Can other parts of the brain perform memory tasks?
November 6th 2010 20:30
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If a part of the brain which controls memory or attention suffers brain injury, other parts of the brain can take over, research has shown.
Findings from the University of California, Berkeley, show that memory is not stored in one place but in a variety of sections of the brain, which means that if brain injury affects the memory area of the brain, other regions will compensate.
However, it was also found that this only occurred when it was required, with the section of the brain performing its natural job when not needed.
Dr Robert Knight, UC Berkeley professor of psychology, explained that these findings challenge the traditional hypothesis which says that if the memory section of the brain is damaged, another part of the brain would take over.
"Most of the time, it acts like a normal piece of brain tissue. It only kicks into hyper drive when the bad part of the brain is particularly challenged, and it does it in less than a second. This is a remarkably fluid neural plasticity, but it isn't the standard 'B took over for A,' it's really 'B will take over if and when needed,'" she said.
This transference of function has long been known to occur regarding movement, sensation and language, but the same results for memory have only just been discovered.
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