Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy for Keeping Your Brain Young - Brossura

Small, Gary W.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0786887117 ISBN 13: 9780786887118

Casa editrice: Hachette Books, 2003

Riassunto

Clear, concise, prescriptive steps for improving memory loss and keeping the brain young—from one of the world's top memory experts.

Everybody forgets things sometimes—from your keys to your lunch date to the name of an acquaintance. According to Dr. Gary Small, the director of the UCLA Center on Aging, much of this forgetfulness can be eliminated easily through his innovative memory exercises and brain fitness program—now available for the first time in a book. Using Small's recent scientific discoveries, The Memory Bible can immediately improve your mental performance. One of the ten commandments that Dr. Small has pioneered to improve your memory immediately is LOOK, SNAP, CONNECT:

1: LOOK: actively observe what you want to learn
2: SNAP: create a vivid snapshot and memorable image
3: CONNECT: visualize a link to associate images

In addition, Dr. Small's comprehensive program includes a "brain diet" of memory-enhancing foods and a list of the most effective drugs, as well as a workbook with a weekly and daily calendar. Remember, as Dr. Small says, "Great memories are not born, they are made."

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Informazioni sull?autore

Gary Small, MD, is Chair of Psychiatry at Hackensack University Medical Center, and Physician in Chief for Behavioral Health Services for Hackensack Meridian Health. Previously, he was Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he was also Director of the UCLA Longevity Center.

He has authored more than 400 scientific publications, as well as the international bestseller, The Memory Bible. Small's research has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, London Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, and Newsweek, and numerous television programs (e.g., NBC's Today Show, CNN, PBS). Dr. Small is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Jack Weinberg Award from the American Psychiatric Association and the Senior Investigator Award from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. 

Gigi Vorgan wrote, produced and appeared in numerous feature films and television shows before teaming up with her husband, Dr. Gary Small, to co-write The Memory Bible, The Memory Prescription, The Longevity Bible, iBrain, and more.

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The Memory Bible

An Innovative Strategy for Keeping Your Brain YoungBy Gary Small

Hyperion Books

Copyright © 2003 Gary Small
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780786887118

Chapter One

You Have More Control Than You Think

I have a photographic memory but once in a while I forget to take off the lens cap. -Milton Berle

Imagine struggling your way out the glass doors of a crowded mall in late December, loaded with shopping bags, packages, and presents. Your head is pounding and your feet hate you and the shoes you walked in on. You'd die of starvation this second if you weren't already dying of thirst. You manage to pull out your car keys and glance up at the humongous, jam-packed parking structure when it hits you-you've forgotten where you parked.

Could never happen to you, you say? Ever forgotten your purse, wallet, file, or phone at home, only to remember it while caught in rush hour traffic? Maybe you've struggled to remember the name of a movie you saw last night or that new neighbor you just met, not five minutes ago. Ring a bell?

Most of us laugh off these so-called middle-aged pauses, considering them just another normal annoyance of aging, not a true memory problem, and certainly not a sign of Alzheimer's disease-not at "our age." I hate to pop another "I could party all night and still get to work on time if I wanted to" baby-boomer bubble, but it's time for us all to wake up-we are all one day closer to Alzheimer's disease.

It Is Never Too Late or Too Early to Fight Brain Aging

Just as all of us inevitably get older, recent convincing scientific evidence shows that Alzheimer's disease is not simply an illness that some old people get. Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia may well be everybody's end result of brain aging-and it begins forming in our brains much earlier than anyone previously imagined, even in our twenties.

The subtle, gradual aging of the brain starts as tiny plaques and tangles that begin accumulating there, decades before a doctor can recognize any symptoms of the disease. In fact, these plaques and tangles begin forming so early in our adult lives that subtle memory and language changes go unnoticed and ignored for many years. Nonetheless, these minuscule spots of plaque in our otherwise healthy brains are the first signs of brain aging, and they will increase insidiously if we do nothing about them.

When I speak on this subject I am often asked: Will my brain already be irreversibly damaged by the time I reach middle age? Is it too late for me to try to head off this inevitable process? Is it too soon for me to start? Is my memory ability destined to decline no matter what I try to do about it?

My answer to these questions is no. It is never too late or too early to start beating the brain-aging game. Even if one day research finds a way to restore already lost brain cells, scientists agree that preventing the loss of memory will always be easier than restoring it. The sooner we rise to the challenge, the sooner we can intervene in the battle, like little neuron-gladiators, and, with luck, do so while our forgetfulness is minimal or even imperceptible.

Our Brains Aren't Getting Any Younger, but They Can Get Better

One of the biggest obstacles to starting a program to improve memory performance and protect our brains from Alzheimer's disease is denial that one's brain, as well as one's body, is aging. Many people struggle to accept the physical changes that come with passing years, yet coming to terms with mental changes is often an even greater challenge.

Beginning a program to improve memory and slow down brain aging requires accepting that we need such a program. A better understanding of what actually happens to our memory abilities and our brains as we age will help us keep our brains at their peak performance.

What Is Memory?

Normal memory performance involves both learning and recall (Figure 1.1) and requires intact functioning of several regions of the brain and the brain cells, or neurons, within them. We generally think of memory as an abstract concept-a thought, image, sensation, or feeling that is stored somewhere in our brain's filing cabinet, ready to be pulled out at will. However, because our brains are comprised of nerve cells, chemicals, and electrical impulses, our memories are actually encoded, stored, and retrieved as a result of minuscule chemical and electrical interactions.

Each nerve cell in the brain has a single axon that acts like a telephone line, conducting nerve impulses toward neighboring neurons. The friendly neuron next door receives the countless assortment of electrical impulses sent to it daily, through its dendrites-bunches of thin filaments extending out like little antennae, receiving and sending information. But the new info is not home free yet.

To allow all of our brain's neurons to communicate with the others, the axons and dendrites form thousands of branches, and each branch ends in a synapse, a specialized contact point or receptor that recognizes only extremely specific information being passed between neurons. Each neuron has approximately 100,000 synapses.

Electrical nerve impulses containing the new information, retrieved memories, or relayed messages shoot down the neuron's axon and slip through one of its skinny dendrites into a hyper-specific synapse, where a packet of chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, gets released. These neurotransmitters are the "carrier pigeons" that travel the minuscule space from one synapse to the next. Upon arrival, the correct chemical neurotransmitter binds with its corresponding receiver, and voil`! The message is received. In this way, thoughts and ideas are conveyed, information is learned, and memories are retrieved, all of which cause us to do, think, or act in different ways.

In any waking situation, our senses are bombarded by sights, sounds, and other stimuli that pass through our immediate memory and move into a holding area known as short-term memory. We usually lose most of these fleeting sensations in milliseconds, and of the few retained in our short-term memory, only a small percentage ever make it into long-term memory storage.

An essential key to retaining reformation longer is to organize and rehearse it, thus actively working it into our long-term memory. Some people require great effort to develop these skills, while others are born with a knack for memory techniques and "tricks" to reinforce new information and make it stick. They are often considered to have "photographic memories"-a myth we shall discuss later.

Once information is lodged in our long-term memory, it becomes relatively permanent and can be recalled years later-as long as our brains remain healthy. While short-term memory has only limited capacity, long-term memory has the potential to store tremendous amounts of information. Retrieving this information later, or pulling it out of memory storage, is known as recall. Even patients with advanced Alzheimer's disease, who may have difficulty remembering their morning meal, have been known to recall long-ago events, such as their first date with a sweetheart, in vivid detail.

Recently, scientists have learned how the brain converts short-term memories into permanent ones at the molecular and cellular level. A specific protein must be present in the brain's cerebral cortex, the outer rim of the brain containing gray matter, for the process to succeed.

The brain's hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped brain structure located in the temporal lobe of the brain (near the temples), stores information on a temporary basis-much like a computer holds data in its random access memory. When the brain converts the reformation into permanent memory, similar to writing data to a computer's hard disk, the hippocampus interacts with the cerebral cortex to complete the task.

Sex, Style, and Emotion

People vary in their learning styles. Long before I became interested in memory research, I instinctively relied upon my visual learning strengths in everyday life. I had always found it easier to remember someone's last name if I spelled it out in my mind's eye. Auditory learners retain information best if they hear it, while visual learners remember best when they actually see the information.

Memory and other cognitive skills often vary according to gender: women tend to have better verbal and language abilities, while men generally have the edge in spatial and mathematical abilities. However, when I mentioned this to my wife, she nearly managed to talk me out of it.

Various other factors influence our memory abilities. Emotional states have a major impact on the efficiency and the quality of memories. Ask yourself where you were and what you were doing when President Kennedy was shot. (Or John Lennon, for you youngsters.) All of us who were around certainly know the details of where we were, whom we were with, and how we felt, yet I doubt that we can remember similar details of events the week before. Information that is emotionally charged has a distinct quality and is easier to learn and recall. The memory of your first crush in second grade probably remains distinct. Many of us can recall details of that boy or girl we barely knew decades ago. By contrast, when we are experiencing feelings of depression and prolonged anxiety or stress, we become distracted and our memory abilities diminish.

Memory Changes with Age

Although we all experience some forgetfulness as we age, we each differ in our degree of memory change, our concern about it, and the steps we take to cope. By the time we reach our thirties and forties, so-called "normal" memory complaints become more common.

Middle-aged and older people most often notice difficulties with:

People's names

Important dates

Location of household objects

Recent and past events

Meetings and appointments

Recalling information

Age-related memory loss more often involves recent memories rather than distant, past ones. We might forget what movie we saw last weekend yet still recall our ninth-grade homeroom teacher's name. Neuropsychological evidence shows that age tends to slow down our learning and recall skills, perhaps making it more difficult for older adults to learn a foreign language or scientific discourse. (I wouldn't want to try to pass advanced calculus again at 50.)

Older people have greater difficulty multitasking and our reaction time can slow down as we age, which can affect our daily activities. Many older drivers compensate by driving more slowly, which can be a hazard in itself. Memory training (Chapters 3 and 6) and a program of mental aerobics (Chapter 5) can help lessen the impact of many of these age-related changes.

In the early 1990s, memory experts defined diagnostic criteria for the memory changes that accompany normal aging. When someone over 50 had a memory impairment demonstrated by at least one standard memory test, along with a subjective awareness of memory changes, they called the phenomenon age-associated memory impairment. These experts estimated that 40 percent of all people are affected by this condition upon reaching their fifties, 50 percent in their sixties, and over 70 percent by age 70 and older.

Although there is debate over whether or not age-associated memory impairment will or will not progress and at what rate, it is likely that the condition precedes other, more severe memory declines.

Without some form of intervention, whether it's implementing strategies to keep your brain young and healthy or, if needed, medical evaluation and treatment, people who ignore their age-associated memory impairment may eventually develop mild cognitive impairment. An estimated 10 million Americans over age 65 suffer from this more severe memory decline, and this condition has a 10 to 15 percent chance of developing into Alzheimer's disease with each year that passes.

These diagnostic categories-age-associated memory impairment, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease-are basically categories of convenience, allowing doctors and scientists to better understand our aging brains and test treatments to alleviate memory decline (Figure 1.2). In reality, the changes in our brains and the memory difficulties we experience are continuous, fluid processes beginning remarkably early in our lives. Several recent studies point to just how early.

Language Skills and IQ Tests at 20 Predict Alzheimer's Disease at 80

Several years ago, Dr. David Snowdon and his associates at the University of Kentucky performed clinical evaluations and standard memory tests on a group of nuns who were aged 70 or older. Each of these participants in what is known as The Nun Study kept diaries when they entered their convents in their early twenties. The scientists had access to these earlier documents and performed a standardized linguistic analysis of these diaries, objectively rating early language ability. The nuns whose youthful writings demonstrated greater idea density and grammatical complexity were much less likely to develop significant memory loss or Alzheimer's disease decades later, in their seventies.

The study's conclusion, that language ability at age 20 may predict whether or not someone will get Alzheimer's disease fifty years down the road, stirred debate over whether learning and educational enrichment protected the brain from decline over time, the "use it or lose it" theory.

More recently, Scottish psychiatrist Dr. L. J. Whalley and his colleagues studied intelligence test records to determine if a person's IQ early in life predicted Alzheimer's disease up to fifty years later. This group found that people with lower intelligence test scores in childhood had a greater risk for the late-onset form of Alzheimer's disease that begins after age 65.

Dr. Whalley offered several explanations for the observation, including the possibility that people with lower intelligence in childhood might engage in behaviors later in life that put them in greater danger of getting Alzheimer's disease. They may eat a less healthy diet, avoid exercise, or smoke. Alternatively, the low IQ score may reflect the early signs of the disease itself deteriorating the brain subtly early in life. This could then influence school performance and further educational pursuit.



Continues...

Excerpted from The Memory Bibleby Gary Small Copyright © 2003 by Gary Small. Excerpted by permission.
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Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Hachette Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0786887117
• ISBN 13: 9780786887118
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 320
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile