00:05
So Barb, we knew that people can have different working
memories and it's
pretty important to get those links in long-term memory. Can
you tell us a bit
how that happens inside the brain? Sure. This is actually a
fascinating process.
00:26
So, a main process the brain uses to create links in
long-term memory is the
declarative pathway. So it moves that information from
working memory, sort
of in the prefrontal cortex, on through the hippocampus and
into the neocortex.
00:50
But if your working memory is actually taking in information
from the outside,
what can happen is the hippocampus can't pass information to
long-term
memory. Now, this might be a little bit confusing so let's
use a kind of a parable,
a story, and this is a story of the choir in your brain. So,
this choir has 3 main
characters. The first is a character named Hip and Hip is
just the little guy,
he's kind of glib that means he speaks very fast, he learns
fast, but he actually
also forgets fast and he is only into the latest fashions.
So that means if it's
something that happened very long ago, he'll forget about
it. Now, that's Hip
but we have another character and that is Neo. Neo is rather
capacious and well
all of our characters have some problems and Neo has a
problem in that she is
very scatter brained. So, we've got Hip, we've got Neo, and
the last character
is the conductor. Now if you look here, you can see our
conductor is actually
the octopus of working memory. So what happens when we're
learning is your
octopus of working memory is taking in information and both
Hip and Neo are
listening to the information that the octopus is trying to
feed into the rest
of the brain. So, the conductor is singing a song
essentially, Hip is getting it very
quickly, Neo is a little slow and a little scatter brained
so she's not getting it
very well at all. And you can see that there's bold links
going into the hippocampus
and very weak links that are going into long-term memory in
the neocortex.
03:06
So, what is happening when people are learning is their
conductor is giving lots
of information to Hip who grabs it quickly and little
information weakly to Neo who
grabs it as well as she can but she can't grab it very well.
Well, it turns out that
whenever the working memory, that conductor, is not getting
new information,
in other words that conductor is relaxing, then Hip can turn
to Neo and actually
repeat the information that he's just learned. So that's
what Hip does, that's
the job of the hippocampus is to repeatedly teach Neo about
what she's supposed
to be learning. Whenever you get those diffuse mode breaks,
remember those
5-minute breaks from the Pomodoro Technique? Hip can
actually turn to Neo and
teach her and reaffirm these memories or those sets of links
that she's making.
04:15
Now remember I said that our characters have problems. Hip's
problem is he can't
hold that information very long, maybe a couple of days or a
few weeks but those
links in Hip's memories are doing is they're reaffirming to
Neo which links she's
supposed to be strengthening. So over time as Hip gets a
little break, he's turning
to Neo, practicing with her. In the end, who is the real
winner? It is the capacious
Neo because she learns those links and she learns them very
well with a little help
of practicing from Hip and then Hip remember is just kind of
this trendy little guy,
he forgets everything, but the information is really well
stored in Neo.
05:16
So she ultimately can sing loudly and clearly whatever she's
learned. Now, the
upshot practically for us in all of these is that remember
that Hip can hold some
information and it's the indexing information that teaches
Neo which links to
strengthen. But what happens is we can fill up Hip by
cramming. Hip can get quite
a bit of information and you know it for a test and then
what happens, well test
passes, you don't repeat that information, and Hip's
memories disappear
because he is just this trendy little guy. And then poor Neo
has no memories left.
06:15
So this is why cramming is so bad, you can pass a test
effectively by cramming
sometimes, but it's information that's only really well
established in the
hippocampus which has neurons that quickly lose that
information. So, as much as
you can try to avoid cramming and build good solid
structures in Neo by allowing
Hip to repeatedly practice with Neo so that ultimately she
becomes the expert
that you have for a long time. So, Barb that was just a
wonderful analogy and so
helpful to understand the mechanics of how the brain works
and really brings
to light all these strategies we've been talking and how
important they are.
07:16
Once you understand the neurophysiologic basis, it really
makes sense. But
I want to underscore what I think is probably the most
important and that is this
concept of not cramming and to many of you that are learning
and I'm certainly
as guilty as anybody of having crammed for exams and you're
so focused on the
exam, but I can tell you as a surgeon and a practicing
doctor, there are far more
important reasons not to cram because you not only want to
know this
information when you take your boards, but you want to know
it when you're
in the operating room, you want to know it when you're
talking to your patients
and their families or even other physicians and you're
coming up with diagnoses
and you're developing treatment plans. You want that
material in long-term memory
to draw out and make good decisions for your patients. So
remember, if you take
nothing else away from this course, find ways to avoid
cramming. What a great
way to think of it Barb, thank you.