Neuroscientists and lay people alike have always been intrigued by the human brain’s extraordinary capacity for long-term memory. Very often we find ourselves going about our day-to-day lives when we suddenly encounter a stimulus that jolts us back to an earlier time and place – such an application of long-term memory can easily send us back months or even decades. Yet, this instantaneous form of recall is very often unexpected as well as involuntary. A number of comparisons have informally been drawn between the human brain and an indefinitely large filing cabinet, but a pressing question remains: how do we locate the files (memories) that we need exactly when we need them?
Surely we have all experienced the frustration of not being able to recall a particular fact when we wish to recall it, only to suddenly remember at a later time when it is not at all necessary. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, then, to have at our fingertips a device like Albus Dumbledore’s pensieve (Harry Potter) – a utility that helps us systematically sort through and organize our memories?
Recent research conducted at the University College London suggests that, in the not-so-distant future, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) could be our pensive. Essentially, these researchers maintain that it is possible to identify the type and location of certain memories while the human brain is functioning normally. If these findings are developed further, they could potentially lead to the creation of a sort of memory map – a diagram of the human brain that would locate the individual positions of memory traces.
Despite the published study, the findings of the UCL research remain controversial for several reasons. Can the human brain really be likened to a filing cabinet? Why is memory-mapping even useful? And could fMRI thereby be the tool that helps our generation finally understand the intricate workings of the human memory and mind?