But you can’t remember for the life of you if your dentist appointment is this Thursday or next. And also, what was the name of your new next door neighbor? And that thing you weren’t supposed to forget from last week’s staff meeting… When it comes to memories, what sticks and what doesn’t can seem like a round of neurological Russian roulette. But nothing could be further from the truth. The key to long, lasting memories—whether as life-changing as your proposal or as simple of your new neighbor’s name—is building connections, both figuratively and literally. “What’s interesting about the human brain is that we have multiple memory systems,” explains David Sweatt, PhD, a memory researcher and chairman of the neurobiology department at University of Alabama Birmingham. “It allows a lot of parallel processing, in terms of learning and remembering different kinds of actions and information.” Some of those systems are evolutionarily-ancient—recognizing that a loud noise is threatening or a that shiny red apple looks appealing is not so much instinct as it is a rudimentary memory that you’ve been refining since birth. In fact, researchers have learned just over the last 30 years that many of the behaviors that we recognize as innate are learned and laid down as part of developing the nervous system. Every time you swing that golf club or reach for the biggest apple in the bunch, “you’re reopening and refining that memory,” says Dr. Sweatt, further cementing its place in your brain. More from Prevention: 10 Ways To Keep Your Mind Sharp The capacity to remember moments in our lives, facts, and the ability to navigate are the newest types of memory systems for humans. “They are absolutely some of the most complicated types of things we can learn, involving lots of complicated interactive circuits,” says Sweatt. Unfortunately, all those circuits make those memories susceptible to disruption. That’s why with amnesia or Alzheimer’s, they’re lost first, he says. Right, but you still can’t remember names. Brand new information like a person’s name or the date of an appointment comes into our short term memory, which can slip right back out if it’s not cemented, or working memory, which holds information long enough to use it before we lose it. The key to consolidating those memories is connections. The more regions in your brain a memory can connect, the better its chances. A recent study in Neuron found memories accompanied by strong connection between the hippocampus (which harbors our ability to combine information and representations) and the left perirhinal cortex (important for object recognition and semantic knowledge) were less likely to be forgotten. And that connection can be observed just 24 hours after the memory first occurred. “Our memories are constantly in a state of flux,” says study author Lila Davachi, PhD, director of the Learning and Memory Lab at New York University. “Even consolidated memories are still malleable once they are retrieved or reminded.” More from Prevention: How To Prevent Memory Loss But what makes memories last? In order to move an experience from your working memory to the point of consolidation, you also have to build connections outside the brain. “Memories can become stronger if more and more aspects of the experience are tied into one memory,” says Sweatt. That means remembering the color of the dress, the food you ate, and the song playing at the restaurant right before he proposed create a memory specific enough not to forget. But there’s another way: emotional valence. If something is very surprising, triggers a great deal of emotional response, or is in any way meaningful, it will be unforgettable. “It’s the equivalent to building something out of wood an supporting it with either one two-by-four, or ten,” Sweatt explains. If you make these strong connections from the beginning, it will withstand the test of time and, possibly, dementia. Just like with Sudoku and crossword puzzles for sharpness, you can train your brain to make more lasting memories. Practicing making multiple connections upon having an experience is a good way to make deep memories. But for those pesky names, do like salespeople do and try repeating that persons name several times within the initial meeting. Or try Sweatt’s other technique: “When you hear someone’s name, see if you can’t remember some other person who shares that name—maybe a boyfriend you totally hated or a coworker. Making an association between the two Davids will help you remember that [my name is] David.” If you never trained your brain to make more solid memories, you would still be left with plenty to reminisce about. Your brain still finds ways to determine which experiences, names, faces, places, or moments are worth laying down the connections to become truly memorable. Now, you just know its secret. More from Prevention: 11 Brain-Boosting Smoothies
