Speak, Memory

By EMILY MITCHELL

Memory makes us who we are. And because it is our identity, we worry about it, fretting if we can't remember the name of someone we just met--or know well--getting upset when we can't recall where we put our keys or left the car in the parking lot or whether we mailed the phone bill. We walk into a room and halt in midstride, the purpose forgotten. These annoying things happen to most of us eventually, and for a simple reason. Just as the body changes over time, so does the brain. "On any intelligence or memory test," says University of Chicago gerontologist Michael Roizen, "we lose, on average, 5% of our capability for every decade after 30."

As scientists discover more about the mysterious workings of the brain, it is encouraging to learn that many age-related changes can be slowed, including the decline of memory. The first step is to understand how memory works. Our head doesn't have a separate, identifiable system for remembering. A single memory is made of tiny pieces of information accumulated and stored over time. Those bits are held in a complex network of some 100 billion neurons, or nerve cells, that can make thousands of connections with other cells in the brain. Subsystems within the cortex handle specific things like names, sounds, textures, faces and smells. Say the word dog, and the busy brain fires up a host of images, sensory impressions and emotions, then reconstructs a specific, unique memory.

The connections between neurons--the synapses--are formed on branchlike structures called dendrites. In a normal, healthy person, these can gradually shrink over time, slowing the process of recalling information and leading to those familiar lapses called "senior moments." Memory gridlock is bothersome, but, says Johns Hopkins neurologist Barry Gordon, "what most people complain about is not that serious at all. They're probably not going to get Alzheimer's; they just care more about forgetfulness as they get older."

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID

When adults concerned about their memory come to the Pisgah Institute for Psychiatry and Education in Asheville, N.C., psychologist Ed Hamlin gives them standard tests for visual and verbal memory, delayed recall and delay in attention and concentration. For most, the results are reassuring: their memory is not only good, it exceeds the average for their age.

But what about those times when they experience a total blank? Says Hamlin: "A number of problems are not problems with memory at all. They are really problems with your attention." There are three basic steps in memory: registration, retention and retrieval. They occur sequentially; if new information isn't taken in (registered), it can't be stored. Focusing on incoming material, whether heard, seen or read, helps implant it in memory. Psychologist Cynthia Green advises students in her memory classes at New York City's Mount Sinai Medical Center that "often what we think we forgot we really didn't 'get' in the beginning."

Sorting and storing the multitude of information available in the modern world takes work. Just look at a teenager listening to music and chatting on a cell phone while simultaneously tapping out commands on a computer. For many older men and women, such sensory overload makes focusing more difficult. Eliminating unnecessary sounds and other distractions, experts suggest, makes it easier to concentrate on exactly what you want to remember.

Attention can be reinforced by repeating new information or making associations to link it to other memories. When introduced to someone new, for example, repeat the person's name, ask how it's spelled or make some other comment that will help fix it in your mind. Professor Arthur Wingfield, director of Brandeis University's Memory and Cognition Laboratory, explains: "What you are trying to do is get yourself to pay attention and encode it. Younger people can do this faster; older people have to work harder."

THE HARDER YOU TRY

If there's a golden rule for remembering, it's this: the best way is not to try. In a memory-enhancement course Hamlin teaches at the University of North Carolina's College for Seniors, he emphasizes that when something previously known is truly forgotten, the struggle to recall it defeats the purpose. "Anxiety about your memory," he maintains, "is actually harming it." People sometimes stew for hours trying to dredge up the name of a movie star from a past era. It seems right on the tip of the tongue. The face floats up before the eyes, co-stars' names and titles of past movies spring to mind, but the name, ah, remains elusive until you awake in the middle of the night, saying "Mona Freeman" or "Louis Jourdan" with satisfaction.

Why this frustrating delay? In the view of some scientists, the brain is working on recall, but the other names are interfering. Don't try to think about the names that are blocking it. Brandeis' Wingfield says, "They will dissipate, and you will be able to retrieve it." Or divert the mind by thinking about something else, and the name will frequently pop up.

Older people simply have more to remember. Says Professor Albert Rizzo of the University of Southern California's School of Gerontology: "After you have lived a rich, full life, you have a larger amount of 'books' in your brain, thousands of them, as opposed to the hundred when you were younger. You have to sift through more, like a librarian." Re-creating the original stimulus can often prompt recall. If the reason for entering a room seems to have temporarily vanished, retrace your footsteps. Rizzo explains, "This re-energizes the brain and brings it back to where you were 'mentally' beforehand, and--bong!--you remember."

GET SHARP WITH STRATEGIES

One key to sharpening memory skills, Rizzo tells students in his eight-week memory seminars, is to become "your own personal scientist." You have to figure out where the fault lines are and then apply various strategies and techniques. Organization won't necessarily improve memory, but it will help reduce the number of things you have to remember. Deciding on a specific place for everyday items is a good way to avoid having to play hide-and-seek with them. Making lists, keeping track of appointments in a calendar or daily diary or using sticky notes as quick reminders help free the mind.

Billie Stewart, 64, of Asheville keeps a sticky pad in her car, and when she thinks of an errand that needs to be done, she jots it down. "If I write down bakery," she says, "I can let go of it and don't have to clog up my memory." Written reminders aren't cheating. Far from it. They make it easier for the brain to handle a larger quantity of information. Technology gives us an increasing number of things to remember--PIN numbers, passwords, all those pesky dotcom names--but at the same time provides excellent aids to jog the memory. Some people leave daily reminders on their own answering machines or send themselves e-mail messages.

Try memorizing the country code, city code and phone number for someone outside the U.S. as one string of digits and see how difficult it is. Breaking unwieldy pieces of information into smaller pieces makes them easier to remember. The process is called "chunking," and that's why we can remember Social Security and telephone numbers. Large unbroken sets of numbers, such as driver's licenses, can be artificially divided into chunks for easier recall. "Clustering" is another effective technique. Seven, according to experts, is the magic number for short-term, or working, memory. That's roughly how many things we can consciously hold in the mind at one time. But we can trick it into holding more by inventing seven or so main categories and then grouping several things under each.

WAKE UP, BRAIN!

Until a few years ago, it was thought that everyone was born with a finite number of brain cells. Then in the 1990s--designated by Congress as the Decade of the Brain--scientists raised the possibility that the miraculous organ inside our head is capable of creating new cells. Just as important, they found it can grow additional dendrites, those spiky branches on each cell that help communication with other cells.

The brain never stops learning, and forcing it to absorb new information or figure out a different way of doing a routine task stimulates it to make new dendritic connections that help offset some of the normal, age-related loss. The brain is essentially lazy, and when asked to do something over and over, it invariably finds the easiest way. Doing things differently challenges the brain. Brush your teeth with the nondominant hand or take a shower with your eyes closed, and suddenly you're not on automatic pilot.

The more robust the brain, the better the chance that memory can be improved. Says Duke University neurobiologist Lawrence Katz: "Anything that uses all your senses to do something forms associations that make the brain more fit and agile." Katz and co-author Manning Rubin came up with 83 "neurobic" exercises for their book Keep Your Brain Alive. Sample different food, they suggest, reposition your furniture, travel by a different route, learn a language--try anything that will alter the brain's neural pathways. Certain activities, like gardening and fishing, are beneficial because they involve so many senses. Your lifestyle shapes how your brain will be as you get older.

Everyday life can excel as a brain gym where you are your own personal trainer. At 72, Harold Gallay of Clearwater, Fla., has a memory as keen as that of a man half his age, rattling off sports statistics and regularly besting his four grown children at Trivial Pursuit. For years, he and his wife Leona, 71, have played bridge, done daily crossword puzzles, read newspapers cover to cover and discussed current news.

VALUE THE MATURE MIND

Though everyone hopes for a long life, most fear old age and the decline of body and brain. "The mind does change," says Hamlin, "but it is not inferior. It is different." Each of us needs to appreciate our mind as it is instead of as it once was. Teens who can talk, listen to music and surf the Web at the same time are admirably adept at taking in many bits of information, but they may not connect them in meaningful ways. Speed, after all, isn't everything. Though less swift, the older person continues to absorb new material, comparing it with knowledge and insights gleaned over a lifetime. The process becomes less reflexive and more reflective. And the word for that is wisdom.

--With reporting by Dee Gill/St. Petersburg, Erik Gunn/Chicago, Anne Moffett/Washington, Adrianne Navon/New York and Jacqueline Savaiano/Los Angeles

With reporting by Dee Gill/St. Petersburg, Erik Gunn/Chicago, Anne Moffett/Washington, Adrianne Navon/New York and Jacqueline Savaiano/Los Angeles