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Steve Ramirez, "How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past" (Princeton UP, 2025)

January 19, 2026·51 min·5 clips

Ramirez argues memories biologically thread together our sense of self, revealing identity as a story built memory by memory.

Neuroscientist Steve Ramirez discusses his book 'How to Change a Memory', explaining the physical basis of memory (engrams), how memories can be artificially activated and altered (including creating false memories in rodents), and the potential therapeutic applications for conditions like PTSD and depression. The conversation covers memory's role in identity, its malleability upon recall, and future directions in memory science.

As heard by us

A clear look at how memory can be activated, altered, and made strange.

Steve Ramirez and Caleb Zakarin frame the episode around a plain but unsettling question: what does it mean to alter a memory, and when does that change start to become something else?

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Why you'd press play

For a careful look at how memory can be reactivated, rewritten, and tested in mice.

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