The Making and Keeping of Memory

Memory is central to our life and identity. Our brains make memory traces automatically as we go about our daily life. We also forget a lot - it’s natural and functional. But what memories get kept and which are lost? Professor Richard Morris will show how the brain mediates memory. He also discusses the fear of the loss of personal memory. The inability to recollect the events of our life can develop from a minor irritation to a condition that undermines normal existence – notably in Alzheimer's Disease. Morris shares important insights on how we build up memories and why we should only worry about forgetting when it affects the most important parts of our life.

Richard Morris is Director of the Center for Cognitive Neural Systems and the Wolfson Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Morris is known for developing the Watermaze, one of the most widely used tasks in behavioral neuroscience. His research program focuses on the making and keeping of memory.

Organized in cooperation with the Royal Dutch Zoological Society (KNDV).