Support For The Theory of Reverse Learning
In the echidna, a primitive egg-laying mammal that has no REM sleep, there is a very enlarged frontal cortex. Crick and Mitchison argue that this excessive cortical development is necessary to store both adaptive memories and parasitic memories, which in more highly evolved animals are disposed of during REM sleep.
This theory solves the brain information storage problem, as our cortex would need to be much larger due to the inefficient storage of information. It also explains why we forget dreams extremely easily.
Read more about this topic: Reverse Learning
Famous quotes containing the words support, theory, reverse and/or learning:
“Parents everywhere, trying to bring up kids in a plugged-in, supercharged, high-tech world, need all the information and support we can give each other.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“Don’t confuse hypothesis and theory. The former is a possible explanation; the latter, the correct one. The establishment of theory is the very purpose of science.”
—Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
“During the late war [the American Revolution] I had an infallible rule for deciding what [Great Britain] would do on every occasion. It was, to consider what they ought to do, and to take the reverse of that as what they would assuredly do, and I can say with truth that I was never deceived.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)