Prof. dr. Y. Dudai

To Forget or Not To Forget: This is the question

Workshop Leader: Prof. dr. Y. Dudai

Department:  Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel

Recent advances in understanding brain mechanisms of learning and memory may pave the way to novel pharmacological and bionic methods that could ultimately culminate in mitigation or even prevention of forgetting. But do we really wish not to forget? And if so, which types of information and under which conditions? We will discuss the postulated evolutionary roles of forgetting, and tap into issues related to cognitive plasticity and maturation, human memory systems and their function, trauma and memory erasure, generalization, false memory, imagination, and cyberspace.