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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		A new understanding of the brain's hippocampus may help treat various brain disorders
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-11-06 18:00:00
	Description:		Did you ever wonder what happens in the brain when we finish our friends' sentences or answer fill-in-the-blank questions? A University of California, Berkeley study has found that while looking for the right words, we engage our hippocampus, an area of the brain that stores our memories. Cognitive neuroscientist Robert Knight says that until now, linguists were not paying attention to this connection. "What's happened historically is the language has operated independent of the memory field. We have the metaphor that two ships are sailing. You had a language ship sailing and a memory ship sailing. Turns out they are getting berthed at the same port." This discovery allows scientists to take a closer look at abnormalities in the brain rhythms and this may help patients with different types of brain disorders. "It might give us some insight as to whether your kid is going down a wrong language development path or it might give us some idea about the problems with accessing semantic knowledge in older person - either which is age- related cognitive decline or maybe something portending or having Alzheimer's disease."
	Total Play:		0