"When you began to reminisce, brain cells dormant just seconds before began firing chemicals at one another. That action triggered regions of your brain involved in processing emotions, which is why you may have re-experienced some feelings you did at the time of the event. Chemical and electrical signals shot out to the rest of your body. If you were stressed before you began this exercise, your heart rate probably slowed and stabilized as levels of cortisol and other stress hormones decreased in your blood."
"The memory changed you. But by pulling this memory to mind, neuroscientist Steve Ramirez says, you also changed the memory. Some elements of the memory heightened in importance. Others receded. Your brain snipped out and inserted details without your conscious knowledge. The mood you were in at the time of reminiscence left emotional fingerprints on the memory, as neurons activated by your mental environment synced up with those activated by the recollection."
Memories behave like well-thumbed library books, changing a little each time they are retrieved. Recalling a scene activates previously dormant brain cells and triggers chemical and electrical signals across emotion-processing regions. Those neural activations evoke bodily responses such as changes in heart rate and shifts in cortisol and other stress-hormone levels. Dopamine-related reward circuits can also engage during recollection. The act of remembering alters which details are emphasized or diminished, and neurons associated with current mood can bind to neurons of the original memory. Over repeated revisitations, the subjective experience and the underlying physical network of the memory evolve.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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