Stressed Out? It Might Be Messing with Your Memory

Right when you thought stress and anxiety were bad enough on their own, new research shows they can seriously mess with your memory

What is it that makes a person either go completely blank or perform brilliantly on simple tasks involving memory when feeling stressed?

The answer is complicated, and the best doctors out there are finally teasing out some of the bigger mysteries behind how that three-pound mass of electrochemical soup remembers, or forgets, where the damn keys are. An old adage says a little stress is good for memory, and a lot is bad—but it turns out to be true only for men. New research suggests that gender matters when it comes to memory and stress, whether that stress is acute, chronic, or traumatic.

Acute Stress
Being able to remember things and learn new info depends entirely on the ability of networks of neurons—mostly in the areas of the brain called the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus—to communicate with one another. Picture each neuron as an old-fashioned telephone, but with multiple wires snaking out from the receiver. Some of those wires are called axons, and they intersect with other wires called dendrites at connections called synapses. The brain creates and retains memories in part by growing thicker, more efficient communication lines between groups of neurons—basically, by hooking up the phone wires and keeping them on a biological speed dial. When you try to remember when your son first smiled, says Todd Sacktor, M.D., a professor of neurology at the State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine, the phone lines should start buzzing with activity, connecting the neurons that hold those memories.

Read more: womenshealthmag.com

Credit image to : flickr.com