Title: Memory improvement - Wikipedia
Headings: Memory improvement
Memory improvement
Contents
Memory function factors
Neuroplasticity
Stress
Strategies
Cognitive training
Personal Application & Intellectual Conception
Techniques to improve memory: visual memory
Psychopharmacology
Diet
Stress management
Exercise
Mental exercise
Memory aids
See also
Notes
References

Content: Prolonged high cortisol levels, as seen in chronic stress, have been shown to result in reduced hippocampal volume as well as deficits in hippocampal-dependent memory, as seen in impaired declarative, episodic, spatial, and contextual memory performance. Chronic, long-term high cortisol levels affect the degree of hippocampal atrophy, resulting in as much as a 14% hippocampal volume reduction and impaired hippocampus-dependent memory when compared to elderly subjects with decreased or moderate cortisol levels. An example may be found in the London taxi drivers, as the anterior hippocampus was hypothesized to decrease in volume as a result of elevated cortisol levels from stress. Acute stress, a more common form of stress, results in the release of adrenal steroids resulting in impaired short-term and working memory processes such as selective attention, memory consolidation, as well as long-term potentiation. The human brain has a limited short-term memory capacity to process information, which results in constant competition between stimuli to become processed. Cognitive control processes such as selective attention reduce this competition by prioritizing where attentional resources are distributed. Attention is crucial in memory processing and enhances encoding and strength of memory traces. It is therefore important to selectively attend to relevant information and ignore irrelevant information in order to have the greatest success at remembering. Animal and human studies provide evidence as they report that acute stress impairs the maintenance of short-term memory and working memory and aggravates neuropsychiatric disorders involved in short-term and working memory such as depression and schizophrenia. Animal studies with rats have also shown that exposure to acute stress reduces the survival of hippocampal neurons.