Memories at the End of the Rainbow
If you have ever tried to find the elusive end of the rainbow, you will have a sense of what it is like to pin down a memory into its biological components. You might know what having a memory feels like, but what is the brain doing when we remember? More to the point, how do you go from the measurable cellular and network changes to the elusive 'experience' of a memory?
In this talk, Upinder Bhalla described the astonishing range of memory-related concepts that are measurable using modern neurobiology methods. He illustrated how to make a cartoon version of a simple kind of memory, namely, Pavlovian conditioning. Additionally, he speculated on how to go from these measurements to an understanding of the experience of remembering.
About the Neuroscientist
Upinder Bhalla is currently Professor and Dean at National Center of Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru. He received his undergraduate degree in natural sciences at Indian iNstitute of Science, Kanpur and Cambridge University, United Kingdom. He carried out his graduate work at California Institute of Technology, working in the area of information processing in the mammalian olfactory bulb. At NCBS, he has studied how animals recognize and find odours, and how memories are formed and stored.
Bhalla is winner of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (2007), and was elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (2007) and the Indian National Science Academy (2010).
