Remember This: Tips to Help Improve Your Memory
by: Janet Vasquez
To understand how memory might be improved, it is a smart idea
to learn about how memory works and fails. A small structure in
the brain called the hippocampus is the nerve center for memory
formation. That’s where the crucial switching from short-term
to long-term memory takes place through a process called “consolidation.”
Most memory diseases involve the steady deterioration of consolidation,
so it may be easier to call on ancient memories and not be able
to store any new ones. Can anything be done to enhance your ability
to store memories? Five tips that generally improve memory are:
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Improve Memory
1. Deal with stress. Continuous stress produces chemical by-products
which inhibit memory.
2. Get enough sleep. Dream or REM sleep gives your brain the
opportunity to process new information and consolidate learning.
3. Eat for memory. Certain foods are thought to improve memory
performance. They include fish such as salmon and tuna, eggs,
beef, chicken and bananas.
4. Exercise. Exercise can help your whole body work more efficiently.
A short exercise break every 30 to 50 minutes can help push oxygen
around your body and to your brain.
5. Drink lots of water or non-caffeinated drinks. Even a small
degree of dehydration can reduce alertness. Some day you may use
that glass of water to take a pill designed to protect your memory.
Research into drugs being used to treat memory difficulties found
that by amplifying specific recep-tors in the brain, it may be
possible to give memory a boost. For example, in developing treatments
for Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and depression, Cortex
Pharmaceuticals (AMEX:COR) has pioneered and is developing a new
class of pharmaceuticals called AMPAKINE® compounds. These
molecules amplify signals in the brain, like a hearing aid does
for the hearing impaired, making it easier to encode new information.
While the goal of these drugs is to treat Alzheimer’s, depression
and a variety of memory and cognition problems associated with
neurological and psychiatric disorders—not to enhance normal
memory performance— a lack of side effects found in experiments
on mice indicates the drugs could be used that way in the future.
Early Phase 1 clinical trials in elderly subjects suggest AMPAKINE
may have memory-enhancing characteristics which could benefit
patients with mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer’s
disease. The compounds may provide acute symptomatic relief for
MCI and cognition. For more information, visit www.cortexpharm.com.
About The Author
Janet Vasquez is a freelance health writer and also a publicist
with a New York firm in New York.
info@irgsyndicate.com |
