Memory Key Newsletter

========================================

T h e M e m o r y K e y
<http://www.memory-key.com>

Your resource for information about memory and memory improvement

February 2006

http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/issue_75.htm

========================================
THIS MONTH ON MEMORY-KEY.COM:

IMPROVING YOUR BRAIN

MANAGING THE INFORMATION FLOW

BLOG

========================================
Find out more about my e-book on "Remembering intentions" at:
http://www.memory-key.com/shop/intention_ebook.htm

========================================
Find out about my new YA novel involving ancestral memory at:
http://www.fmmcpherson.com/

========================================
IMPROVING YOUR BRAIN

The first step to improving your memory is believing that what you do has an
effect. So let me tell you how brains can change.

Learning and memory resides in the synapses — those places on the neuron
where information flows from one neuron to the next. Memory is stored in
structural changes in these synapses.

It has been assumed for a long time that this is the extent to which adults
can modify their brains — by modifying their synapses, thus creating new
circuits and dismantling old ones.

This is a view that is starting to change, as the occurrence of adult
neurogenesis — the creation of new neurons in adult brains — becomes widely
accepted.

Although it doesn’t appear widespread in the brain, one of the principal
areas where it does occur is the hippocampus, that brain structure that is
perhaps the heart of our memory system.

Recent research also indicates an association between general intelligence
and the volume of gray matter tissue (the density of cell bodies of neurons)
in specific regions of the brain.

The idea that intelligence was a fixed property that we were born with made
some kind of sense back when it was assumed that once we had our full
“quota” of brain cells, no more were created. But now we know that this is
not true.

We now know that the density of neuron cell bodies, measured in terms of
volume of gray matter, is affected by a number of factors, including age,
stress, depression, and education.

For example, professional musicians have more gray matter in parts of the
brain involved in language and auditory perception, and the extent of this
increase appears to depend on the number of years devoted to musical
training.

Similarly, an increased volume of gray matter has been found in the anterior
hippocampus of experienced London taxi drivers (a brain region involved in
spatial navigation), with volume correlated with length of taxi-driving
experience.

Adult neurogenesis is also affected by a number of factors. Positive factors
include physical activity, mental stimulation, learning, and even positive
social experiences, such as being of high status. They also include
antidepressants, moderate alcohol, and, perhaps, cannabis. Negative effects
(ones that reduce neurogenesis) include excess alcohol, most illegal drugs,
stress and anxiety.

All this points to a capacity for change in the adult brain that was
unsuspected only a few years ago. Nor does it end there. In a very recent
study, certain neurons (less common, inhibitory non-pyramidal neurons) have
been found — to everyone’s astonishment — to grow new dendrites (projections
from the neurons), and to extend or withdraw existing ones — structural
changes like this were assumed (like neurogenesis) not to occur in the adult
brain. It also appears that this growth is tied to use.

So what’s all this mean?

Another recent study points to the principle. This study found that, while
hormone therapy increased gray matter volume in certain brain regions in
postmenopausal women, if that therapy continued past ten years, it began to
have a negative effect. However, this negative effect could be countered by
exercise.

And in the latest news, researchers have reduced age differences in brain
activity patterns through training (see
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060216225955.htm ) — something
which echoes a study last year in which gender differences in spatial memory
were also wiped out by training.
( http://www.memory-key.com/news/2005/news_2005Feb.htm#gender ).

I think we should take this as a guiding principle. Many things — the normal
aging process, excessive alcohol or drug consumption, depression, stress,
lack of sleep, physical damage to the brain — can reduce our capacity to
learn and remember. But these shouldn’t be taken as the final story. Rather
they should be taken as spurs to fight back. And we fight back by applying
those factors that have positive effects on our brain, such as:
* regular physical activity
* healthy diet ( a number of foods have been identified as helpful, mainly
anti-oxidants)
* mentally stimulating activities
* social engagement

Remember, this isn’t an instant remedy — the creation and development of new
neurons, for example, takes weeks — which is why you have to believe in what
you’re doing. It’s not a bad idea, if you have particular concerns, to write
them down, perhaps test yourself in various ways, so that you have some
measure of your performance. When we improve, it tends to happen slowly
enough that we find it hard to remember how things were. Some sort of
written record of your performance helps you see that improvement has
actually occurred.

It's also worth remembering that these are factors for generally improving
the capacity of your brain to learn. To improve your performance at specific
tasks, you need to actually work on those tasks!

The starting point of all this was actually a new article I've posted to the
website on adult neurogenesis. You can read it at:
http://www.memory-key.com/Neurology/neurogenesis.htm . It also prodded me to
produce something I’ve been meaning to do for some time, and that is to
start another glossary, this time on terms in neurology. You can find that
at: http://www.memory-key.com/Neurology/glossary_neuro.htm . I hope you find
it useful.

========================================
MANAGING THE INFORMATION FLOW

Information keeps on getting on top of us, doesn’t it? I’ve been tidying up
my bookmarks recently, which has prompted me to pass on some links in the
subject of information management.

The first is a program (donationware — ie free to download; they suggest you
give them a donation of $10) that sorts out the links that are no longer
valid, which is a really great way to quickly prune your burgeoning list!
It’s called Link200 3.2.0.2 and you can find it at
http://www.veign.com/download_app.asp?app=103

I haven’t yet got to the point of having a lot of blogs to keep up with, but
I certainly am starting to build a collection of RSS feeds. Here’s a few
articles that give some advice on making your blog/rss reading more
productive.
http://www.nevndave.com/2005/12/02/top-10-tips-for-effective-blog-reading-pa
rt-1/
[you'll need to cut and paste this, or try this: http://tinyurl.com/rpthe ]

http://www.to-done.com/2005/07/productivity-tips-for-avid-blog-readers/

http://www.rethinkip.com/archives/controlling_rss_overloadanimal_house_style.html
[http://tinyurl.com/7g43n ]

And finally, FreePint have a useful article on how to frame your questions,
which is a little-appreciated skill that can really make a difference to
searching effectively. You can read it at
http://www.freepint.com/issues/020206.htm#feature

========================================
BLOG
www.memory-key.com/blogger.html

Latest posts:

* whether TV is bad for kids or not
* effects of social deprivation on development, including intellectual
development.
* technique for teaching people to control chronic pain
* genes of professional dancers
* decision-making -- complex decisions better made by instinct
* "sex i.d. profile" – brain quiz

* time perception
* how our sense of identity works
* chronic deja vu
* marital strife slows wound healing
* nerve growth factor increases when people fall in love
* more on lying
* language and perception
* brains of pathological liars different from other brains

Note that the blog is indexed chronologically at
http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index.htm

And by subject, at http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index2.htm

You can also access my blog with an RSS feed. The URL is
http://memory-key.com/ftp.memory-key.com/atom.xml, or just click the
Bloglines button on the sidebar of my blog.

========================================

If you have missed any issue of the newsletter (those people who use hotmail
in particular sometimes have their mail bounced back "overquota"), you can
read back issues at: http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/newsletters.htm

========================================

The Memory Key website is named after my book "The Memory Key", a
practical user-friendly handbook designed to help people achieve
genuine, long-lasting memory improvement.

http://www.memory-key.com/AboutTheSite/about_book.htm

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1564144704/thememorykey-20

========================================

This issue may be FREELY distributed as long as the
entire issue is included.

Subscribers can easily change their email address at:
http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/address.htm

If you are not already subscribed and you wish to receive it free
by Email each week, transmit "subscribe" as the subject header of
an Email message to: <mailto:newsletter@memory-key.com>

To unsubscribe, transmit "unsubscribe" as the subject header.