Let's take care of our memory

Research shows that it's worth taking sage tablets and getting a good night's sleep before studying for an exam. We would gladly swallow a pill. For several years, scientists have been studying how the process of memory formation occurs at the cellular level, and they believe that inventing a memory-enhancing pill is feasible. Hundreds of genes are likely involved in the memory creation process. Some of them have already been discovered.

Professor Tim Tully and Nobel laureate Professor Eric Kandel, experts in memory pills who have been competing for years, claim that memory is a biological process that can be controlled. The mechanism of memory formation in humans is similar to that in snails. Our nerve cells are similar, and what sets us apart is the number of connections between them. Tully even bred exceptionally "memorable" fruit flies. Ordinary insects needed ten lessons to avoid a chamber with a certain smell where an electric shock awaited them. Genetically modified super flies learned it the first time. Their talent was due to an additional copy of a gene that constantly produced the protein CREB - responsible for the process of long-term memory formation.

So, the purpose of a memory pill could be, for example, to support the production of CREB protein. However, research is still in the preliminary stages, and if such a pill is invented, it won't be for another five to ten years.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin asked volunteers to memorize a list of unrelated words, such as fire, queen, and butterfly. Later, they invited half of the group to watch a dramatic film about tooth extraction. The other half got bored watching a lesson on proper tooth brushing. The next day, those who had experienced "distress" clearly remembered the words they were given.

This doesn't mean that immediately after a lecture, we should watch a horror movie or go bungee jumping. Dr. Kirsty Neilson, leading the research, believes that if we want to remember something, we need to get into a state of at least mild excitement. Simply squeezing a rubber ring in your hand is enough. According to scientists, remembering information "in fear" is a result of an adrenaline rush that floods our body. That's why Americans still remember ordinary activities they were doing when they learned about President Kennedy's death.

Psychologists recommend that when having trouble remembering, we should associate the word we want to remember with something, e.g., the name Jerzy Rogalski - with a hedgehog devouring a croissant. It's also worth activating imagination and senses. "Very often, we use only one center in the brain responsible for hearing for memorizing," says Dr. Ryszard Wojnecki, a memory trainer from the CTW training center in Warsaw. "However, if we imagine how a 'lipa' (lime tree) looks, rustles, and smells when we hear the sound of the word, we stimulate a very large part of the brain for memorization."

American scientists recently proved that we remember colorful scenes better than black and white ones. But interestingly, black and white photographs of forests or flowers painted in bright, unnatural colors are not associated and remembered better by the brain. When learning, using pictures (which is recommended), it's good for them to be in natural colors.

Music also aids memory. Chinese scientists have found that music lessons are excellent exercises for auditory memory, making it easier to remember words spoken aloud than, for example, those repeated in thoughts. Importantly, discontinuing exercises does not result in the loss of skills already acquired.

Australians from the University of Sydney have proven that creatine (a supplement used in gyms) improves not only muscles but also memory. Forty-five vegetarians were selected for the experiment because their levels of this compound are low - they do not eat meat, which naturally contains creatine. Participants in the experiment were given a daily amount of creatine equivalent to eating 2 kg of meat! The effects were visible after a short period of dietary supplementation - better results in solving spatial tests, longer sequences of remembered numbers.

Memory is also improved by tablets with sage extract. Already in 1597, the British herbalist John Gerard wrote about sage, saying that "it is especially good for the head and brain; it stimulates nerves and memory." Scientific confirmation of his observations came 406 years later. Sage blocks the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine, a substance that carries information between neurons, without causing side effects. The results of the studies are so promising that there is consideration of giving sage to patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The impact of nicotine on the brain has been considered many times, but it was only this year that the results of brain activity studies of a smoker solving quick association tests were presented at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It turned out that nicotine significantly improved the efficiency of those solving the tests. MRI studies have shown that the frontal and prefrontal cortex responsible for short-term memory were more stimulated - nicotine strengthened the connections between nerve cells in this part of the brain.

And what about coffee? It can boldly compete with drugs that improve concentration. A group of volunteers who were not allowed to sleep for two days found that caffeine supported memory and intellectual performance just as effectively as the highest doses of modafinil (a popular - and abused in the USA - drug that improves concentration).

However, if someone prefers a good night's sleep to coffee, we recommend the latest research. In mid-October, the magazine "Nature" reported that sleep works like a computer command to "save." American brain researchers tested this by teaching a hundred young men a certain finger-tapping sequence. Then, at various times of the day, they checked who could repeat it. In the evening, the gentlemen had serious trouble with it. However, just a few hours of sleep were enough for the memory to return. And the results were even better than the previous day!