Use It or Lose It - aging in the brain

Vegetarian Times, August, 2000 by Katy Koontz

A mind is a terrible thing to waste--so don't. Here's what you can do to boost your brain power

It happens to the best of us. We walk into a room for something important and as soon as we get there, we forget what we came in for. We're about to recommend a movie to a friend, but suddenly we can't remember the name of it. Or we stand up a lunch date because we were sure the appointment was tomorrow.

For many of us, our minds and memories hit a few speed bumps as we enter our 30s and 40s. Usually we make little jokes about these slipups, annoying as they can be, and chalk them up to the normal aging process. Yet medical researchers are now redefining "normal" aging in the brain, and their findings suggest that "senior moments" may not be inevitable. In fact, they may be completely avoidable.

Memory is classified in three ways. The first type, called working memory, holds a small amount of knowledge and only for the time it's being used--like when you get a phone number from the operator, remember it long enough to make the call, then promptly forget it once the call goes through. It's sort of like the clipboard on your computer: It stores just a little bit of information until something new comes along and overwrites it.

If the information is important enough, or if we are exposed to it frequently, we store it in what's called short-term memory. This can last anywhere from a few hours to a day or so. Where you put your glasses or what you ate for breakfast this morning are both good examples. Short-term memory works like the RAM (random access memory) on your computer--it can be available all day long, but once you switch off the power at the end of the day, it gets erased.

When facts are sufficiently vital or significant (like names, birthdays or how to get to work), they get stored in long-term memory. This type of memory functions like a computer's hard drive--it can store data for years.

How this knowledge moves from short- to long-term storage isn't perfectly understood, explains memory specialist Bart Rypma, Ph.D., research fellow in the psychology department of the University of at Berkeley. What we do know, he says, is that the brain uses chemical messengers called neurotransmitters to send information between nerve cells in the brain (called neurons), thus laying down memory.

Your body uses hundreds of different neurotransmitters, some of the more notable being serotonin (produces the feeling of well-being), norepinephrine (keeps you alert) and endorphins (dulls pain, reduces anxiety and produces the sensation of pleasure). "Communicating or transmitting information is the special job of the neurons," explains Catherine Myers, Ph.D., codirector of the Memory Disorders Project at Rutgers University at Newark, N.J. How well these cells transmit data to one another determines how efficient memory is, so if the number or speed of those connections declines, memory problems often result.

In general, researchers believe the number of neurotransmitters decreases with age--and fewer messengers mean fewer connections. "The ability to encode information and store it remains the same," Rypma explains, "although the speed and accuracy with which we retrieve that information seems to decrease beginning in our 40s and 50s." And the first signs of that are short-term memory impairment. Determining exactly why the number of neurotransmitters decrease is difficult, Rypma adds. "Genetics may play a role, but the evidence is inconclusive. Memory problems don't always run in the family."

An Age-Old Question

Even when mental decline does occur, it need not be permanent. "We used to think that brain cells were lost continuously throughout life and that once they died they weren't replaced," says Rypma. "But the latest research challenges that view." New studies suggest that some brain cells do indeed regenerate at a slow but steady pace. "We don't know to what extent those cells are replaced or how it happens," Rypma says, "but it looks promising."

Julian Whitaker, M.D., medical director of the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, Calif., agrees that we don't have to accept memory problems as a normal consequence of getting older. In his book The Memory Solution (Avery, 1999), he points to several ongoing studies following large numbers of adults over decades (including the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, begun in 1958, and the Seattle Longitudinal Study, begun in 1956). "These studies show that mental capacity can be surprisingly stable well into old age," says Whitaker, who's had a good deal of personal success helping his patients to maximize their brain potential. "As long as there is no disease, such as Alzheimer's, or brain injury from either a stroke or accident, our mental abilities remain pretty much intact throughout life."

Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., president and medical director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Foundation in Tucson, Ariz., and author of Brain Longevity (Warner, 1997), has also had good results with patients fighting memory decline--including those who were formerly deemed untreatable. "Just because it's the average experience does not mean it's normal," insists Khalsa. Both doctors relied on changes in diet, nutritional supplements, aerobic exercise, mental workouts (like brain teasers) and stress reduction to improve their patients' memory capabilities.