An organization that accompanies Alzheimer’s patients in their day-to-day lives and that of their families, the Rosa María Vivar Foundation of Reus, promoter of a pioneering project to raise awareness in society of the importance of training the memory from childhood and adolescence. To achieve this, the retention capacity of more than 5,000 1st year ESO students from seventy centers throughout Catalonia has been tested and half a thousand teachers have been trained.
The main reason, because during puberty the brain has enormous neuroplasticity that favors retention and all the cognitive functions involved when we memorize something and test our brain. Memorization, parked and increasingly less valued in the educational curriculum, as a way to exercise the brain and protect it for what will come throughout life.
“From the encoding of data or an experience, the brain can save it to retrieve it later. This is memory”, emphasizes Margalida Coll, professor of Psychobiology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). “Encoding, consolidation and recovery are keys to memory”, he adds.
A competition to measure the memorization capacity of 12- and 13-year-old boys and girls with various tests has been just the thing. “The aim is to raise awareness among the educational community, students, teachers and families, that we can work on cognitive health from an early age”, highlights Margarita Oliva, president of the Rosa María Vivar Foundation.
Although it is popular to talk about whether you have a good memory or not, there are different types of memory and different models of exercises to measure and work on them.
There are several types of memory and different ways to classify them. The first two major categories: a short-term memory, which does not need to be kept for a long time, and another long-term memory, which we can keep for hours, days, months, years and even a lifetime. There is also a working memory, the operative one, which we use to carry out day-to-day tasks, such as remembering what you have just been told to be able to have a conversation; or the one that allows you to cook.
“We tested verbal, non-verbal, visual and auditory memory”, exemplifies Blanca de la Cruz, neuropsychologist who designed the tests.
The project has the support of the Department of Education, which has helped to involve institutes and teachers in inclusive tests. All students participated, whatever their ability and level. The UAB Neuroscience Institute has joined the project to scientifically validate the memory tests that the students have passed.
“When the brain undergoes many changes, as in adolescence, from 12 to 18-19 years old, genetics intervenes, but it is clear that what we do influences how our genes are expressed. To stay cognitively healthy, we can do things throughout our lives”, emphasizes Coll (UAB).
Cognitive functions are challenged because the tests go far beyond memorizing a list of the rivers of Spain or the Goth kings. The tests for the students, in two rounds that lasted approximately one hour, sought a global perspective of memory.
The neuropsychologist explains that there are several key factors in the ability to remember in the short term. Among the most decisive are “the ability to pay attention, the concentration and the speed to process the information we receive”. Be it words or images. Cognitive skills, the ability to concentrate and to maintain attention for a certain period of time can also be exercised. There is a part that is innate.
Students have retained symbols, such as lists of emoticons, images and even melodies. The tests of the project, designed for the teenage audience in an attractive way so as not to bore them, can also be taken by adults. More than half a thousand teachers have been trained to make them aware of the importance of working on cognitive functions from such an early age. Memory and its secrets.
“Motivation and attention have a direct impact on cognitive performance, on the ability to retain”, emphasizes De la Cruz. When we’re having fun, we memorize better. “There are techniques to memorize better and strategies to remember some information, the so-called metamemory”, adds Coll.
Interferences in the ability to remember have also been tested. For example, with tests deferred in time, with an exercise in between to ask shortly afterwards about what was previously memorized.
There is an innate ability to retain, marked mostly by genetics. But you can add working capacity, regular exercise to improve memory, insist the experts. “The neuroplasticity of the brain in youth makes it an ideal stage to stimulate it, it must be taken advantage of to create people who are highly cognitively trained; the brain requires stimulation throughout life to create a lot of cognitive reserve, a protective shield against future damage it may suffer, be it due to an illness or other types of pathologies”, emphasizes the foundation’s neuropsychologist.
With the results of the tests, a subsequent scientific work of analysis will be done. “The project wants to highlight the need to work on cognitive functions”, says Coll. The plan started two years ago and will have more time. They want to repeat the tests in other years, in 2nd and 3rd ESO. If possible, we want to export outside of Catalonia. “A disease like Alzheimer’s cannot be cured, but neurodegenerative diseases can be prevented, science tells us; it is necessary to start in childhood and adolescence, when the brain is more plastic”, warns Oliva.
