There’s a reason why people use their locations to help remember significant events in their lives. For example, when recalling the fall of the Twin Towers, many will recite where they were when they heard the news or saw the footage on television.

Scientists call this episodic memory formation. They suggest it is possible that by connecting several aspects of an event to a single location and time frame a more complete memory is retained and is able to be recalled at a later date. A person thinking back to an impactful event may remember not only where they were, but who they were with, what colors the walls were and where the furniture positioned in the room.

Not a lot is understood about the mechanisms behind this type of memory formation. It has long been believed that there were several regions of the brain instrumental to episodic memories, however the specific ones had not been clearly identified.

New research, utilizing new technology, has shed a bit of light onto the topic. In a study out of Dartmouth and the University of North Carolina, researchers discovered that a previously underexplored region of the brain appears to play an important role in the development of episodic memories.

The area is known as the retrosplenial cortex. It associated with not only the formation of memories but the incorporation of the several types of stimulation encountered in any environment. It appears to be the place in the brain where all the pieces of perception come together to form an understanding of a person’s surroundings.

By inserting a synthetic virus into a rat’s brain that acts as a “remote control” researchers were able to temporarily inhibit brain activity in target areas. When shutting down the retrosplenial cortex, researchers found that rats could no longer learn to associate presented stimuli with the appearance of food.

The current research was not done with a specific clinical application in mind; however, the ability to temporarily alter brain function in this way has never been available before now. The researchers involved are optimistic that new insights into the brain and diseases related to the brain could be gleaned using this technique. They say this could be especially true if the technology could be used to excite brain activity as well as hinder it.