Imagine never again forgetting where you parked your car, or that last item you had on your grocery list, or why you walked into this room anyway. If you trust media stories about research currently under way at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to build an implantable device to restore memory, you might not have to worry about these memory lapses in the future.
Many neuroscientists share the dream of neuroprosthetic technology that could help damaged brains function. Many such devices are in various stages of experimentation. Beyond helping those with impaired memories, the next step could conceivably be implantable “brain chips” that would improve the memories of the rest of us, ensuring that in the future we never forget anything.
But what would it really mean if we were able to remember every single thing?
How Brains Remember
Since the early neurological work on memory in the 1950s and 1960s, studies have demonstrated that memories are not stored in just one part of the brain. They’re widely distributed across the whole brain, particularly in an area called the cortex.
