Download CHAPTER SIX Memory The experience of pain cannot be separated

CHAPTER SIX
Memory
The experience of pain cannot be separated, as we shall see time and time again, from the
experiences of sleep, appetite, thought, mood, and memory. Let’s explore the act of memory and
its role in the generation of illness, painful and otherwise.
A life event, sufficient in meaning to command attention, invokes a change within the
brain. Neurons dedicated to the acquisition of memory are recruited (the brain has enormous
reserves of cells for this purpose) and they undergo a transformation. The arrangement of their
neurotransmitters and receptors is altered in response to a new and previously unlearned
experience. This process takes time, perhaps as long as a few minutes. As we all know, the act
of rote memorization takes a while, and as we also know, a recently acquired memory is one of
the most fragile things in nature, easily lost by distraction or the diversion of attention to other
matters. Given sufficient time, however, the act of memorization is completed, and an
experience is stored away, forever available for recall.
Kindred memories are stored by kindred cells. There is a brain-place for remembered
words, another for remembered music, and almost certainly another for remembered pain.
Memories are acquired along the dimension of time, and they are layered that way, one on top of
the other. The most remote experiences are ensconced together, deep within the brain substance,
and the more recently acquired, sequentially on top. The recall of a memory will therefore often
invoke other temporally associated memories. For example, a listener hearing a remembered
tune may recall the occasion of its first hearing. He may remember the theater, the companion of
the evening, the dinner before the performance, and perhaps even the vintage of wine selected
Chapter 6 - Memory
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for the occasion. The association of memories within brain-place and brain-time can be
operative, as we shall see shortly, in the generation of very complex diseases.
We usually think of memory as an experiential phenomenon. It is a product of
consciousness. We experience something that commands our awareness, and we register it as
memory. A memory, however, is nothing more than a rearrangement of neurotransmitters on the
surface of the neuron. This rearrangement may be induced, as we shall also see, by the
introduction of certain chemicals into the brain. These agents incite a change in the
neurotransmitter configuration that will last forever. They create a sort of biologic memory
beyond any recall to consciousness, but available nonetheless to infloresce into display when
circumstances warrant.
There is another form of biologic memory that is induced not by alien chemicals but by
alien living organisms. Chicken pox is a common disease of childhood. It is usually a rather
trivial and unmemorable illness (few of us actually recall the experience). The body's defenses
overwhelm but do not quite destroy the virus. It retreats and finds domicile within that portion of
the neural architecture known as the dorsal root ganglion. The ganglia (there are several of
them) are arranged segmentally along the spinal cord. They house the sensory nerves. Filaments
(axons) from these extend out to the skin where they are stimulated by touch, heat, cold, or pain.
Their excitation sends a message to the ganglion where it is relayed up into the brain for
interpretation. For some reason, only God knows why, the chicken pox virus is able to continue
living only within the ganglion. It exists there as a sort of biologic memory, beyond any measure
of conscious control, but capable of resurrection when invited to do so. The administration of
drugs, such as cortisone, which diminish immunologic competence, may restore the virus to
activity. Intercurrent illness and emotional stress may also do it. The virus suddenly springs into