Think for a moment what do you remember from your childhood and generally from the past...
I bet most of the things you remember are related to some emotion, whether good or bad. Why is it like that? Why do we remember better things where we were emotionally engaged? To give an answer to those questions first we have to learn about memory and emotions pathways and how are they made.
Fact that we use only 10% of our brain is long past history and now we know that we use the whole brain, but still, we are not 100% sure how and for what.
Memory
Memory is a complicated process and we can say it is part personally, but there are some facts and rules that we know and what we can use to improve our memory.
Whan we talk about memory, the most known type are the short-term and long-term memory. At the figure below you can see specific parts of the brain and there relation to the specific type of memory.
Different types of memory work together. Our senses collect information that is stored in sensory memory. If we include attention, sensory memory is transformed into short-term memory. Based on the importance of short-term memory it could be stored in long-term memory.
Memory and emotions
Of course, there are other really important processes like brain anatomy, plasticity and attention that would be great to study before memory bu in this post I will stay focused on the connection between memory and emotions.
If you analyze figure above you can see that long-term memory is beside others related to medial temporal lobe
Image source Part of the medial temporal lobe
As you can see, the parts are hippocampus, amygdala, mammillary bodies and olfactory bulb.
Hippocampus is part of the brain that keeps us out from living in the past. It creates memories. In case of Alzheimer, disease hippocampus is first affected and there is no ability to memorize. Amygdala is the part of the brain that is placed in limbic system same as the hippocampus and it is also known as "emotional brain".
Can you already see the connection between memory and emotion? :) I bet you can!! Yes, there is an interaction between those two systems that are normally independent. Those interactions are still not clearly investigated and we still don't know how that process happens.
There are few theories for now...but one of the most accepted is that amygdala primarily enhances episodic memory, what could be related to emotions 1
Well at the end..if you want to make someone to remember use neuroscience in a way of making something/someone emotionally involved or use specific smell or music :)
p.s. be aware of neuromarketing! It is used a lot and it controls you subconsciously.
References:
Human emotion and memory: interactions of the amygdala
and hippocampal complex
