Author : Sahil Moza
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you… happy birthday dear visitor, happy birthday to you…
Doesn’t this song suddenly take you back to birthday cakes, candles, balloons, and friends? But have you ever wondered, how are we able to go on a mental journey, with just some sounds that someone makes?
Hippocampus is a part of the brain that is responsible for making sense of episodic memory, e.g. if you remember coming to this exhibit later, say thanks to your hippocampus! Our lab and a few others have shown that the hippocampus links together events in time. From here, you can see that it is possible to form a sequence together, such as a sequence of sounds that form a word, or sequences of words that form a song.
This demo is showcase a more recent theoretical work from our lab, which is how these sequences may be recognized in the hippocampus. On the left side of the demo, you will see labeled buttons on neurons. These neurons are in the CA3 region of the hippocampus. When you press these buttons, these neurons are activated. When you activate a neuron, you will hear a sound. Try pressing a button to see. Now, if you press these buttons in the correct sequence of a song, the CA1 side of the hippocampus will recognize the song and playback to you the whole song. Look at the cheat sheet available at the desk for the correct sequence. In case you make a mistake, you can press the reset button to start over again.