Scientists photograph brain at work

By analysing successive cross-sections of rat brains, the researchers studied the synapses8217; or contact points that link two neurons.

From the microscope images, the scientists constructed three-dimensional images of these minuscule connections. In doing so, they realised that during the memory process, there is duplication of certain synapses, a report in the journal Nature says.

Each of the 100 billion neurons in a human brain can have up to 10,000 contact points or synapses with its surrounding neurons. But only a few dozen of these synapses undergo memory transformation, which explains why it has taken scientists so long to capture images of the modifications that occur when a neuron is stimulated and acts as if it quot;remembersquot; the stimulation.