The Brain Stores Memories. But Who Sustains the Conditions for Remembering?

Stress, allostasis, Anergia, Rock–Paper–Scissors, and Relational Connectomic Reserve: from memory to the freedom to change our ways of Being.

1. What Remained Unspoken

Recall a conversation in which you prepared a response but never said it.

Perhaps someone interrupted you. Perhaps you decided to remain silent.

Now notice what happens as you remember.

Can you imagine the words? Has your breathing changed? Perhaps nothing noticeable happened.

We do not need to reach the same answer.

At BrainLatam, we investigate a possibility: what happens when an organism prepares a movement that finds neither expression nor a recognizable transition?

Memory allows us to reconstruct experiences, but also to recover expectations and possibilities for action.

And stress can modify the conditions under which we manage these transitions.

2. Neurobucano: Memory and Neural Circuits Under Stress

At the Second Neuroscience Seminar in Pernambuco - Neurobucano, Nuno Sousa, from the University of Minho, presented The Stressed Brain and participated in the discussion Memory Under Stress.

Vitor Lopes, from the University of Oxford, presented Tuning into Brain Waves to Study Neural Circuits.

Their contributions help us investigate how stressful experiences influence relationships between neural circuits, behavior, and memory.

Stress is not necessarily harmful.

In dangerous situations, rapid responses may support survival.

However, when demands become intense or persistent, cognitive flexibility and memory retrieval may be impaired.

The problem is not simply responding quickly.

It also involves being able to reorganize our responses when the world changes.

3. Rock, Scissors, and Paper: Three Ways of Acting

Imagine crossing a street when a vehicle suddenly approaches.

You need to act.

Stopping for an extended analysis would not be appropriate.

In BrainLatam's Rock–Scissors–Paper metaphor, we call this rapid-response mode Rock.

Now imagine analyzing scientific results, comparing hypotheses, and planning an experiment.

We call this deliberate mode Scissors.

But suppose you realize that your own questions may be constrained by the expectations you brought into the investigation.

You need to observe how you are thinking, reconsider your perspective, and allow other possibilities to emerge.

We call this metacognitive openness Paper.

These names do not identify three independent anatomical connectomes.

They are metaphors for functional organizations.

The challenge is not to remain in Paper all the time, but to change modes as life requires.

4. When Stress Makes Changing Difficult

A meta-analysis by Grant Shields and colleagues identified impairments associated with acute stress in working memory and cognitive flexibility, with more variable effects on inhibition.

This helps us understand situations in which a previously appropriate response continues to dominate even after the task has changed.

Imagine finishing a difficult argument and immediately beginning an activity requiring creativity.

You may still be prepared to defend your position.

The new task calls for another organization of attention.

But changing may be difficult.

This does not mean that the brain is literally trapped in Rock.

It means that certain physiological and cognitive conditions may make alternative strategies less accessible.

Stress may interfere not only with remembering, but also with leaving behind a way of acting that no longer adds value.

5. Allostasis: Preparing Possibilities

Your organism does not wait motionlessly for events to occur.

It adjusts physiological resources in response to present and anticipated demands.

We call these processes allostasis.

In Allostasis, Health, and Development in Latin America, Joaquín Migeot, Carolina Panesso, Claudia Duran-Aniotz, Agustín Ibáñez, Sebastián Lipina, and colleagues connect development, physiological regulation, and social inequalities.

The organism may prepare an action before you consciously recognize that preparation.

However, allostasis does not mean storing emotions.

And a prepared physiological response does not necessarily need to become an observable movement.

What matters is investigating how the organism finds possibilities for adaptation, recovery, and change.

6. Anergia: The Movement That Found No Path

Return to the opening conversation.

You prepared a response.

But you could not say it.

Perhaps someone interrupted you before you decided to stop.

In Movement Completion, we propose the term Anergia for a mobilization that has not yet found sufficient conditions for transformation, completion, or recovery.

We are not claiming that physical energy remains stored in the throat or muscles.

Anergia is an authorial hypothesis, not a demonstrated neurophysiological mechanism.

We must also distinguish an interrupted action from a voluntarily suspended one.

Sometimes, choosing not to act is precisely what allows us to continue.

Our question is different:

Did the prepared movement find a possibility for integration, or does it continue participating in later experiences without a recognizable resolution?

7. Completion Does Not Mean Obeying Every Impulse

Imagine feeling angry and preparing an aggressive response.

You notice what is happening.

You choose not to attack.

Perhaps you transform your intention into a question, a boundary, or a decision to step away.

The initially prepared action was not performed.

But that does not necessarily mean it remained incomplete.

At BrainLatam, we investigate Movement Completion through a possible sequence:

Mobilization → Perception → Intention → Gesture → Feedback → Meaning → Choice → Transition.

These stages do not constitute a mandatory sequence.

A gesture may also be a refusal.

Completion does not require discharging impulses.

It requires investigating the conditions for recognizing, reorganizing, and choosing.

Perhaps the transition between Rock, Scissors, and Paper also depends on these possibilities.

8. The Damasian Mind: Remembering With the Whole Organism

António and Hanna Damásio connect homeostatic feelings and consciousness with bodily regulation.

At BrainLatam, our interpretation of the Damasian Mind introduces the Body-Territory as an indivisible unit of experience.

A memory does not occur outside a living organism.

Sleep, nutrition, environmental conditions, and safety may influence attention and learning.

But bodily sensations do not establish whether a memory is accurate.

Remembering also involves reconstruction.

We must therefore distinguish what happened, what we can recall, and the meaning we subsequently construct.

We isolate aspects of reality to understand them, not to define the whole of Being.

9. Sleep, Relationships, and Conditions for Recovery

Have you ever stopped working on a task and discovered another possibility after sleeping?

Sleep participates in memory consolidation and reorganization.

But not everyone has comparable conditions for rest.

Noise, working hours, and insecurity can restrict these opportunities.

Now imagine someone helping you recall an experience.

A word provides a cue.

Another person adds a detail.

The memory may reorganize.

This does not demonstrate that two people share a single brain.

It shows that relational contexts can participate in memory retrieval.

Memory remains a neural process, but the conditions for its expression need not be exclusively individual.

10. Relational Connectomic Reserve

In 2026, Roberto Lent, Fernanda Tovar-Moll, and Diego Szczupak proposed the Connectomic Reserve hypothesis: available anatomical connections might contribute to future functional reorganizations.

This hypothesis does not describe memories stored in dormant circuits.

At BrainLatam, we extend the question in Could the Brain's Reserve Also Depend on the Relationships We Cultivate?.

We call Relational Connectomic Reserve the hypothesis that reciprocal experiences may expand the functional possibilities accessible to participants.

We do not yet know whether such changes would involve reserve anatomical connections, functional reorganizations, or behavioral strategies.

We need to investigate.

A relationship may provide security and alternatives.

It may also produce submission or restrict choices.

Jiwasa does not mean compulsory agreement.

11. Neuroarchitecture: When Environments Allow Change

Imagine a school where making mistakes leads to humiliation.

Now imagine another where students can pause, ask questions, and reconsider their answers.

Architecture can provide different conditions of lighting, circulation, comfort, and privacy.

But rearranging chairs does not guarantee trust.

In Space Also Participates in Us - When Architecture Allows Being, we investigate how environments participate in perceptual and motor possibilities.

Perhaps someone can move away from a defensive response when sufficient safety becomes available.

But if a threat continues, remaining alert may be adaptive.

The question is not how to teach everyone to relax.

It is how to investigate environments that offer genuine possibilities to act, rest, disagree, and transform movements.

12. Hyperscanning: Observing Change Without Deciding Its Meaning

We can investigate these hypotheses through tasks involving rapid responses, rule switching, and metacognitive reconsideration.

We would compare low-pressure conditions, ethically controlled stress, response expression, and unexpected interruptions.

EEG and fNIRS could reveal complementary aspects of brain dynamics.

ECG, respiration, behavior, and subjective reports would help characterize physiological conditions and participants' experiences.

We could also investigate interpersonal interactions.

But interbrain synchrony does not prove shared understanding.

Nor does it automatically identify Rock, Scissors, Paper, Anergia, or Relational Connectomic Reserve.

Experimental controls, temporal analyses, and operational definitions would be necessary.

Measuring signals does not mean owning the meaning of an experience.

13. Who Sustains Our Possibilities for Change?

Return to the response that remained unspoken.

Perhaps you want to express it.

Perhaps you realize you no longer need to.

Perhaps you still do not know.

None of these possibilities needs to be imposed.

Neurobucano contributes research on memory, stress, and neural circuits.

Allostasis introduces physiological preparation.

Movement Completion investigates transformation and transition.

Relational Connectomic Reserve asks how relationships may participate in these possibilities.

And neuroarchitecture recognizes that environments can also offer or restrict the conditions for action.

Experiment → Result → Interpretation → Judgment → Decision.

DOING IS SCIENCE. JUDGING IS POLITICS.

Let it come. Let it stay. Let it Be. You may disobey. Let it go.

Perhaps what remained unspoken does not finally need to be expressed.

Perhaps it finds completion when another possibility becomes accessible.

Jiwasa: sharing the conditions for remembering, changing, and Being, without requiring everyone to perform the same movements.

Scientific and Intellectual References

The references follow the article's conceptual progression. Each description summarizes its contribution so that this section also functions as an independent reading of the central argument.

1. NEUROBUCANO (2024). II Seminário de Neurociências em Pernambuco. Recife, Brazil.

The meeting brought together discussions on stress, memory, and neural circuits, including The Stressed Brain by Nuno Sousa and Tuning into Brain Waves to Study Neural Circuits by Vitor Lopes.

2. BRAINLATAM — CIONEK, Jackson (2025). Sentimentos, Conectomas e Fruição - Uma Perspectiva Neuropsicológica Integrativa.

Introduces the Rock–Scissors–Paper metaphor to explore rapid responses, deliberate analysis, and metacognitive openness, without claiming the existence of three anatomically independent connectomes.

3. SHIELDS, Grant S.; SAZMA, Matthew A.; YONELINAS, Andrew P. (2016). The Effects of Acute Stress on Core Executive Functions: A Meta-Analysis and Comparison with Cortisol. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 68, 651–668.

This meta-analysis identifies adverse effects of acute stress on working memory and cognitive flexibility, while showing that effects on different forms of inhibition vary across experimental conditions.

4. SHIELDS, Grant S. et al. (2017). The Effects of Acute Stress on Episodic Memory: A Meta-Analysis and Integrative Review. Psychological Bulletin, 143(6), 636–675.

This review integrates 113 studies examining how acute stress influences different stages of episodic memory, showing that its effects depend on timing and processing demands.

5. MIGEOT, Joaquín; PANESSO, Carolina; DURAN-ANIOTZ, Claudia; IBÁÑEZ, Agustín; LIPINA, Sebastián et al. (2024). Allostasis, Health, and Development in Latin America. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 162, 105697.

Latin American researchers propose an allostatic perspective connecting adverse experiences, environmental inequalities, development, and health trajectories throughout life.

6. BRAINLATAM — CIONEK, Jackson (2026). Completude do Movimento - Do despertar da potência ao fazer que agrega valor.

Develops Anergia as an authorial hypothesis concerning mobilizations that have not found sufficient transformation or recovery, without treating them as physical energy stored in the organism.

7. BRAINLATAM — CIONEK, Jackson (2026). O instante em que A deixa de Ser A - Respiração, alostase e completude do movimento na transcendência entre estados.

Connects physiological preparation, interruption, and transformation of actions, distinguishing voluntary suspension from situations in which opportunities for expression are absent.

8. DAMASIO, Antonio; DAMASIO, Hanna (2024). Homeostatic Feelings and the Emergence of Consciousness. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

The authors connect homeostatic feelings and consciousness with bodily regulation, providing foundations for understanding cognition within the needs of a living organism.

9. LENT, Roberto; TOVAR-MOLL, Fernanda; SZCZUPAK, Diego (2026). The Secret Connections of the Brain: A Connectomic Reserve for Neuroplasticity?. Brain, 149, 2273–2285.

The Brazilian researchers introduce a hypothesis of anatomical Connectomic Reserve that could contribute to functional reorganization, distinct from BrainLatam's proposed relational extension.

10. BRAINLATAM — CIONEK, Jackson (2026). A reserva do cérebro pode depender também das relações que cultivamos?.

Proposes Relational Connectomic Reserve as a testable hypothesis about relationships, learning, recovery of capacities, and environmental conditions for functional expression.

11. BRAINLATAM — CIONEK, Jackson (2026). O espaço também participa do Nós - quando a arquitetura permite Ser.

Develops a relational neuroarchitecture perspective investigating how accessibility, environments, and opportunities for participation may facilitate or constrain movement and choice.

12. KELLER, Peter E. et al. (2024). A Practical Guide to EEG Hyperscanning in Joint Action Research: From Motivation to Implementation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 19, nsae026.

Offers methodological recommendations for studying joint action using EEG hyperscanning, emphasizing experimental controls and limits on interpreting interbrain measurements.

Experimental Proposal — Neurobucano

From stress to transitions between functional modes

ROCK

Respond rapidly

SCISSORS

Analyze and switch rules

PAPER

Reconsider one's own thinking

Flexibility of transition

Experimental question: Does stress increase the cost of switching between rapid, analytical, and metacognitive tasks? Do conditions of safety, autonomy, and interaction facilitate recovery of this flexibility?

Potential measures: EEG, fNIRS, ECG, respiration, task performance, self-reports, and longitudinal monitoring of memory recovery.

The Rock–Scissors–Paper metaphor guides task design; it does not correspond to three brain states directly identified by the instruments.

BRAINLATAM | NEUROBUCANO | W46/2026 | BLOG 05/08