Page 65 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

The Intelligent Mind • 49

pect that they know the names of plants and animals. If they
have auditory skills, they likely know birds by their calls.
Weather is not a mystery to them. They are always aware of
their surroundings and love to spend time outdoors. Their
houseplants thrive, and their gardens are stunning. We look
forward to learning more about the naturalist as Dr. Gard-
ner’s work progresses.

MEMORY
How do we acquire memories? The memory-formation sys-
tem is made up of the hippocampus, the limbic thalamus,
and the basal forebrain. Information is obtained through the
senses, passed through the memory-formation system, and
transferred to permanent storage in the outer layers of the
cortex (see Figure 2-14). For information that you need on a
temporary basis, nerve cells adjust existing proteins to hold
the memory until you no longer need it. Then when the need
is over, the neurons return to their original state, and you for-
get. If the information is something you want to store per-
manently, entirely new types of proteins are manufactured,
new genes are “switched on,” and permanent changes to the
connections in the structure of the brain are created. 28 So
there is a difference in the brain’s activation for a temporary
piece of information, such as what you need to buy at the
store, and a more permanent memory, such as your new tele-
phone number.
Recent evidence indicates that the transfer of the infor-
mation from the hippocampus to the cortex for permanent
storage occurs while we sleep. For the maximum efficiency
of memory transfer, you need to have deep sleep within the
first two hours of sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep
later in the night, preferably toward the end of the sleep cy-
cle. The same neurons activated earlier in the day, when the
information first was introduced, fire in the same pattern
and appear to download the information through the neu-
ron connections to the cortex.