“Memory defines who we are”

In his talk in Antofagasta Puerto de Ideas 2025the Argentine neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga He approached memory as a distinctive feature of human identity.

“I think that We all have an intuition of what memory is, es store memories, is coding them in some way in neurons, store them And at some point I can evoke them, to be able to bring them back to the conscious But to me That definition is very short. He doesn’t explain anything about the memory. Hay a lot to talk about the importance of memory, una of the most interesting things is that memory partly defines who we are“, Said the physicist, ICREA professor and researcher of the Perception and Memory Group of the Hospital del Mar Research Institute.

“Una of the things that fascinate me the most It is, knowing that memory defines identity, find out when you make neuroscience how malleable the memories are, how they change and What is curious is that every time we evoke a memory we are changing it, ”he added.

Jennifer Aniston’s “Nemean”

Quian Quiroga related his discovery of the “Neuron from Jennifer Aniston”found in patients with epilepsy.

This neuron, which does not respond to visual details but to concepts, reflects a unique capacity of the human brain: coding abstractions. Unlike other animals, he explained, our neurons allow to think conceptually, a key aspect of our intelligence.

“To this day, nobody ever could see neurons like that in any other animal, sOn exclusively human. So, They are of the few things, or maybe the only feature of the human brain, which is clear that exists in the human brain And nobody could ever find in monkeys, in rats or in the animal that name me, ”explained the scientist.

Through his research, he argues that memory based on abstract concepts – and not on details – is one of the keys that explain what makes us human.

The challenges of artificial intelligence

He explained that remembering and sharing memories has been crucial for evolution, but warned that today we face new challenges in the face of the advance of artificial intelligence and the growing use of technology.

“I am optimistic, very Optimistic, ”he said regarding the development of artificial intelligence.

During the conversation, he also referred to the growing technological dependence and the importance of maintaining disconnection spaces to promote creativity. According to Quian Quiroga, excess digital stimuli could be affecting our ability to think deeply and originally.

“It does not seem bad to delegate certain functions in technology, for me the problem is another, the problem is that with that device you have a constant information bombardment, which is too sometimes because the WhatsApp arrives, the message comes to you, they call you on the phone, that this, that the other. Well I confess, I do not use mobile phone. It is that I like it to sit there and do not do anything and I do not want to interrupt.