News­wise released an arti­cle called “Want to Improve Mem­ory? Strengthen Your Synapses. Here’s How.” based on find­ings find­ings pub­lished in the Feb­ru­ary issue of Mind, Mood and Mem­ory, a newslet­ter from Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­eral Hos­pi­tal, a lead­ing cen­ter of excel­lence in the field of cog­ni­tive fit­ness. Essen­tially, they explain how a decline in the health of neu­ronal synapses can lead to a decline in mem­ory and gen­eral men­tal fit­ness.

For those you aren’t famil­iar with synapses, they are the spaces between neu­rons where the elec­tri­cal sig­nal trav­el­ing down from the tree-like den­drites at the top of the cell through the cell body and down the tubu­lar axon changes into a chem­i­cal sig­nal (neu­ro­trans­mit­ter) to talk to neigh­bor­ing cells. In this pic­ture from the arti­cle, the neu­ro­trans­mit­ter is rep­re­sented by the red dots. We have more than 100 bil­lion neu­rons that can be con­nected to hun­dreds of other cells by as many as 10,000 synapses.

Here are a few good quotes from the article …

New infor­ma­tion is absorbed and retained through a process char­ac­ter­ized by changes in synap­tic inter­con­nec­tions among neu­rons in the hip­pocam­pus and cere­bral cor­tex, regions of the brain asso­ci­ated with mem­ory. But the abil­ity to learn and remem­ber, along with other men­tal and emo­tional processes, can be influ­enced by the effects of lifestyle and envi­ron­ment on the synapses. Stud­ies sug­gest that neu­rons that are adversely affected by fac­tors such as stress, lack of stim­u­la­tion, or neu­ro­tox­ins may be ham­pered in their abil­ity to form new pat­terns of con­nec­tiv­ity and may lose synap­tic connections.

It is gen­er­ally agreed that learn­ing occurs when the acqui­si­tion of new infor­ma­tion causes synap­tic changes, but sci­en­tists are not yet cer­tain pre­cisely how these changes come about. Sev­eral the­o­ries have been pro­posed. In one, called the Heb­bian the­ory, it is thought that any two cells or sys­tems of cells that are repeat­edly acti­vated at the same time will tend to become “asso­ci­ated,” so that activ­ity in one makes it more likely the other will become active. Repeated co-activation of con­nected cells is thought to make phys­i­cal changes in the brain—such as the devel­op­ment of new synapses between neu­rons or more recep­tors in the post-synaptic membrane—that lead to a last­ing memory.

The arti­cle con­cludes with these rec­om­men­da­tions to help you keep your mind active and alert:

1. Reduce stress: Make time for leisure activ­i­ties. Learn relax­ation tech­niques such as med­i­ta­tion. Cut down on unnec­es­sary respon­si­bil­i­ties and avoid over-scheduling.
2. Stim­u­late your brain: Avoid rou­tine. Enjoy new sen­sory expe­ri­ences. Chal­lenge your mind and body with new situations.
3. Exer­cise: A brisk walk or other car­dio­vas­cu­lar work­out oxy­genates the brain and pro­motes brain growth factors.
4. Chal­lenge your mind: Tackle puz­zles, games and demand­ing intel­lec­tual tasks. Make an effort to learn new infor­ma­tion through classes or reading.
5. Stay healthy: Eat a nutri­tious diet, get ade­quate sleep, avoid smok­ing, and if you use alco­hol, drink in moderation.