ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY HUMANIST FAMILY BRAIN STUDY DETAILS ABOUT YOUR LONG-TERM MEMORY #15 September 1, 2020 WHAT IS YOUR LONG-TERM MEMORY? AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT? The evolutionary purpose of your long-term memory system is to consolidate memories essential for your survival purposes in the future. It is the central source of your adaptable self-identity! This awesome purpose can be understood by learning the distinctions among the four kinds of your long-term memory in your limbic system, which are inseparably linked to your working memory resources in your cerebrum. Your long-term memory system consists of three kinds of declarative memory: [1] Episodic memory for recalling events; [2] Semantic memory for recalling facts; and [3] Autobiographic memory for remembering who you are! Your declarative memory is known as your "explicit memory," since these memories can be recalled when you decide to think about them. Together, they are the necesary causes of your unified self-identity. Knowing that you can control the many possible interactions between the separate functions of your long-term memory and working memory systems can be profoundly liberating. In addition, you have a non-declarative memory part of your long-term memory system, called your procedural memory or "muscle memory." It involves functions of your cerebellum and brainstem as well as your hippocampus. Your muscle memory non-declaritive memory system provides you with the ability to do routine activities such as brushing your teeth, driving a car, or remembering the faces of your family and friends. This kind of memory is known as your "implicit memory" since it is usually hidden from your conscious awareness unless you are doing focused training on new skill-sets. The significance of knowing about the separate functions of your connected long-term memory and working memory systems is that you can optimize the main purpose of your brain, which is to help your body survive, reproduce, and thrive! The new brain knowledge on this website can help you activate your genuine (but sometimes hidden) brainpower potential to be curious and achieve courageous objectives within cultural constraints. This ultimately means that you have the responsibility to develop your own language skills including a very strong vocabulary during your lifetime. Your mental, emotional, and social intelligences and creative thinking skills can be positively influenced when you deliberately use your creative imagination and ability to reason and coordinate your memories about the most important events in your life. You have the brainpower or mental force to seek more detailed explanations about the consequential ideas that influence the quality of your life. This includes deciding what to forget because many of your childhood ideas about reality may be incorrect and in fact be dangerous to your future longterm survivability. You may have learned fallacies or "false facts", which were mislabeled as "facts" when you were a child and did not have the cognitive capacity to properly evaluate their veracity. They may cause you unnecessary confusion as you search for the truth and seek wisdom. The bad ideas that you may have learned and may need to forget may be serious prejudicial stereotypes, such as racial bias, gender inequality bias, sexual orientation bias, or simplistic faith-based unverifiable religious ideas. With respect to out-dated religious ideas that have been proven false thousands of times since the Enlightenment and the founding of the United States, it is especially important to forget "false facts" and forget obsolete ideas, which you may have been forced to remember as a child or teenager. Since reading can be a special way of critical thinking, it is more important than ever before to learn critical reading strategies when you start your search for new knowledge about your brain structures and mental functions. By reading widely and deeply, you can strengthen your creative willpower and change your adaptable self-identity by yourself without the need for mystical superpower support. Your own educated brainpower is enough! The goal of living a long and healthy life depends upon keeping fresh blood flowing through your veins and arteries and keeping sparks of electro-chemical ionic signals flowing throughout your connectome, which consists of your whole brain and nervous system. Brain scientists are now understanding brain activity at the smallest nano-microscopic atomic and molecular levels for the first time in human history. This "mapping" of the connectome is being done using the newest Block Fluorescent 3D Computerized Microscopes. The brain information provided on this website emphasizes the essential connection between your working memory and long-term memory systems. These two key brain ideas are #1 and #15 on the Circle of Consciousness SymbolŠ: CIRCLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SYMBOLŠ You can see that #1 and #15 are next to each other on the circle, which reminds you that they are inseparably connected inside your brain. You would have no conscious self-awareness and would not be able to talk sensibly, if your prefrontal cortex (PFC) and your hippocampus were not connected in a healthy way. The shockingly dreadful dilemma of the victims of Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common and fatal form of dementia., is that their conscious self-awareness cannot connect with their usual familiar past memories. The normal connection between their prefrontal cortex and their hippocampus is broken or disconnected. A variety of abnormalities and dysfunctions can cause the obstructions and the tragic disconnect. Victims become progressively less aware of their past memories, whose triggers are located in their hippocampus. If the connection is severely damaged, the self-identities of victims become permanently altered, since essential self-defining memories cannot be recalled at will. Tragically, when victims lose contact with their memories of the past, they forget the faces of family members and their friends. Also they forget where they are or how to speak appropriately during conversations. In other words, their perceptions of reality and their awareness of their own self-identities is obliterated. They are then compelled to confabulate in order to fill the cognitive void by making up nonsensical explanations. Since there is no guaranteed way of preventing Alzheimer's disease, it is imperative that you maintain a healthy brain by sleeping adequately, eating well, doing regular physical exercise, and challenging yourself mentally to increase your cognitive reserve. Such proactive healthy activities can reduce your risk of getting Alzheimer's, or at least delay the pace of the deterioration of the brain structures and mental functions far into old age. WORKING MEMORY METAPHOR "The relationship between working memory and long-term memory is similar to that of a librarian and a library. Like a librarian, working memory allows you to search through the 'books' [your categories of subjects] of information stored in the 'library' [your memory] in order to accomplish a specific task." (Book Source = Working Memory Advantage, 2013, page 160) "With Alzheimer's disease, both elements are under attack: the 'librarian' [Executive Function] struggles to search through the stacks, and the bookworms that are eating through the 'books' [topics in your memory]. A shrinking working memory [Executive Function] has a detrimental effect on your ability to access the 'books', to search through the 'library' and find and apply what you need." (page 160) "And when the 'books' [categories of subjects] deteriorate, it is much harder to 'read' [be conscious of the topics] what remains." (page 160) "However, working memory is such a dynamic and adaptive function that if it remains strong, even if Alzheimer's begins to eat away at your neurons, it may in fact help to prevent you from experiencing the cognitive symptoms associated with the disease" for a long time. (page 160) What are the skills necessary to make both your long-term memory and working memory more efficient? You can improve the functioning of your long-term memory system by using the following three memory enhancement skills, which are controlled by your working memory located in your prefrontal cortex: TAKE COMMAND OF YOUR LIFE WITH THREE NEW LEARNING TECHNIQUES The following three excellent learning techniques are: (1) Code Breakers; (2) Bootstrapping; and (3) Chunking: (1) The code breakers technique of planning can be used for improving your memorization of the 15 brain ideas emphasized on this website, if you develop a step by step plan that can then help you transfer and consolidate new brain information into your long-term memory system. For example, you can use your creative imagination to match or create associations between each of the 15 memory codes featured on this website with each of the 15 brain ideas, respectively. (page 182) (2) The bootrapping technique of learning involves the process of combining or binding verbal information (text) with visual information (brain diagrams) by using both your working memory and your long-term memory systems together. This technique can help you consolidate brain information such as the brain names and definitions and memory codes. Eventually, the details about each brain idea can be retained and retrieved at will. (page 183) (3) The chunking technique of memorization involves a method of breaking down complex information, such as the description of your brain's many amazing structures and your mind's many functions, into smaller parts or "chunks." The smaller chunks of alphabetical letters (of the vital brain information) can be organized and committed by your working memory to your long-term memory. This facilitates the process in which "your working memory 'conductor' can prioritize and manage data more efficiently." Then, the "long chunks of information [can be] stored in your long-term memory." (Book Source = Working Memory Advantage, 2013, page 183; See also Appendix: Working Memory Quick Hits Manual on pages 280-291). Note: See in context: Working memory #1, neurons #2, dendrites #3, axons #4, nucleus of a neuron #5, glial cells #6, synapses #7, potentiation #8, connectome #9, plasticity #10, cerebrum #11, prefrontal cortex #12, limbic system #13, and pleasure circuit #14. Printable PDF Form DETAILS ABOUT YOUR LONG-TERM MEMORY (for your own editing and memory consolidation) RECOMMENDATION: You can re-read this summary according to a reinforcement schedule, such as a few hours later and a few days later and then several times in the next week or two. This strategy can help you take advantage of the power of the spaced-repetition method of memorization. Such deep introspection can strengthen your willpower and change your adaptive self-identity to increase your self-esteem. REMEMBER ALWAYS: You are your adaptable memory! instantly go to: FACT CHECKER ABOUT LONG-TERM MEMORY #15 or instantly go to: LONG-TERM MEMORY: BRAIN FLASH CARD #15 or instantly return to: LIST OF 15 FREE BRAIN FLASH CARDS produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas™