How our memories are made in the brain

Our brains make memories of many kinds -- how to walk and jump, facts and figures, our fears, the events in our lives. Nanthia Suthana of the UCLA Brain Research Institute studies the way we remember events. As depicted here, she explains what scientists believe happens when a person remembers her 21st birthday party. Images, sounds, smells and other stimuli from the party are translated into electrical signals and channeled to different parts of the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex then channels the signals to another part of the brain that will form, or encode, the memory.