>engrams. Ideas and images are held to derive from the incorporation and activation of these engrams in complex circuits involving nerve cells. Such circuits in the cortex (outer layers) of the brain appear to subserve the neurophysiology of memory, thought, imagination, and fantasy

…based on reactivation of old memory traces by stimuli resembling those experienced in the past—in the way that a pressed rose discovered in a long-forgotten dance program, for example, may trigger a flood of old memories (see also memory).

…change or memory trace (engram) in the nervous system. Research suggests that these engrams, long considered theoretical, likely exist in the form of neural networks in the brain. Evidence from studies in animals indicates that engram cells link together and thereby create new neural connections, assisted by processes such…

, failure to form memory traces), the widely accepted view is that it results primarily from a greatly increased rapidity of forgetting (i.e., rapid decay of memory traces). This view has also been held by the great majority of experimental psychologists who have worked with amnesic people. The consensus…