Focus, motivation, mood, etc can all be enhanced with noots and meds but why is memory so hard to improve? Every other function have polar opposites such as mania and depression, hyper focus and distracted, but memory usually remains consistent. Is the only way to improve memory consistently and significantly by taking bdnf?
Why is memory so difficult to enhance?
#1
Posted 14 September 2012 - 04:22 PM
Focus, motivation, mood, etc can all be enhanced with noots and meds but why is memory so hard to improve? Every other function have polar opposites such as mania and depression, hyper focus and distracted, but memory usually remains consistent. Is the only way to improve memory consistently and significantly by taking bdnf?
#2
Posted 14 September 2012 - 04:47 PM
#3
Posted 14 September 2012 - 06:20 PM
Short-term memory? Long-term memory? Working memory? Spatial memory? Visual memory? Auditory memory?
An eidetic memory perhaps?
There is a reason why the presence of an eidetic memory is relatively absent amongst populations with no pathological issues. Human beings are primed for understanding and abstract thought - higher level mental processes that is.
Rote, verbatim memorization is seen as a low level mental process. Autistic savants are literal data banks - yet they suffer from semantic memory issues in addition to abstract thought processing issues, primarily because they lack the neural structures, the very absence of which, that are responsible for their memories.
Take someone like Kim Peek for example. He has the memory of a computer yet the IQ of a five year old child.
A lot of the nootropics on this forum have helped people with issues pertaining to memory.
Edited by unbeatableking, 14 September 2012 - 06:21 PM.
#4
Posted 14 September 2012 - 08:58 PM
#5
Posted 14 September 2012 - 09:04 PM
#6
Posted 14 September 2012 - 09:04 PM
http://www.longecity...-increase-bdnf/
Or eat eggs every morning. It's a good source of choline. As the guy above me mentioned you may be deficient in that area and an easy way to find out is if eggs help your memory.
Edited by dz93, 14 September 2012 - 09:06 PM.
#7
Posted 16 September 2012 - 09:39 PM
Working memory, or the ability to manipulate information in your head, is not so easily enhanced.
#8
Posted 16 September 2012 - 10:58 PM
In case of a life or death situation, the brain does have mechanisms to induce photographic memory but only when stress is sky high because that is when photographic memory is most useful. As drugs get more and more pinpointed to exact mechanisms, there will eventually be drugs that can trigger photographic memory without the system wide side effects that fight or flight chemicals create.
Since there are currently people in the world with photographic memory with normal intelligence, it should eventually be possible to mimic this with drugs.
#9
Posted 16 September 2012 - 11:06 PM
http://en.wikipedia....ed_intelligence
#10
Posted 16 September 2012 - 11:36 PM
Memory can be improved. At least if you mean ability to encode or recall. Take cholinergics, galantamine, or glutamic acid.
Working memory, or the ability to manipulate information in your head, is not so easily enhanced.
What I mean is remembering people's names, faces, facts, etc. Can those drugs make that much of a difference? I'm also talking about spatial memory which I feel is harder to improve. Ex Remembering directions and how to navigate around areas
#11
Posted 16 September 2012 - 11:37 PM
Why do people have photographic memory and such a low IQ whereas someone with a high IQ could have poor photographic memory.
http://en.wikipedia....ed_intelligence
Because a photographic memory doesn't necessarily help with the kind of problem solving and reasoning skills that are involved with an IQ test.
#12
Posted 16 September 2012 - 11:49 PM
The effects of the racetam family and other drugs that improve cognition are usually cumulative. Which means that you'll experience or feel greater improvements 3months in compared to 1month in. So something that inhances memory could very well improve name, faces, facts, etc recall and formation.Memory can be improved. At least if you mean ability to encode or recall. Take cholinergics, galantamine, or glutamic acid.
Working memory, or the ability to manipulate information in your head, is not so easily enhanced.
What I mean is remembering people's names, faces, facts, etc. Can those drugs make that much of a difference? I'm also talking about spatial memory which I feel is harder to improve. Ex Remembering directions and how to navigate around areas
May I ask specifically what you're looking for? Are you trying to enhance your memory because you've noticed that you have trouble remembering faces, names, and facts or what? To me it sounds like you're trying to make history class easier lol. Faces, names, and facts all deal with history or social study classes which is why I ask.
#13
Posted 17 September 2012 - 12:03 AM
#14
Posted 17 September 2012 - 12:23 AM
You should also take all the essential fatty acids too.
Now back to your memory question. I've been taking Noopept, Piracetam, and Aniracetam, along with other substances (Vitamins, Metabolites, and Antioxidants), for about a month now and have noticed that I was once very bad a facial recall. Just facial recall. I could never remember faces but names were fine. Facts were hard to remember unless I could relate to them.
After about a month of taking them I've noticed that my facial recall has improved greatly and I don't notice anymore improvements in that field because It's already at a normal level.
That combination may not work for you and it may work for others. Lets first start with your health before we improve brain functioning. If you're in bad health then what's the point of improving brain functioning when you may or may not die in 30 years or aren't even dedicated to your body but brain health. It all works together.
Get your diet on track or make sure you're receiving your daily vitamins, nutrients, minerals, and EFA's because without them your brain will suffer no matter what.
Next is to research and experiment. Have you tried any racetams for improving memory? My friend with bipolar has taken himself off of Seroquel just by taking Beyond Tangy Tangerine.
Now I'm not going to profit off your buying Beyond Tangy Tangerine but I am a firm believer that this is by far the best thing you can provide your body with in terms of getting all Vitamins, Nutrients, and Minerals your body and brain needs to be healthy. I believe he still takes lithium as a mood stablilizer but he wants to get away from Pharmaceuticals because of them micro-chipping their drugs in the future.
Any questions please feel free to ask. I can even ask my friend with bipolar (who is very good at facial recall, better than I am sometimes) about certain questions you have. Hope this helps.
EDIT:
I haven't heard anything of bipolar people taking Racetam's and experience negative effects. Although I do not have Bipolar so there would be no point in me searching it. I've also read that people with bipolar have less gray matter. Maybe you might want to look into substances that increase gray matter. Such as Lion's Mane and many others.
Edited by dz93, 17 September 2012 - 12:26 AM.
#15
Posted 17 September 2012 - 02:05 AM
#16
Posted 17 September 2012 - 03:19 AM
I find glutamic acid helps me remember more, yes. I take 500mg and I find things just stick better. It helps with encoding and is maybe the only thing that does. Also magnesium threonate (or other forms that cross BBB) help protect NDMA receptors also improving learning function. Cholinergics / galantamine I find make retrieval easier... as my mind is generally more agile. Spatial memory is best improved with something like modafinil.Memory can be improved. At least if you mean ability to encode or recall. Take cholinergics, galantamine, or glutamic acid.
Working memory, or the ability to manipulate information in your head, is not so easily enhanced.
What I mean is remembering people's names, faces, facts, etc. Can those drugs make that much of a difference? I'm also talking about spatial memory which I feel is harder to improve. Ex Remembering directions and how to navigate around areas
Training also helps. Training your memory is well known to improve it. Get q-cards or something and blindly memorize vocabulary.
#17
Posted 17 September 2012 - 03:42 AM
Edited by The Immortalist, 17 September 2012 - 03:42 AM.
#18
Posted 17 September 2012 - 05:56 AM
I think the OP meant to say is that why can negative conditions of the brain keep slipping into a perpetual no limit(until death at least) decline like memory loss or depression when positives(like obtaining a better memory) be so hard to obtain and also have limits imposed on the level you can achieve?
Not quite, I'm saying that areas of functioning such as focus, mood, motivation and energy can be easily improved with drugs but there isn't such a drug that improves memory to a similar extent.
#19
Posted 17 September 2012 - 06:27 AM
Edited by CIMN, 17 September 2012 - 06:27 AM.
#20
Posted 17 September 2012 - 07:16 AM
I think that long term memory is associated a lot with techniques. Some get it, others don't! Of course it can be learned. Also sleep is a keyfactor.
Ye old coffee and eggs might be a good one also.
#21
Posted 17 September 2012 - 05:18 PM
On the other hand memory is complex, kind of like confidence. I mean how do you find a chemical that improves an abiliity that really is in fact is constituted by many sub disciplines, for example how do you improve someones ability to play sport, certainly some people are more prone to better at sport, there are loads of things at play here, the psyche, the physical coordination, reflex, focus, physical learning ability. It's the same for memory, its a complex ability that has many divisions in how it actually works, thus it is much much harder to find something that would improve memory.
Improving memory would probably take a wholistic approach, like ginkgo for concentration/focus cerebral dilation, rhodiola for speed incrased catecholamines, a certain amount of relaxation, ampa stimulation to improve, cholinergic. Still much like there is no medicine for physical performance in sport, there isn't medicine for enhancing memory by a huge margin.
This can be pinned down to the fact that at the moment our medicine is very primitive in the fact that we cannot target specifically, and also can't target area wise in our brain and body. I think (in my dumb brain) in the future when we can be specific, and we can target chemicals that would be another step in being able to make drastic improvements/repairs to our memory.
Edit: Also there isn't really anything that can significantly restructure the connections in our brain more than what we have already programmed in our DNA, so its likely that someone who is prone to have bad memory will not be able to mitigate those by a lot at the moment.
Edited by Major Legend, 17 September 2012 - 05:21 PM.
#22
Posted 17 September 2012 - 11:20 PM
Still much like there is no medicine for physical performance in sport,
Wrong- steroids. All pro athletes who take steroids have a significant advantage over those who don't unless the person is a genetic freak which is rare.
#23
Posted 18 September 2012 - 03:39 PM
Edit: thats why I said sports not athletics.
Edited by Major Legend, 18 September 2012 - 03:40 PM.
#24
Posted 18 September 2012 - 03:45 PM
I mean sports mentally, some people obviously have a better mental ability in playing sports.
Edit: thats why I said sports not athletics.
Steroids also improve neural functioning, leading to an increase in mental reaction time and overall reflex scores.
Why do you think steroids are so heavily associated with baseball? A sport that requires little to no 'bulk', so to speak, in comparison to that of other sports like football which require size?
#25
Posted 18 September 2012 - 03:48 PM
(I guess to better explain myself, some people just have a knack of say picking up certain games, whilst some other people are inherently clumsy and slow at picking up a sport, for example if you play tennis between a group of untrained people it becomes obvious some people pick up the strategy to win mentally much quicker, not so much the physical performance but how to think a few steps ahead and win)
Edited by Major Legend, 18 September 2012 - 03:50 PM.
#26
Posted 18 September 2012 - 03:53 PM
I mean sports mentally, some people obviously have a better mental ability in playing sports.
Edit: thats why I said sports not athletics.
Steroids also improve neural functioning, leading to an increase in mental reaction time and overall reflex scores.
Why do you think steroids are so heavily associated with baseball? A sport that requires little to no 'bulk', so to speak, in comparison to that of other sports like football which require size?
Seems like I should refrain from posting...maybe one day i'll be smarter.
#27
Posted 18 September 2012 - 05:06 PM
Why do people have photographic memory and such a low IQ whereas someone with a high IQ could have poor photographic memory.
http://en.wikipedia....ed_intelligence
Because a photographic memory doesn't necessarily help with the kind of problem solving and reasoning skills that are involved with an IQ test.
Case in point: Richard Feynman.
Despite doing rather brilliantly at Mathematics and Physics, Feynman did somewhat poorly with regards to both English and History.
Edited by unbeatableking, 18 September 2012 - 05:09 PM.
#28
Posted 22 September 2012 - 08:07 PM
Still much like there is no medicine for physical performance in sport,
Wrong- steroids. All pro athletes who take steroids have a significant advantage over those who don't unless the person is a genetic freak which is rare.
All pro's are genetic freaks. That's why we normals like to watch them. Even BB who use roids are genetic freaks, it's impossible for a person like me to get to that size even if I was on roids.
#29
Posted 19 September 2014 - 03:40 AM
Bump
#30
Posted 19 September 2014 - 03:45 AM
Anything else out there??
I'm looking for some solutions. I have trouble with a very bad auditory verbal working memory - especially at work. I have a new job where I am expected to cook over 30 different sandwiches and remember what goes on every single one. I am having trouble repeatedly with the same sandwiches that I just can't remember no matter how many times I have done them. I mean I do good with other aspects such as visual memory and short term memory, but anything auditory I'm just screwed....
Edited by TheBatman, 19 September 2014 - 03:46 AM.
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