What is Memory According to Western Medicine and Science

According to Science, memory refers to the brain's capacity to encode, store, and retrieve information or past experiences. This mechanism enables the retention of knowledge, which is essential for problem-solving, planning, reasoning, and the development of personal identity. Memory can be generally classified into various types, including short-term memory (such as temporarily remembering a phone number) and long-term memory (like recalling a vacation from the previous year).

How Memories Are Formed

In order to create a new memory, information must be changed into a usable form, which occurs through a process known as encoding. Once the information has been successfully encoded, it must be stored in memory for later use.

Researchers found that memories form due to changes in brain neurons (nerve cells) and through the connections that exist between these neurons—either by strengthening these connections or through the growth of new connections.

Changes in the connections between nerve cells, also known as synapses, are associated with the learning and retention of new information. Strengthening these connections through practices helps commit information to memory.

Is Memory Fixed?

Many people assume that memory is a fixed thing, like a photograph sealed in an album. However, there is plasticity to memory, behaving like mist rather than marble. This plasticity surprisingly carries well into later life.

Memory can be cultivated, and it changes shape depending on how we breathe, move, and live. What we feed it, how we rest it, and the patterns we follow each day are written directly into its structure.

Memory Loss

Human memory involves the ability to both preserve and recover information. However, this is not a flawless process. Sometimes people forget or misremember things. Other times, information is not properly encoded in memory in the first place.

Memory problems are often relatively minor annoyances, like forgetting names and birthdays. However, they can also be a sign of serious conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of dementia. These conditions affect quality of life and ability to function, and attention needs to be given to how such conditions can be treated.

Causes of Memory Loss

In the causation of memory loss, a disruption in the connections between the brain neurons is the main reason. But the reasons for the disruptions can vary. In Alzheimer’s disease, the blocks in brain neuron connections are due to buildup of abnormal proteins called amyloid plaques and tau tangles in the brain. Different types of dementia are associated with particular types of brain cell damage in particular regions of the brain.

Risk Factors for Memory Loss

As mentioned above, memory is plastic and can be molded according to our lifestyle. Here are some of the risk factors that can bring about deterioration of memory, especially late into life.

1. Poor Sleep

Sleep is when memories are stitched into permanence and long term storage. During slow-wave sleep, the hippocampus transfers short-term memories into long-term storage. When sleep is shallow, irregular, or cut short, memories are similarly short and shallow. Studies have shown that chronic sleep deprivation raises the risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.

2. Head Injury

A single fall can reverberate for decades. Memory problems can begin years after a head injury that was dismissed at the time. The brain does not forget trauma, even if you try to.

3. Loneliness

Social isolation is one of the strongest modifiable risk factors for memory loss and dementia. Loneliness corrodes the brain, reduces stimulation, increases stress hormones, and fosters depression, paving for memory deterioration at an increased speed. Connection breathes oxygen into the mind, loneliness suffocates it.

4. Smoking

Few poisons age the brain more predictably than smoking. Nicotine constricts blood vessels, carbon monoxide robs oxygen, and the cocktail of chemicals accelerates vascular damage. Memory is not immune. Smokers face significantly higher rates of dementia, even if they never develop cancer.

5. Heavy Alcohol Use

Alcohol damages neurons directly and weakens the liver, which then fails to clear toxins that harm the brain. Excess drinking is linked to the shrinking of the hippocampus, the very structure most vital for memory. The risk is clear: sustained overconsumption of alcohol erodes the mind and memory.

6. Physical inactivity

Muscles and memory are related. Exercise increases blood flow, lowers inflammation, and even stimulates neurogenesis — the birth of new brain cells in the hippocampus. Sedentary life promotes degeneration of neurons and therefore memory loss.

7. Other Medical Conditions

Thyroid disorders, vitamin B12 deficiency, sleep apnea, and depression can mimic or worsen dementia symptoms. Left untreated, they set the stage for decline.

Book Appointment

Acupuncture for Memory

Since memory is highly plastic and this characteristic carries even to later part of life, it is significant to recognize the potential of a good memory even when one ages and the restoration of a sharp memory from a poor one.

Acupuncture is well known to treat all kinds of neurological disorders and stimulate nerve regrowth. Below are some of the mechanisms that acupuncture helps to restore, recover and boost memory:

1. Neuroplasticity

A large number of studies have considered that acupuncture plays a therapeutic role by facilitating neuroplasticity. Acupuncture can reorganize brain functional networks and strengthen functional connectivity between brain neurons, therefore improving memory.

Read my past blog post on Acupuncture and Neuroplasticity here.

2. Enhanced synaptic function

Studies suggest acupuncture can increase the levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine in the hippocampus, which is crucial for memory. It can also upregulate proteins involved in maintaining synaptic structures and enhance long-term potentiation (LTP), a key cellular mechanism for memory.

3. Increased brain glucose metabolism:

Acupuncture has been shown to increase glucose metabolism in brain regions associated with memory, such as the hippocampus and frontal cortex.

4. Modulation of excitatory amino acids:

Acupuncture has been shown to alleviate memory deficits by modulating the metabolism of excitatory amino acids like glutamate and aspartate, which reduces neurotoxicity.

Book Appointment

Other Holistic Practices for Memory

1. Yoga

Focus in yoga trains the brain’s prefrontal circuits to hold focus longer. Concentration is the soil in which memory grows.

A few slow stretches in yoga activate the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation and counter stress, bringing more blood flow to areas of brain associated with memory such as the hippocampus.

2. Diet

Add protein to breakfast. Stable blood sugar means stable attention. Add eggs, yogurt, or a handful of nuts. Amino acids from protein become neurotransmitters that encode new memories.

Snack on Walnuts or Berries which contain polyphenols that reduce oxidative stress. In clinical studies, daily intake improves verbal recall and processing speed in older adults.

3. Practice gratitude

Practice giving thanks before bed. The practice strengthens emotional memory and reduces stress hormones that interfere with learning. Small gratitude anchors memory in meaning.

Book Appointment

Further Reading:

Impatience is a Form of Greed

Everything You Need to Know About Acupuncture

Spine: Deeper Energetic Perspective into Spinal Conditions, Vertical Collapse and What Real Healing Should Be

Spine: Deeper Energetic Perspective into Spinal Conditions, Horizontal Collapse and What Real Healing Should Be

Natural Alternatives or Chemical Drugs?

If You Are Having a Hard Time Now