Older brain 'too full' for new memories

[Saru]

Age-related learning difficulties could be attributed to the fact that we simply run out of memory space.

Learning becomes more difficult as we age not because we have trouble absorbing new information, but because we fail to forget the old stuff, researchers say.

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[Frank Merton]

I read today that good sleep is needed to retain new memories and that the difficulties some older people have getting such sleep explains it.

I dunno. I'm getting on there and my memory is fine. I think you gotta exercise it just like you gotta exercise your muscles.

[Ealdwita]

Huh? What was the question?

Edited January 28, 2013 by ealdwita

[Lilly]

There was a question?

[Order66]

I saw a really good documentary on the subject:

http://youtu.be/uIbFXwWJdMk?t=1m

[theSOURCE]

Ahh! So now I know the real meaning of being full of it.

[WoIverine]

Wonder if memory enhancing drugs or herbals would lend a hand to this.

Side Note: I've been using Lumosity.com to assist with memory, speed, and overall cognition, those games on the site are pretty fun. It's part of the human cognition research project. Also, when Einstein died, it was said his brain was similar to that of a young man. I wonder if that was a result of his "thought expirements"?

Edited January 28, 2013 by WoIverine

[Pssst]

I read today that good sleep is needed to retain new memories and that the difficulties some older people have getting such sleep explains it.

I dunno. I'm getting on there and my memory is fine. I think you gotta exercise it just like you gotta exercise your muscles.

Which could be the reason why Albert Einstein's brain looked like that of a young man when he died at 76 years of age.

[Frank Merton]

Poor Einstein though did his great work in his twenties, got famous, and then got stuck trying to solve a problem that is still unsolved.

[Avant]

I've been telling my wife for years that I can't retain everything she tells me - now I have an excuse! Hooray for Science

I could use a defragging I think?

Edited January 29, 2013 by Avant

[Xanthurion2]

i knew it! i proposed this hypothesis myself once but i didn't have the means to test it. now i don't have to.

[Likely Guy]

My Mom's 75 and a geneaologist. She can recount up to 13 generations of family history and stories which includes over 150 family names.

My nephew gives her computer advice (because she faithfully has given it and retrieves it online, for as long as there has been an internet) about how to delete her cookies, maintain her computer, or such. She tells him, "I don't need to know that, that's why you're here."

Edited January 29, 2013 by Likely Guy

[Jinxdom]

I'm hard pressed to decide what is the cause and effect for this. Like that whole protein ratio thing, what also changes from childhood to adulthood is how often we learn new things and have new experiences

Could be the more things we learn and the more things we experience the sharper our minds will be, and if we avoid it then our minds would dull and our memory capacity would decrease.

[Frank Merton]

Like I said, to keep your brain going you need to exercise it. I don't mean just reading things (although that helps) but leaning things. Study something that requires memorization. Learn something new. Do this with the same deliberate intent that causes you to go out and take your morning walk, or go to the gym, or whatever it is you do to get exercise for your body.

If sleep is a problem (and sleep is needed to move memories from short-term to long-term memory), try meditation and prayer, in quiet circumstances, where you rehearse what you are learning, or even just periods of listening to quiet orchestral music (music with singing doesn't work for this).

My word I'm full of it today; it's just that I know it works.

[Ultima Weapon]

I read today that good sleep is needed to retain new memories and that the difficulties some older people have getting such sleep explains it.

I dunno. I'm getting on there and my memory is fine. I think you gotta exercise it just like you gotta exercise your muscles.

^this

Something else may pop up a few years later that suggests otherwise. You never really know.

[Asadora]

I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner.

--Aleister Crowley

Thanks for the informative thread, OP!

[WoIverine]

Probably too much flouride accumulation and artificial sugars wrecking people's brains over time. Einstein had the brain of a young man when he died, so, it is possible to not have cognitive decline in age. Too many memories is crap, let's try to find the actual root cause.

Edited February 5, 2013 by WoIverine

[Starseed hybrid 1111]

i don't buy it nor believe it

[Frank Merton]

i don't buy it nor believe it

You don't buy or believe what -- that our brain fills up or that the decline with age has other causes or that our brain doesn't decline with age?

[Ultima Weapon]

Probably too much flouride accumulation and artificial sugars wrecking people's brains over time. Einstein had the brain of a young man when he died, so, it is possible to not have cognitive decline in age. Too many memories is crap, let's try to find the actual root cause.

One of Scientist Rupert Sheldrake's theories concerning memories is that the brain does not store memories, but simply "streams" them so to speak, and that they are actually part of a higher, possible spiritual construct. After all, there is no real proof supporting that memories are even stored in the brain in the first place. We've recorded activity in the brain when one creates or recalls memories, but no proof or evidence of them actually being stored. I'm not saying that Sheldrake's theory is true, I'm simply saying that it's certainly not outside the realm of possiblity. Therefore to assume that the brain's memories get "too full" is no more than a dogmatic assumption to me.

[WoIverine]

I was reading something a few days ago stating that our actual DNA can hold the equivalent of huuuge sums of data. I've always found the whole sci-fi "ancestral memories" encoded into DNA theories pretty interesing.

[Frank Merton]

One of Scientist Rupert Sheldrake's theories concerning memories is that the brain does not store memories, but simply "streams" them so to speak, and that they are actually part of a higher, possible spiritual construct. After all, there is no real proof supporting that memories are even stored in the brain in the first place.

Um it seems to me that the fact that brain injuries often interfere with memory and that disease processes like Alzheimer's Disease destroy memory indicates that the assertion that there is no proof supporting that memories are stored in the brain is false.

[Ultima Weapon]

Um it seems to me that the fact that brain injuries often interfere with memory and that disease processes like Alzheimer's Disease destroy memory indicates that the assertion that there is no proof supporting that memories are stored in the brain is false.

The question actually is whether or not the memory itself is being destroyed, or whether it's the brain's processes that allow the retrieval of memory to be destroyed. There have been many many cases with Alzheimer's patients where they're able to retrieve some old memories for a short time, (sometimes from a trigger object) despite that they are usually incapable of remembering those events. It supports the possibility that it's simply the brain's inability to retrieve these memories instead of the memories themselves being destroyed.

Therefore as I said, there is no real proof, all of these are assumptions. You have to open your mind to all possibilities before jumping to any conclusions.

[Frank Merton]

You are really stretching things to hold onto what seems to me a vain wish. The evidence is plain enough.

[Ultima Weapon]

You are really stretching things to hold onto what seems to me a vain wish. The evidence is plain enough.

The same could also be said to your statements my friend. Your's just happen to be the much more popular belief.