happened the past weekend where over 1,500 registered and 450 showed up on a Saturday night at 9 PM. It was a pretty awesome experience: I even got to reveal my book title (coming soon!).
Grow your mind garden with spaced repetition π±
I spent four hours on Sunday thinking about my digital mind garden, a concept that I plan to write about in a few weeks. Essentially, I wanted to spend time setting up a system so that the digital tools I use serve me well to gain deep expertise on a few topics I care about.
One of those digital tools include Readwise. I began using this a few months ago when I had to capture highlights from my Kindle and export it into Roam easily. Readwise also has a mobile app you can use to convert text captured from a physical book into a digital one using OCR technology.
I recently found out that they also included a new feature to help with spaced repetition. Ring a bell?
Every time you feel like remembering something you highlighted for the long-term, you simply have to click on the Master tool in Readwise and convert it into a flashcard. Once you do this, you can mention whether you want to review this again soon, later, or eventually and Readwise will do the rest.
Using this simple two-step process, you can get a compounding return with time. If this seems intriguing, consider using my invite link to set up your Readwise account so we both get a free month on it :) but hey, no pressure.
For the future, I wish Readwise had more integrations with tools such as Notion, Roam, and Weava (three tools I use a lot).
Brain food from the internet π
Cognitive neuroscience: Developing transformative tools for thought π€
Honestly, itβs not often I read an article that is 20,000+ words long. But, this one deserved it. Written by Andy Mastuchak and Michael Nielson, this piece dives really deep into the various mnemonic mediums available for memory and retention, and how they have used this in constructing a one-of-a-kind website to teach quantum computing. This was the piece that inspired me to write my article on memory.
Economy: Pandemic -> Public venmo? π°
Before covid-19 started spreading in the United States, Kim, a New York assemblyman who represents a district in Queens, had been pushing for the state to create a publicly run digital payment system. He and other proponents described the concept as a sort of βpublic Venmo,β after the popular peer-to-peer payment service. Kimβs argument is essentially that New York residents need a free, publicly accessible payment network. This is an interest one to ponder over.
Productivity: Becoming a learning machine π
It is hard not to impressed with Simon Eskildsen, a 25 year old Director of Engineering at Shopify, after reading this. He never went to college β he joined Shopify when he was 18, and stayed there and moved up the ranks to leadΒ infrastructure teams that help keep Shopify processing hundreds of thousands of requests a second, day and night. But what is more impressive is how he teaches himself (I had a short email chat with Simon after reading this, it was fun).
Technology: How BCI compares with historical inventions π§
Today our brains can only interact with the outside world through our bodies. They are encased in bone like a wartime command center with no windows and one door. This constraint has kept the brain safe from injury and tampering, but it has also made the brain difficult to repair when things go awry. Now brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are allowing peopleβs minds to plug directly into technology. But how does this compare to the previous inventions? Hear it from the CEO of Paradromics.
Book thatβs keeping me company π
Beyond Boundaries by Miguel Nicolelis: I bought this after reading an article where the CEO of BrainCo, a neurotech startup Iβm interested in, recommended it. I have to say, I did not expect a book heavy on neuroscience/tech concepts to be a well-written one. The author has done a good job of painting the picture at each instance, maybe a little too much at times by using unnecessarily ornate adjectives. Still, Iβm learning a lot. 80 pages in. Check out my book reviews on instagram.
Hi there!Β If youβre feeling generous, can youΒ likeΒ this post on Substack?Β It would greatly improve the visibility so more people can enjoy. You can follow me onΒ InstagramΒ for fun life stories andΒ LinkedInΒ for not-so-fun life stories. EmailΒ ask@bsoundarya.comΒ for questions.
Aaand.. youβre awesome. Donβt forget that. :)