Featured image: Memories lodge themselves all across your brain, and are altered each time we remember them. (Courtesy MIT News)
On this week’s show, colleagues in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute Lili Cai and Anne Mennen dive into their research on fearful memories. We investigate where memories are physically stored in our heads, and what we can do to strengthen or weaken a memory—since for some, memories prolong the trauma of an unforgettable event. In their graduate research, Lili and Anne gather brain data from their subjects through different means: Lili in rats via direct neurosurgery, and Anne in humans with sophisticated brain imagers. Together, they test our models of memory and learn how we can manipulate what we remember for our own good.
In other news: Immediately after the clock ticked into 2019, the NASA spacecraft New Horizons flew by a foreign object, Ultima Thule, which is the furthest solid body from the sun we have studied up close. Seeing this primordial snowman tells us how small rocks built planets in the early solar system — it’s a time capsule from 4 billion years ago!
The playlist can be found online at WPRB.com or below.
These Vibes Are Too Cosmic 