... for only a few minutes at most, but the information is later transferred into a more permanent long-term store. Plastic Changes in the brain Short-term memory persisting for minutes to hours could be mediated by a variety of short-term plastic changes in synaptic transmissions, involving presynaptic inhibition. Another possibility is that there is ongoing feedback connections between neurons, which may reverberate within a closed loop of neurons and be sustained for some period of time. This would not involve any physical changes in the nerve cell, and the short-term memory is simply maintained by ongoing neuronal activity. Long-term memory may be stored by a persistent functional change in the brain. Deep anaesthesia silences neuronal activity, but disrupts short-term memories, but not long-term memories. This suggests that at least older memories are not mediated by dynamic change, but are more likely to involve physical changes in the brain. Parts of the Brain involved ...

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