The Brain and investigations in its functioning | Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the...

Can't remember what I forgot... | Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research | Sue Halpern

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	• Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research Sue Halpern Harmony, 2008 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Interesting but too light

Theis book is about an area of importance to me. It lightly touches some very interesting concepts and ideas, but all too briefly. I was left wanting to know more . Sue needs to put more info in and leave more of the pondering and self-talk out.

The Brain and investigations in its functioning

The book, Can't Remember What I Forgot, adds to an increasing body of literature on what is being discovered about the brain, its complexity and it's relatively recently recognized plasticity. Sue Halpern has taken it upon herself to investigate some of the recent findings on many of the newer modalities for ensuring retention of what has been learned of cortical functioning. Ms. Halpern embarked on the study as much to report on advances in brain studies as to reduce her own personal anxieties. Nicely written and an interesting read, as a result it is quite engaging for a subject so difficult to comprehend and learn about. This is recommended reading for those with an interest in the brain and its many functions.

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Can't remember what I forgot...

Gosh, I did forget what I forgot, I forgot the title of the book. All kidding aside, it's a book for everyone. It is not just for people who have a loved one with Alzheimers. We don't know who will or will not get this horrible disease.

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not practically helpful

I hoped this book would be practically helpful for a family member with pretty severe short-term memory problems. It was actually a sort of "travel book" - a tour of scientists who are studying memory problems generally.

This is unfortunate since I had hoped this book would be practically helpful for a family member with pretty severe short-term memory problems. It contained very few useful tips, most of which are already widely publicized, such as drinking red wine (apparently it's the flavanols, like green tea) and aerobic exercise as well as walking (two miles a day in one study, just one and a half hours a week in another) - also ballroom dancing is tops of all leisure activities. Chocolate, because of its flavanols, receives several pages; although it warns that the chocolate should not be processed in the usual way it doesn't suggest which chocolate brands are best - rather irritating but fortunately I have since learned elsewhere that we need to use the raw, organic cacao bean.

More helpful was "The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge. One elderly doctor interviewed by the author recommended one of those computer-based programmes with mental exercises scientifically designed to improve memory which he personally had found beneficial and we bought it immediately. It's been a hard slog to get our loved one to use it though (memory problems tend to affect those who don't really use their minds that much - or who take certain types of drugs: read "Lipitor: Thief of Memory " and your blood will run cold).

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An essential behind-the-scenes foray into the world of cutting-edge memory research that unveils ?ndings about memory loss only now available to general readers.

When Sue Halpern decided to emulate the ?rst modern scientist of memory, Hermann Ebbinghaus, who experimented on himself, she had no idea that after a day of radioactive testing, her brain would become so ?hot? that leaving through the front door of the lab would trigger the alarm. This was not the ?rst time while researching Can?t Remember What I Forgot, part of which appeared in The New Yorker, that Halpern had her head examined, nor would it be the last.

Halpern spent years in the company of the neuroscientists, pharmacologists, psychologists, nutritionists, and inventors who are hunting for the genes and molecules, the drugs and foods, the machines, the prosthetics, the behaviors and therapies that will stave off Alzheimer?s and other forms of dementia and keep our minds?and memories?intact. Like many of us who have had a relative or friend succumb to memory loss, who are getting older, who are hearing statistics about our own chances of falling victim to dementia, who worry that each lapse of memory portends disease, Halpern wanted to ?nd out what the experts really knew, what the bench scientists were working on, how close science is to a cure, to treatment, to accurate early diagnosis, and, of course, whether the crossword puzzles, sudokus, and ballroom dancing we?ve been told to take up can really keep us lucid or if they?re just something to do before the inevitable overtakes us.

Beautifully written, sharply observed, and deeply informed, Can?t Remember What I Forgot is a book full of vital information?and a solid dose of hope.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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