Page 24 - The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss and Enhance Memory Power

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Mr. Ghosh became Mr. Das. My father gave a few unfortunate souls four or five names on different
occasions. In striking contrast, my mother always had a razor sharp recall for names. This facility
only doubled her amusement at my father's gaffes, which often led to his laughing at himself. But
observing these patterns in my family led me to wonder: is the ability to recall names mainly
genetic? If so, I would have a great excuse for my shoddy recall of names, though blaming my
father's genes for this deficit does sound like a lame excuse.

Forgetting names is a widespread, almost universal, phenomenon. Some of you may agree with
my self-serving explanation that there is a strong genetic component. However, forgetting names is
not in itself a clinical syndrome, and few researchers have exerted much time or energy to get to the
root of this problem, genetic or otherwise. There has been one remarkable exception: Albert
DaMasio, a neurologist who is a giant in his field.

The Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

In a compelling paper published in the journal Nature, DaMasio and his colleagues showed that the
areas of the brain that encode and store memories of proper nouns are distinct from those responsible
for other kinds of nouns, even though these regions are physically very close to one another and are
near the hippocampus, which forms part of the temporal lobe in the brain. His work has taught us a
great deal about how different elements of memory are stored and helps explain the tip-of-the-tongue
phenomenon. If memories for different types of words are stored in different groups of nerve cells,
these nerve cells need to communicate with one another to produce a composite memory of the entire
object or person that is rich in detail. If this communication does not occur, you may recall one
element of the memory but not another, and the missing component remains on the tip of the tongue.
This process of retrieval is not entirely conscious, because the “missing link” may suddenly resurface
when your mind is preoccupied with something else, which somehow gives the nerve cells a better
opportunity to communicate.

Symptoms of Memory Loss

Many other symptoms of memory loss are not as benign as forgetting names and are listed on the
following page. If you (or someone close