If you've seen the movie Memento, this science post might intrigue you. This one's about memory and the latest findings on how the brain weaves it. By weaving of course we mean the weaving of the many different features of an event (sights, sounds, smells, tastes), into a coherent whole.

In an article in the November 9 issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press, Melina Uncapher and colleagues reports on the results of experiments on human volunteers regarding the process of integrating memory. The researches presented subjects with a series of study words on a display screen. While their brains were being scanned using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), the subjects were shown words that were of different colors and different locations (quadrants) of the display screen.

Later the subjects were presented a collection of words that includes both the original set of study words and a bunch of new words. They were asked to recall if the words presented to them were old or new, and if old, the color and location of the old words.

The researchers then correlated the fMRI data on the active brain regions during the study phase with the date on the subjects later retrieval of the "memories" of these study words.

The findings? They learned and more importantly confirmed (based on their research of course, things are always up for debate in the world of science, that's why people post journals) that the regions of the brain involved in processing color and location were active during formation of memories for those features.

More importantly they found that the subjects' retrieval of both features – versus only color or location – was uniquely associated with enhanced activity in yet another brain region called the intraparietal sulcus, an area that has been strongly implicated in other studies as important in what experts call "perceptual binding" of multiple features of stimuli.

Their conclusion? Here's a quote:

The findings suggest that the encoding of disparate features of an episode into a common memory representation requires that the features be conjoined in a common perceptual representation when the episode is initially experienced.

Basically, they concluded that an important factor of memory and the recalling the details of it, is that the many different features of an episode or event we have conjoined when the event is initially experienced. Now I'm wondering how many strands, re-weaving, and re-wiring they'd have to figure out so that they can stick a cable into the base of my skull and get me to "know kung-fu."