Memories

 

 PBS had a terrific program of “50’s “music. Lulu’s” To Sir with Love,” Aretha Franklin’s “Respect, “Kingston Trio, Glen Campbell, McGuire sisters, Bobby Wilson etc. left me with a grin.  Lulu looked fabulous. My heart fluttered watching her perform. Those were special memories. We are our memories. Memory effects nearly everything we think, plan or do. In essence, our memory is about our past, our present and our future. Hopefully, knowing about the past, helps us prepare and cope with our future. That does not mean that we don’t make mistakes by repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting a different outcome per Albert Einstein. This essay focuses on normal memory during aging or part 1 of a 4 part series.

Our brain weighs roughly 3 pounds. Its size is like a medium cauliflower. Brain size reaches maximum during teen years, remains steady until about age 28 or so. It is believed that learning complex material declines after age 28. In healthy people, brain volume declines slightly but continuously over the years. Essentially we can lose neurons and our neurons lose some connections with other neurons. There can also be reduced blood flow to the brain. It happens regardless.

Within this most complex, highly developed and profound organ, our brain allows us to be the most intelligent animal on the planet. Yes, I agree that sometimes it doesn’t seem that way. There are numerous components of the brain that’s associated with memory acquisition, storage, and retrieval.

It’s been postulated that normal forgetting affected by aging is broken down as to follows: 1. Normal forgetting 2. Age associated forgetting 3. Mild Cognitive Impairment 4. Dementia. The following list identifies numerous parts of the brain associated with acquisition, storage and retrieval and/or forgetting: 1. Brainstem 2. Cerebellum 3. Thalamus 4. Basal ganglia 5. And in the limbic system: hippocampus and amygdala.

Within the cerebral cortex, we can perceive, think, employ judgment and make decisions. As a result, it’s very important to protect, from extensive damage, one’s Temporal lobe, Parietal lobe and Frontal lobe. It is all these brain components that, if fully functioning, allow an individual to overcome, by using brain, the various challenges in everyday living. However, with the myriad of health problems affecting sapiens and the contradictory and irrational behaviors, our brains have become more vulnerable to impairment.

Today, the focus is on normal forgetting. As we age, certain types of memory decline while others do not. For example, semantic declarative long-term memory continues to improve in many healthy older adults. This is the ability to recall general facts and information that’s related to one specific time and experience. This includes vocabulary, knowledge of language, basic arithmetic operations and how to tell time on the clock.

Episodic declarative long-term memory declines with age .An example of that is autobiographical memory. Other typical examples include going to the store forgetting what to buy; forgetting where you left your car; like one recent Sunday, forgetting to bring your cell phone on a run and even losing your car keys while on a Memorial Day Western states training run from Forest Hill to White Oak Flat. Yes, we had to wait for Debbie to pick us up at Forest Hill. Much later, we went back to that trail to look for Tony’s keys. He had a good idea where he dropped them and he did find the keys.

 Problems with memory can be affected by fatigue, infections, medication side effects, poor nutrition, mood changes, stress, anxiety, and depression. I’m not going to tell, but I know how and why Tony lost his keys. .

The reasons why episodic memory declines relates to fewer neural connections between the cortical neurons were memories are stored; the prefrontal lobes are shrinking ; and slow- wave sleep is impaired in the hippocampus. The encoder of new memories shrinks about 2% a year during our beginning in midlife. Those that exercise regularly, have deep sleep and involve themselves in new learning can slow down the hippocampal atrophy while aging. Good luck. Part 2’s focus will be age associated forgetting.

Reference

Understanding Dementia. Institute for Natural Resources.