Tag Archive for 'cell'

Stockholm syndrome

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 0 Comments

I have read somewhere a while ago about cells constituting a human body. Their life span lasts mostly from few seconds to months, depending on the kind. The longest ones live for around 7 years. It means that every 7 years we are completely regenerated: there is nothing left on physical plane from me living in 1999; not a single cell. I wonder how do we record our memories and how cells do pass recorded information from generation to generation… It looks like I already used to be 4 times, and about to finish my fifth cycle. Writing here is a sure way to back up myself in a case if something will go wrong, say, in a case of memory loss. So I decided to be honest, as ultimate memory loss anyway is just no more than 7 or 8 cycles away (keeping in mind what I’m a smoker, probably a half of that).

I spent most of my life trying to break out frames of convenience and certainty. My life was a constant escape. As I tried to live faster then my memories, I tried to run away from myself; cut off everything that hold ego together. To accept anything for given meant for me to accept self defeat. As I didn’t want to have compromises, I didn’t want to have anything in common with myself even a day ago. Head on I tried to hack into the future; no matter smash my head or break through I wanted to go as far as I could. I shed empty shells of my identity in process as a tree sheds leaves in the wind. Wind is a great allegory of time.

I didn’t see or rather didn’t care about danger of living like that then. Changing lives, names, places, occupations, friends, interests… you name it.

I lost myself. I don’t know anymore who I am, or who I was meant to be. It’s like a simultaneous chess game. Once I had an experience of it, playing with a chess grandmaster. He played 30 games the same time; walking up and down the lane of chess tables. I was just a somebody behind one of the boards. Now imagine yourself in his place, with no opponents on another side. You play this game on 30 boards with yourself; and these are different games with different sets of rules, sometimes rules you are not aware of. Some of them I managed to finish, some barely started.

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Mices, fluorescent dogs and memory tricks

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 1 Comment

I have read recently about an experiment conducted on mices (yep, once again!:(). The researchers tried to figure out how mices store their memories. Memories are subjective, but if we will anchor memories to certain events, they can be easily pinpointed.

To put it simple, mices had to go through some painful experiences. Afterwards the conditions of those experiences were recreated, so mices would expect they would be hurt again. However bad it sounds, they found that neurons are in charge of storing memories. More painful events recorded by bigger number of neurons. As the result, the more neurons would store the information about a particular event, the more vivid and strong memory is. It is an interesting thing to know, though it brings up some questions. Let’s say, we know what a lifecycle of a cell in our body is limited, from few seconds to 7 years max., and cells regenerate constantly.  How the information stored by neurons going through regeneration process could passed? How do we “select” what to remember? A couple of days ago I broke my toe. It broke in the same place as few years ago, in circumstances deserving a separate post, but that event was largely forgotten by me until it happenned again.

I went through quite a few painful experiences in my life, including broken bones etc., but they will not top my memories list. Sometimes when psychological experiments conducted, eg in Roershach test, they ask you to give the first word which comes to your mind.

 OK, I’ll do that with my memories now, without any logic and order:

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