Ah, memories. It’s one of the reasons why we love going to concerts.
And during our recent Weezer concert adventures I recorded the video above, and ever since that night I’ve been wondering about and exploring how our brains and concert fan emotions have been processing that unforgettable moment.
For starters, I found this interesting Science Daily article that explains how recent research has made it “… possible to “read” a person’s memories just by looking at brain activity..”
And here’s how they’re doing it:
Demis Hassabis and Professor Eleanor Maguire at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have previously studied the role of a small area of the brain known as the hippocampus which is crucial for navigation, memory recall and imagining future events. Now, the researchers have shown how the hippocampus records memory.
When we move around, nerve cells (neurons) known as “place cells”, which are located in the hippocampus, activate to tell us where we are. Hassabis, Maguire and colleagues used an fMRI scanner, which measures changes in blood flow within the brain, to examine the activity of these places cells as a volunteer navigated around a virtual reality environment. The data were then analysed by a computer algorithm developed by Demis Hassabis.
“We asked whether we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what the participants were thinking, or in this case where they were,” explains Professor Maguire, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. “Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words, we could ‘read’ their spatial memories.”
That’s pretty amazing stuff!
And It’s Got Me Thinking…
What if I was able to hook up my brain to an fMRI scanner before, during and a several weeks after this Weezer show?
What would I learn about my own experience?
What would I discover about how my brain stores and recalls the memories of my favorite concerts?
What would I learn about how those memories help me navigate other moments in my life like when I’m coping with loss or grief?
What If We Could Compare?
Since that Weezer show, I’ve also been thinking about how I had the pleasure of chatting with other Weezer fans before the show and how I would love to see their rMRi scan results too.
I would love to compare our scans and see how different or similar our Weezer concert experiences were.
How Would Your Brain Navigate?
The Science Daily article goes on to explain how other studies have been done to see how taxi drivers remember city streets and how our brain’s neurological makeup places a vital role in that process.
That said, I would love to explore how our concert fan brain navigates the emotionally complex environment of a live show.
What would our amazing emotional journey during a concert look like represented on a fMRI scan?
Speaking of Memories…
Were you at this Weezer show? Have you ever wondered about how your brain recalls and navigates concert memories?
Thanks for following along and let us know what you think about about this topic in the comments below, and we’ll share your stories on future episode of Live Fix Radio.