What is memory?
People in the computer industry commonly use the term “memory” to refer to RAM (Random Access Memory). RAM is a temporary storage area used to load program instructions and to store files currently in use. Random comes from the fact that the CPU can retrieve information from any single location, or address, within the RAM.
According to Dr. Gary Small, M.D., Director of the UCLA Center on Aging “Normal memory performance involves both learning and recall and requires intact functioning of several regions of the brain and the brain cells, or neurons, within them. We generally think of memory as an abstract concept a thought; image, sensation, or feeling that is stored somewhere in our brain’s filing cabinet, ready to be pulled out at will. However, because our brains are comprised of nerve cells, chemicals, and electrical impulses, our memories are actually encoded, stored, and retrieved as a result of miniscule chemical and electrical interactions. Each nerve cell in the brain has a single axon that acts like a telephone line, conducting nerve impulses toward neighboring neurons. The friendly neuron next door receives the countless assortment of electrical impulses sent to it daily, through its dendrites- bunches of thin filaments extending out like antennae, receiving and sending information. But the new
