Aristotle wrote a treatise about memory: De memoria et reminiscentia. To improve recollection, he advised that a systematic search should be made and that practise was helpful. He suggested grouping the items to be remembered in threes and then concentrating upon the central member of each triad.
Throughout history, the possession of an exceptional memory has been seen as a symbol of power and achievement. As today's research focuses on human health and longevity, studies look at memory deficits and age-related memory loss with the aim of uncovering new explanations and treatment techniques to improve memory.
The knowledge gained from this research can be transferred to general memory improvement methodology and training. Neuroimaging as well as cognitive neuroscience have provided neurobiological evidence supporting holistic ways in which one can improve memory.
Throughout history, the possession of an exceptional memory has been seen as a symbol of power and achievement. As today's research focuses on human health and longevity, studies look at memory deficits and age-related memory loss with the aim of uncovering new explanations and treatment techniques to improve memory. The knowledge gained from this research can be transferred to general memory improvement methodology and training. Neuroimaging as well as cognitive neuroscience have provided neurobiological evidence supporting holistic ways in which one can improve memory.
Understanding that the brain can change through experience is the first step to improving memory. It was once thought that the adult brain was a fixed entity, however it has been found that the brain is actually a highly flexible and plastic organ that changes throughout life. Every experience, thought, emotion and behaviour that is produced causes a corresponding change in the neurocircuitry of the brain.
Neural plasticity is the mechanism by which the brain encodes experience and learns new behaviours. It is also the mechanism by which the damaged brain relearns lost behaviour in response to rehabilitation. Experience-dependent neuroplasticity suggests that the brain changes in response to what it experiences. The most well known example of this is represented by London taxi cab drivers.
London taxi cab drivers undergo extensive training for 2-4 years, learning and memorizing the layout of streets, street names and many different places within the city. Not only are they required to have this knowledge in their brain at all times, they must also find the quickest route to their customer’s desired destination. After studying London taxi cab drivers, evidence showed greater grey matter volume in the posterior hippocampus, an area in the brain involved heavily in memory. The longer taxi drivers navigated in London the greater the posterior hippocampal gray matter volume.
Therefore, it is suggested that there may be a capacity for plastic change in the structure of the hippocampus in healthy adult humans that can accommodate the spatial representation of a very large and complex environment. The results from the present study continue to permit the view that learning, representing, and using a spatial representation of a highly complex and large-scale environment is a primary function of the hippocampus in humans such that this brain region might adapt structurally to accommodate its elaboration.The correlation between time driving and hippocampal grey matter suggests that experience drives the changes observed.
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