Memory gaps causes and therapy

"Memories are data-based inventions." Brain researcher Wolf Singer.
Our brain is made up of nerves. Electrical stimuli stimulate nerve cells and transmit chemical messages. The more "beaten" these "paths" are, the safer the brain connects. The experiences of our lives passively store in memory until our brain retrieves them. Remembering activates many nerve cells together; When we remember a vacation in our childhood, a pattern emerges in the brain. The phone number of an old friend, the street we grew up in, a first name, a photo - they all set patterns of nerve cells in action. In an exam enough for a keyword.

contents

• definition
• Many memories
• forgetfulness
• Amnesia
• The Korsakoff syndrome
• dementia
• diagnosis
• memory training
• The psyche and memory loss
• Deceptive memory
• Crime stories of the brain
• Déjà-vu

definition

When we are in a foreign culture, we (unconsciously) search for stimuli to get such patterns on tour. Anyone who moves to a new city, believes in the first few months again and again to meet well-known people: looks, hairstyles, clothes, all this sets the nerves in motion. We need these associations to orient ourselves in the world. Memory always selects and delimits at the same time.

When in everyday life forgetfulness and memory laps prevail. Image: Andrea Danti-fotolia

She is never objective. If a person reminds us of someone with whom we have had bad experiences because he is called Stefan Schmidt, one person has nothing to do with the other in external reality. The Native Americans are now called Indians because Columbus believed to have landed in India; the new world reminded him of what he had read in books about India.

Many memories

We distinguish between short-term and long-term memory. The short-term memory lies in the frontal and parietal lobes. The information stored there disappears after a short time, we forget them because they are no longer important, and we need "space" for new. Some of the information wander into the long-term memory, which is not limited. Memory is the work of both memories.

The temporal lobes, limbic system and hippocampus work together for long-term memory. In the long-term memory we call up our CV and know how to fill in the tax return.

Memory is not equal to memory. We have a memory of our life story. There we save places and times, which we associate with our own experiences. Then there is the fact memory. Here we store academic knowledge that has nothing to do with our life experience. Third, we save motion sequences: riding a bicycle, swimming or starting a computer. The fourth memory is called "priming" - the improvised memory of the unconscious. A new stimulus resembles only one known to us.

"Priming" allows us to classify the unknown and act in new situations. However, "priming" quickly leads to a misjudgment of the environment: a white nodule mushroom is reminiscent of a mushroom but is poisonous. These different forms of memory are meanwhile not strictly separated: swimming, cycling or writing texts are only unconsciously available when we train them.

Our emotions are motors: we are afraid of a test and remember a math exam that went wrong; we enjoy a warm summer night and think of a long-ago trip to the Caribbean; In the cafe, a stern look meets our table neighbor and reminds us of how our mother scolded, because we came home drunk as a teenager.

forgetfulness

All humans are forgetful - to a degree. We go to the supermarket to buy coffee and come back with two shopping bags; but we forgot the coffee. Forgetting is, to a certain extent, not sick, but even necessary, and if we remember, we forget something else.

For example, the scattered professor, who has become a cliché, has activated so many neural pathways of his knowledge memory that he forgets about everyday life. We also forget because new stimuli activate our nerves as in the example of the supermarket: At home, when we are tired, we think only of the coffee; There are a hundred other products in the business, which we also associate with positive associations.

Slamming, drowsing or oversleeping are "tricks" of our brains to avoid unpleasant situations. The telephone bill remains stored in the passive part of the memory, we displace both consciously and unconsciously.

Memory lapses are also a reaction to too many stimuli: setting up the new smartphone, answering twenty e-mails and at the same time flooding us with multimedia images leads us to forget about our daily structure. Resuming what's really important to us and controlling the stimuli helps - for example, by not turning on the internet two days a week.

Everyone knows, "Fuckle," and it depends on what our brain thinks is important. Especially old people are not necessarily sick because they forget everyday things. The "trained" pathways of their brain are often out of tune with their environment, and they need to use their improvised memory more often than the boys who grew up in a changed society.

A study at the University of Berkeley revealed why older people generally have more memory lapses than young people. Your brain does not hide unimportant information. The researchers each tasked a group of 60- to 77-year-olds and 19-30-year-olds to remember either two faces or two landscapes from a series of four images. A magnetic resonance tomograph showed how the brains worked.

The boys reduced their brain activity, which saves faces when they focus on landscapes - and vice versa. Ten of the sixteen "old brains" worked on both topics. The more the brains of the ancients responded to the unimportant stimuli, the less the subjects remembered. Why six of the seniors could concentrate, however, did not prove the experiment.

Memory loss takes different forms. In retrograde amnesia, the person in question forgets the time before a certain event, for example, before a house fire. In anterograde amnesia, on the other hand, he forgets new experiences; in the case of the congealed amnesia, he loses his memory of a certain event. Often a trauma is the cause here - the brain displaces the event. In the amnestic syndrome, although the everyday but not the long-term memory works.

Amnesia

Amnesia means memory loss. Memories are no longer accessible, but the parts of the brain that store actions usually remain untouched. Turning on hot water works, but remembering your own life is difficult.

Forward-acting amnesia is common. The injured party, although clear in the here and now, can not save new information and retrieve stored information. The retroactive amnesia causes the affected person does not remember what happened before his brain damage. The memory sometimes comes back, but it remains sketchy.

The worst of amnesias is the global one. First, the patient loses his long-term memory, even memories from his childhood are no longer accessible to him; second, he does not absorb any new information. Only the stored processes remain intact: the so impaired could hit a nail in the wall to hang a picture of his parents, but would not know that it is his parents. Such global amnesia is neither curable nor reversible.

Global amnesia can also go by. We then talk about transient global amnesia or episodic amnesia. It usually starts suddenly and lasts only a few hours. During this time the affected person lacks the old memory contents as in retrograde amnesia. He also forgets new information - in a maximum of three minutes. He can continue to learn learned skills. Such transient amnesias occur after an acute stress - whether physical or emotional. Quarrels with the partner or the death of a familiar person trigger this memory loss as well as a jump into the icy water or sexual ecstasy. 85% of those affected are over 60 years old.

A transient global amnesia can be recognized by the fact that the person concerned asks the same questions over and over again, but remains "himself". If, however, his personality changes, he appears drowsy or hyperactive, it speaks against this form of memory loss. If the person has previously been traumatized, suffers from clinical depression or epilepsy, or misuses drugs, then transient amnesia is also unlikely. Cause is a congestion in the brain, the temporal lobe does not get enough oxygen and can not work; Once this congestion is resolved, the brain works normally again. The passing amnesia is relatively "harmless". The memory returns by itself, and there is no long-term damage.

The kongrade amnesia just erases the memory of the triggering event. The person concerned easily accesses his long-term memory and absorbs new information.

Psychogenic amnesia responds to trauma or not necessarily traumatic, but negative situations and experiences. These are displaced.

Causes of amnesia include concussion, epileptic seizures, meningitis, strokes, migraine, poisoning, mental stress, psychotropic drugs, alcohol and poisoning.

Everyone knows amnesia, however. No one remembers his earliest childhood until the age of about 2-3 years. This is probably because we do not yet recognize ourselves as individuals during this time. Our brains, our ability to speak and to form meaningful associations, are forming at this time, and it is likely that the infant's brain has not yet formed the structures to network information.

The Korsakoff syndrome

Alcohol causes a special amnesia. The is named after the Russian neurologist Sergei Korsakov (1854-1900): The Korsakov syndrome. Korsakov published a study on a "polyneurotic amnesic syndrome" after examining 18 alcoholics.

Above all, the patients lose their short-term memory, old memories are also missing, but not to the same extent; they often can not even remember information for minutes. Typical for Korsakov is the "filling gaps": they replace the holes in the short-term memory with old memories and are unaware of it. For example, they engage in conversations with long-forgotten discussions that have nothing to do with the topic; they make people talk about conflicts that have been going on for years and are experiencing them in the present; this is accompanied by a mental regression: for example, they choose a "way home" that leads them to an apartment from which they moved out long ago.

These alcoholics also fill their memory gaps with pure fantasies. For example, they accuse others of something they have never said, but they firmly believe that their counterpart lies when they deny it. Loss of memory and alcohol psychosis are difficult to separate in such cases. Or they assume others, which only happens in their own mind.

Kosakov patients lose consciousness of space and time; they find themselves unable to cope in their apartment. They also tire quickly and vacillate between euphoria and hopelessness.

The central nervous system is damaged by alcohol, and the peripheral nerves also suffer. What Korsakov called polyneuropathy is a variety of disorders: patients have problems coordinating their movements. They stumble, sit down next to the chair, or the coffee cup falls out of their hands. The autonomic nervous system is also attacked: those affected quickly freeze, their skin is pale, their eyes are glassy.

The cause of this memory loss is a lack of vitamin B 1. Korsakov studied alcoholics, and they are predestined for such a deficiency that they take calories, especially as an alcohol. The limbic system takes damage - especially the hippocampus. The feeding of vitamin B 1 helps, but in advanced condition Korsakow is not curable.

dementia

Dementia refers to various diseases that limit the mind. Dementes can barely handle new experiences. You can misorient, have problems reading, speaking and calculating.

One million people suffer from Alzheimer's, the most common dementia. In Alzheimer's, brain cells die, caused by proteins inside and outside the nerve cells. At an advanced stage, the sick no longer know what they are called, do not recognize their relatives and do not know where they are. Strokes disturb the circulation in the brain, followed by vascular dementia. Although the memory is retained longer than in Alzheimer's, but finally disappears as well.

The Lewy body dementia is called after corpuscles in the brain stem and cerebral cortex. If they are attacked, those affected also lose their memory; At the same time, they behave like in a psychosis, developing delusions and losing consciousness of space and time.

Pick's disease destroys the frontal and temporal lobes. Patients can remember but lose the ability to think abstractly. Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease destroys brain tissue with toxic proteins. The patients lose their memory, can not concentrate and hardly perceive their environment.

Mental problems also lead to memory loss, depression as well as anxiety disorders. Depressed people are not only incapable of coping with everyday life, they also forget stored processes; they forget to take a shower, transfer the rent or shop. In anxiety disorders, the fear displaces the memory patterns of positive stimuli or superimposed on them: A smartphone reminiscent of a "poisoning with fine dust", and a man with a dark beard to an Al Quaida terrorist. Here only helps a long-term psychotherapy.

Alcohol and heroin abuse, cancer treatments, sedatives, negative stress, lack of sleep, and a lack of fluid also promote forgetting.

From the age of 50 people should pay attention to warning signs: Can I no longer cope in a familiar environment? At the end of a TV program, do not I know what happened in the beginning? Do I forget things, even though I paid my full attention to them? Am I not remembering the name of my neighbor? Then I should see a doctor.

diagnosis

Suffer from the fact that they forget everyday things so often that this becomes a problem for them and others, should they go to the doctor. He asks, since when does it limit their forgetfulness, does it increase, whether they can no longer remember things that used to pose no problem, whether they can no longer do familiar work. Neuropsychological tests help to detect dementia. In the meantime, Alzheimer's can not yet be proven in the laboratory, but can only be identified by their behavior. The patient does, for example, the "clock test". He draws in a circle the numbers of a clock and two hands indicating a time. Dementes can usually do this

The computer shows if the brain is shrinking. This is typical for dementia. The ECG shows whether the brain is adequately supplied with blood. Muscle and pupil tests prove that the nervous system is working normally. Blood counts show the consequences of alcohol and drug abuse. Psychological tests are intended to show anxiety disorders and depression.

The therapy is as different as the cause of memory loss. If an illness is the cause, forgetfulness usually disappears with it.

memory training

All forms of forgetfulness can at least be alleviated through training. First and foremost, this includes a healthy lifestyle, a balanced diet and exercise. Sport activates nerve cells, and it's not about performance. Already choosing a new route during the daily walk brings passive memories into action. Techniques to relax, as yoga also promotes memory. Mentally challenging activities keep the brain busy: reading, discussing or playing chess.

A popular method of memory training is the game "Stadt-Land-Fluss" Image: Jeanette Dietl - fotolia

This is especially important for old people. The neurons diminish anyway from the age of 50, the short-term memory crumbles, and the elderly gentlemen forget things that are not their full attention; forgetfulness in old age is not a law of nature; Social circumstances promote memory loss in old age. The profession no longer claims the brain, and the cells atrophy. Age means social isolation for many. The energy is no longer "by itself" and physical infirmity seduces to sit on the sofa. In the end, it does not matter whether you learn philosophical concepts, solve crossword puzzles, or memorize the phone book - mental work trains your memory.

Clinically dementing, however, brings little this "brain jogging". Because their memory does not fall because of lack of training. They need to learn to train their long-term memory, which stores their memories.

People with amnesia should seek out familiar places, surround themselves with personal things, and at the same time seek an environment that mentally promotes them.

Forgetfulness is often due to the conditions: if something does not interest us, it does not save our brain; When we are overloaded, the brain erases memories. The Internet today leads to a glut of information that the organism can hardly absorb. Instead of trying to store more and more, we should lean back and learn slowly and calmly.

Sleep is crucial for a good memory, because during sleep the information from the working memory migrates into the long-term memory. Dreamwork allows to activate the long-term memory.

Muscles and nerve cells are coupled. When the muscles are active, they create messengers that support the brain cell. Physical work causes the hippocampus to form nerve cells that store memory contents. Proteins from the muscles strengthen the nerve cells. Regular sports increase neurotransmitters like serotonin.

Although dementia can not be cured by exercise, it can be prevented. People who practice sports in middle age suffer from Alzheimer's disease less often in old age.

The psyche and memory loss

People between the ages of 20 and 35 are increasingly suffering from memory loss. Mental problems are usually the trigger. Permanent negative stress associated with existential anxiety is a cause. Above all, the autobiographical memory is affected. Lack of orientation and lack of perspective, exploding pressure on the university and the job market probably trigger this memory loss. The psychological pressure burdens the nerves, and the brain reacts with a blockage.

Students coined the term "Bulemie learning" for the achievement force at the university. They stuff knowledge for the exams in order to "throw it up". In the long-term memory, the pressed into this "knowledge" can not get. Those affected feel empty and can not memorize what they have learned by heart in autobiographical memory. Since they do not integrate the knowledge and thus continue to move away from sustainable life experiences, a memory loss is the logical consequence. The "knowledge at the push of a button" also suggests that previous insights that store long-term memory would be worthless. The associative patterns that provide orientation splinter. At the end there are desperate people who can no longer rely on the information stored in the brain.

In the area where emotion and cognition flow together, biographical memory sits - this is exactly where most of the receptors for stress hormones are located, and both are linked.

The lost memories can sometimes be reactivated by therapy. This brings little, however, since the affected are again exposed to the same power constraint, when the therapy is over. Some patients refuse and lead a "new life" with a flattened emotional world.

Deceptive memory

Partially losing memory or remembering is rarely pathological - it is the normal state. Recent studies suggest that remembering as well as remembering memories is an active process: our brains organize memories retrospectively to suit our needs. In literary terms, we develop the storyline of our lives and design the scripts over and over again. What and how we remember is linked to our imagination and our respective feelings.

Lawyers know that testimonies often have little to do with the incident without the respondents lying. Subjects who envisioned events like an earthquake later often believed that they had experienced this even in their childhood. Film scenes and narratives creep into the memory as supposedly own experiences.

Our memory is less like a documentary but much more like the narrative structure of a novel. People, places and events deletes the brain if they do not fit in the plot; Secondary characters come to the fore if the story requires it; Events rewrite memory to round off the storyline. The memory reconstructs selected information and puts it into action.

This information need not be personal experiences; we can visualize events so vividly as if we had experienced them ourselves. For example, esotericists "awaken" the "memory of past lives". "By coincidence", "new witches" find themselves in the body of a woman who was burned as a witch at the stake, feel the heat, smell the smoke. Remembering one's own experiences and feeling in oneself something untried into one another merges into one another.

Our feelings create information from the mood: A depressive remembers gloomy experiences, well-being puts the past in a warm light. It helps people in mental crises to remember moments when they were happy. First, because they recognize that their suffering does not always last, but second, because the brain collects such positive associations that improve mood in the here and now.

In order to confront memories with reality, a diary makes sense. In retrospect, it reveals how our condition was real in the respective phase of life. For example, those who are in a life crisis at the age of 30 and torment themselves with the opportunities they had at the age of 25 and do not take advantage of it, sometimes when looking into his diary, realizes that he has not been able to realize his potential at this time.

When we talk to people who also attended an event, it changes our memory of it. We even invent false memories, either to fill in inadequacies or because others persuade us.

This is especially easy if fiction has an anchor in reality. When teenagers tell us a story about the common apple stealing, the fruit trees at the neighbor really existed, and we were there together on tour, we save the fictitious prank despite initial doubt without further ado under experiences.

We forget many things, others exaggerate our brains; the memory is twisted, distorted and simplified. In court, this can have fatal consequences.

Crime stories of the brain

People stand in court for crimes they did not commit; "Offenders" believe they have done horrible things, even though they are innocent; Others report horrific experiences they never had. Sometimes they are deliberate lies; but often memory plays a trick on us.

Before a pogrom, for example, the perpetrators remember situations in which their later victims behaved "suspiciously". Did the accused as witches not hang around in the barn when the cows got sick? Hate preachers scatter false information, and their fear-driven followers incorporate it into their memories.

Donald Thomson was on trial for rape. The applicant described a perpetrator who was like him. The defendant, however, had a watertight alibi: He talked at the time of the crime in a talk show on TV. The victim had seen the program, immediately after she was raped. Thomson's face had stored her brain.

This deluded memory is called misallocation. The memory reconstructs details like a face correctly, but arranges them incorrectly. We believe we have seen something for ourselves; in fact, we heard about it or got the information from the television.

Policemen and prosecutors must therefore question witnesses carefully and avoid any suggestion. False memories are created especially when someone is under stress - for example, in interrogation. Hormones like glucortilcoids affect how the brain perceives stimuli.

Just when the accused or witness is to remember, he also remodels memory, and the slightest manipulation directs it in a different direction. For example, if the police officer asks a witness how the defendant "looked at" the victim, or if he asks "staring," he can change neutral memories to blame.

The American court expert Elisabeth Loftus found in an empirical study no difference between real and invented memories. The fantasies were just as detailed, soaked with emotion as reality. Right memories are built up just like wrong ones: The brain puts fragments together into a picture.

Caution is advised when therapists are looking for a supposedly secretive memory, even put pressure on those affected, and the memory is gaining more and more form. Frightening evidence for this give the witch trials of the early modern era, whose goal was the confession. Under torture, the defendants confessed things they could never have committed, such as having sex with the devil - and many of the victims themselves believed they had done evil spells.

Mental disorders such as borderline syndrome feature pseudo-memories, because the sick can not distinguish between reality and fiction. Their disorder is also often caused by violence, and they project the traumatic experience onto others. Since those affected believe their own fictions, the allegations in their plasticity also seem credible.

Déjà-vu

The Déja-vu also deceives the memory. People who believe in reincarnation see situations that happen to us as if we had experienced them before, fragments of a memory of previous lives. Déja-vus still can not adequately explain neuropsychology.

It is possible that the brain already perceived the experience immediately before, without us being aware of it. If we recognize the situation a second time consciously, it is already stored as a reminder.

Déja-vus can also explain associations: an herb shop in Istanbul evokes memories of a Christmas market of our childhood, without our brain at the same time providing the pictures. Without having been there before, this place seems familiar to us. A hostel in the Czech Republic is located at the same distance from a river as our parent house, and the road seems to be known to us.

Other people's stories also trigger the feeling of having been here before. This is how the author was when he first came to Lusatia in eastern Saxony. The villages, the people, the nature; everything seemed like a journey into his own past. Later, he learned that his now 80-year-old nanny had a farm there just before she fled to West Germany after the Second World War. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)