Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World night Side Studios on w b Z the news Radio.
We're very fortunate to be joined tonight by doctor Andrew Budson. He's a neurologist, Harvard trained, Harvard Medical School trained, and now teachers at Boston University School of Medicine.
Almost everyone of any age, uh, is, you know, wishing that they could remember things better. And it's a little bit hard to know sort of historically, like have people sort of always struggled with their memory? Is this something new? And I think it's a little bit of each you know.
Just historically was actually the ancient Greeks that came up with this method that used to be called the method of Losai and we now call it like a memory palace or something like that, where they learned that if you picture yourself walking through through your home or another place that you know well, you can remember a large variety of people or you know, items for your grocery list or for your holiday shopping by sort of putting
different items into different rooms and even different sort of parts of different rooms, and then you can end up retrieving the memory by walking through it. And I bring up this example to just say, even two thousand years ago, you know, people were working on being you know, trying to be able to remember things better. But there's no doubt that in today's society there's all sorts of pressures going on that I just think, you know, weren't really there, you know, one hundred years or so.
So.
People deprive themselves of sleep, We spend way too much time watching television. People don't eat healthy foods. There's way too much processed food. You know, people aren't social in the post pandemic world like they used to be. We
don't exercise enough. Then, you know, I can go sort of on and on about these changes, and I think it's all of these changes that have affected people's memories, whether they're older and they're coming to my clinic with memory problems, or whether they're my students and my other trainees who are struggling to remember things.
Well. I think the article that we were first interested we first picked up some of this by the Globe report of Felice Fryar talked about millennials, meaning people who are now probably you know, as young as twenty eight and as old as forty five, people who were born between nineteen eighty one in nineteen ninety six. Normally people in that age category, you don't associate memory loss with them.
Yeah, no, it's it's really true. But I do think it has to do with, you know, how we're changing as the society and the things that we tend to spend our time doing. You know. So you know, I mentioned a couple of those things. Let me just mention a few more so you know, all of us, but I think, especially millennials, spend time multitasking. And the fact of the matter is our brains actually can't really do two things at once unless one of them is really
completely unconscious. Like we can like walk and talk to a friend at the same time, but it is impossible to be like trying to take in the information that your teacher is telling you while you're looking at your cell phone at the same time. You know, people can't really do these things. You can't watch television while you're studying for your notes, so while you're listening to your spouse tell you what you should be, you know, getting
at the market or something like that. Sure, and so instead we shift our attention from one thing to another, back and forth, and we end up not remembering either of those things as well as we would if we could do one of those things at a time.
Okay, what about the reliance of young people? And I'm gonna probably upset some of my audience, but people who spend a lot of time on the computer, because there are studies now that show a lot of the stuff on the computers. It's just not good for you. I mean, it's addictive. And I find myself sometimes you'll see the reels and you'll see some kid who was, you know, twenty years you ten years old and looks like a major league pitcher or some person who hits a golf shot,
you know, and you watch it. It rolls three inches from the pin, and you say, well, let's see what the next one is. Let's see what the next one is. How much of a problem is that, Because it seems to me that the arrival of computers, the home personal computers kind of coincides with this that generation of people coming of age.
Well, I think it's it's all of this sort of ability to sort of do sort of mindless things. And you know, it's sort of an overused analogy that you know, your brain is sort of like a muscle that you
have to sort of use it or lose it. But but there really is evidence that when we are you know, actively creatively, you know, using our brains in social interactions or when we're problem solving and you know, doing things at work, having interactions with people, all of those things are using your brain in the way that your brain evolved to do things, and and it helps to keep
it strong, including keeping your memory strong. And there were these pair of articles that came out from the very large study in the United Kingdom of about five hundred thousand middle aged people called the UK Biobank, and what they found is that people who spent more than an hour a day watching television, you know, they ended up number one in one study. It showed that they're thinking and memory actually got worse over the time in the
study if they spent that much time on television. And then another study actually showed that they were at increased risk of getting Alzheimer's disease as they got older. And I think that you know, using the computer in a way that you're just you know, watching videos and getting entertainment's essentially the same thing as watching television not good for your brain.
Yeah, it's certainly not interactive, that is for sure. My guess is doctor Andrew Butdson. He's a neurologist and expert in memory loss. We're talking about memory loss of both young and old. We'll break it down if you have any question about things that you may have forgotten. And I think a lot of people, particularly those of us on the wrong side of fifty, as I refer to it, when we do forget where's my phone or where mccar key's, many of us get into a panicainsay, it was just
the first sign. And we'll ask doctor Budson about that and how all of us He's hinted at a little bit, how all of us can sharpen our memories, both on both short term, midterm and from the days when we were young. Because it's funny, I'm told, and I think Doctor Butdson will probably confirm it for me that there are things that you easily re member from when you were in the fifth grade of the sixth grade, but you have more difficult time remembering maybe the names of
your college classmates. I'm going to ask you about that phenomenon as well, but you have probably better questions than I do. So six one, seven, two five four ten thirty or six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty. It's not often you can talk with the neurologist of doctor Budson's stature about yourself or maybe about someone who you're close to. We'll be back on Night's side right after this with doctor Andrew Budson of Boston University.
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World Light Side Studios on w b Z, the news radio.
We are very fortunate to be joined tonight by doctor Andrew Budson. He's a neurologist UH Harvard trained, Harvard Medical School trained and now teachers at Boston University School of Medicine. And doctor Budson were joined by my delighted to be joined by my great friend and anchor person here at w b Nicole Davis, who during the break said, could I ask doctor Butson a question? And I said, Hey, come on, of course you can. If that's okay with you, Doctor Buttson say.
Hello to no of course, Hi doctor, how are you? Thanks for being here tonight. This is really really important information.
You know.
I'm in my late thirties and I have found, especially over the past five six years, I am one of the many people who are starting to develop a lot of these symptoms. You know, not just remembering food and TV programs and stuff from back in the nineties better than I do last week, but you know, it's more
serious than that at times. My question is I know that a lot of us elder millennials, we x aennials, I think we're called those of us almost forty at this point, we're being diagnosed later in life as neurodivergent with either autism. I was diagnosed late with ADHD. How much of a correlation do you see between what you're noticing on the neurological side of things and neurodivergency.
Yeah, it's a very good point. And let's start with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. So the key to being able to remember things is to be able to pay attention to them, and so anyone who is diagnosed with ADHD it sort of means by definition, they have difficulty paying attention. And it's something that anybody can have
from time to time. In fact, what the average person, including myself, does when we find our attention lagging is we take a little bit of a stimulant, and of course most of us don't use a pill, but use either a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, a caffeinated soda, or something like that. That stimulation helps us to pay attention and then we can actually remember things better.
So people who suffer from attention deficit disorder with or without the hyperactivity are absolutely you know, going to have more difficulty to remember things. And I would like to comment that, you know, this is a disorder that is being diagnosed so much more commonly now in our society than it used to be. And I'm actually a firm believer that, you know, the problem isn't necessarily with the people. The problem may be with what our society has told
people that they need to do. I mean, I can promise you that when human beings evolved, they did not sit still, you know, for six hours a day, you know, scaring, you know, at a blackboard in a classroom. You know,
that's just not how humans evolved. And so, you know, I guess I'm sort of embracing the neurodiversity a little bit, like I don't think there's necessarily something wrong with people who have ADHD and want to pay attention and to remember things, you know, that are actually meaningful in their lives in the real world, and they may have difficulty in the in the classroom. And you know, autism is a is a little bit trickier. Autism can mean a
lot of different things for different people. I actually happen to have a son who is now twenty four years old and actually has severe nonverbal autism, and so he, you know, has his own you know, types of difficulties.
But in general, when people have sort of very mild etism, one common symptom that can happen is that people get immersed and absorbed in one thing that they're really into, and they may not be paying attention to other things that someone else wants them to be remembering, and that can cause a lot of difficulty remembering.
Yeah, follow a question, then, Dan, I'll step aside. You know, we were the computer generation. I think you've talked about this a couple of minutes ago. We grew up with computers. I mean, you know, we had them in our schools as they do now, but we were really the first
generation to lead that charge. Do you feel that we our brains have almost had to develop differently to respond to that, or do you feel that we're kind of like older generational brains starting to try to battle a generational issue that gen A and gen Z have already physically been able to develop.
For Yeah, I do think that the use of computers and cell phones where one is able to get information almost instantaneously, which of course we can do now with almost anything from the webs, from chat, GPT, other AI programs, we actually send a signal, an unconscious signal to our brains that says, oh, you don't need to be able to remember this, because you can just pull it right up.
So when you offload different things you're trying to remember on the computer on your phone, it actually tells your brain like, oh, I don't need to remember that because I put it on my phone or I put it on the computer. And people have actually done studies that have proven this that this isn't just speculation. This is really true that we will remember things less if we, you know, store them in our phone or in our computer.
That still might be the best place to put it, you know, but but we're not going to remember it in our heads. I think the really interesting question is is is this a problem or is it a good thing? Is it better to spend our time remembering things that are important to us, you know, like that you know, lovely luncheon that we had with a friend, or that nice weekend that we spent you know with a child or a parent or a grandchild or whatever that is.
Maybe it's okay that we have trouble remembering you know, the five million passwords that we need to remember, or this website or the thing that our boss wants us to remember.
Me all right, Dan, thank you so much for the opportunity.
Thank you very much, great questions. As always, as always, thanks to Cale.
Yeah.
I was the one who raised, I think, initially, the the idea of storing in your in your phone numbers. I remember it as a kid, I knew most of my buddy's numbers, my friend's numbers, and even as a you know, teenager and a single guy in his twenties. Uh, you had no place to store them. You know, you got a phone on them. You got to remember it, you.
Know a lot, absolutely, and.
Now you don't, I mean, put the put it in the cell phone. It doesn't matter. So it's just it's it's interesting how you know how this has evolved. Uh, doctor, Butdson, I got full lines here real quickly, so I got a whole bunch of people. I'm so glad that Nicole stopped by and stepped out of the newsroom because your questions were better than mine. Frankly, and I will I will continue with questions, but I'm also going to get to phone callers right after the break here, and whatever
age you are, whatever question you have, feel free. Uh, doctor Andrew. But and it's one of those guests that I knew initially intuitively he'd be really good. Hasn't disappointed, and I know he'll take your answers out and take your questions and give you some answers. The only one line that just opened up is six one seven, nine three one ten thirty, So if you're dotting anything other than that, you're not going to get through six one
seven nine three, one ten thirty. Back with Larry and Dennisport to start us off, Steve and Scott and Gina and more calls coming back right after the news at the bottom of the hour.
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Doctor Andrew Budson is my guest. Before we go to phone's calls real quickly, if I could Doctor Budson, all of us had this situation where one day it's like, where's my phone, where's my phone? I know I had my phone, where's my phone? We panic? Have you ever done that?
You know it'll probably and let me tell you why. So we are all able to connect something to us so intimately that we notice it immediately if it's not there. And what I make a conscious effort to do is always to take my phone with me everywhere, so it's always within a hands reached away and then if it's not in my pocket, you know where I expect it. If it's not right next to me, I notice it immediately. So it's something I've actually learned to train myself to do.
And this is actually, you know, one of many tips that we put in our book that you had so kindly mentioned before.
Let me mention it again because different people maybe join us. Why we forget and How to remember better? By my guest doctor Andrew Budson and Professor Elizabeth Kensinger a Boston College. Okay, so that's a great tip. Okay, I tend to be a little run around my house and I'm doing things simn taneously. This has got to be fixed. That's got to be fixed. Oh yeah, the garage is still open. Let me close the garage. Where the hell's the phone? And your immediate panic is when did I last have it?
I mean, you know you might have had it five minutes ago, but you're thinking, solf, Oh we could have your thinking worst case scenario. Did I leave it at the post office? Oh my god, you know it's a panic. It's a panic, Doctor Budson, let's get the phone calls.
Go ahead, absolutely, yeah. I was just going to say that that, you know, we all can train ourselves and use tips so that things like that don't happen. But let's let's get to the questions.
All right, here we go. Let's go to Larry down on the Cape and Dennis Burt. Larry, you first tonight on nights I would doctor Andrew. Butdson, what's your question Larry or your comment?
Oh, very interesting topic, Dan, and related to my question that is going to be coming up. I'm going to send you an email on a on a related topic of another person for a great interview. So here's my question. Okay, here's my question. So, doctor, immediately following the Maderner vaccine, actually the first booster, I developed all of these symptoms mimicking long COVID, and one of them I classify and call it brain fog, and if I change the subject,
I forget what I was talking about immediately. Have you done any research on how much either the vaccine or actually the COVID virus itself has affected people's memories.
Yeah, so that's a great question. I haven't done the research myself, but I have written a couple of blogs on COVID and on brain fog in particular, And it is, first of all, very common for COVID to affect people's thinking and memory. And the virus can throw us for a loop in many different ways, and the most common way is it activates our immune system, you know, and makes us sort of feel sick. And the vaccine can also activate our immune system, make us feel sick for
a day, and some people can feel sick more. The brain is a very you know, it's like a very sensitive instruments, you know, It's sort of like a finely tuned violin, and if it's off a little bit, because there's this immune response going on to try to protect us against COVID, we can notice it and it can interfere with our thinking, our memory, our ability to pay attention and concentrate, and yeah, it can mimic a long COVID. Are you feeling better now, resting?
It's been three years since I've had all these issues. Unfortunately, then I got the real COVID last year and it's laid up everything. So a lot of my symptoms are getting better post exertion malaise is better, but I have these other long term ones that won't go away. The brain fog is one of them. This gastric problems and this terrible neuropathy. They just will not leave after after three years.
That that's that's terrible. Well for the for the brain fog, there there are a few things that other people have found helpful. The first is always to to listen to your body, and you know, try to exercise, but but listen to your body, and if your body says, hey, this is enough, you know, just go ahead and stop. It is important to make sure you get enough sleep. You may need a little bit more sleep than you did before. And it is important to eat healthy foods.
All of those things have helped people recover faster from the brain fog. And then the last thing is that you know there's no harm, there's no reason why you shouldn't use perhaps a few more memory strategies or memory aids than you used to. So, for example, let's say you always knew how to keep track of your keys and your wallet and your your cell phone, as we were talking about earlier with with Dan. Well, you know, maybe now it's a little more difficult for you to
keep track of those things. But you can have a special spot like a tray or a bowl that you put those things in when you come in the house, and you always put them there, and that way, whenever you're looking for them, they're always there. So that's a little tip.
Great well, Greg, Well, Larry appreciate you call. Send me that other item and we'll we'll see what we can do. Okay, well, thank you, doctor. You soon go to Steven Gambridge. Steve next on nice side with doct Daniel Budson, Dan.
Doctor Butson. I've noticed that people, especially I think people in their forties or fifties, if they're talking with each other, they are using their cell phones constantly if they need to recall something or to find out the name of this or that. And I also know that most people now are totally dependent on their GPS's. I mean, it seems to me if you don't use your faculty of recall, you don't exercise it at all, but rely on the phone, and if you make no effort to use your sense
of direction, that both of these will atrophy. What is your opinion?
You are one hundred correct. And the is a study that was done in the United Kingdom that provides support for what you just said. They actually studied people who were going to be taking the London Cab Drivers Test, which they call the Knowledge, which is the tremendous If anyone's been to London, it's like a maze of little tiny streets that don't follow any pattern. It's just sort of like downtown Boston around like Milk Street, you know,
but like times one hundred. And they scanned these people's brains before they did the studying and after, and they actually found that the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that forms new memories, it actually grew so much that they could measure it. So I agree one hundred percent that one real in that people are having trouble remembering things is that they're not using and exercising their memory in the way that they use. So I agree with you one hundred percent.
And I've read of people using nicotine, not in tobacco, but transdermally or nasal sprays. It has been somewhat helpful in the treatment of people suffering memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer's. Have you read any of the research done in that field.
Yeah, I am familiar with it, and my opinion is that if you want a little stimulant to help your memory, I recommend a little bit of caffeine, like I mentioned earlier in the program, like a cup of coffee or tea, or a diet soda or something fat caffeinated soda. But I I don't recommend nicotine, and the reason is severalfold number one. Nicotine is addictive. I mean, caffeine is addictive too, but nicotine is worse. Nicotine also has negative effects on
the heart and other organs in the body. So I think that the concept is right on target. But I'm not a fan of nicotine because of some of its side effects.
Steve, thank you very much, gentlemen.
Yeah, the best, Thanks Stave. We'll be back with more phone calls six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty. My guest is doctor Andrew Budson. Two really good phone calls to start it off. We got three more coming up, Scott, Gena and Phil and we might get room for you if you want to give us, give it a try, no guarantees, coming back on Nightside.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World, night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Okay, let's try to get at least three maybe four in so folks are gonna ask you to just tighten up a little bit, Scott and Quincy. Scott, go right ahead.
I have a great show.
Dan, go ahead, Scott, help me out here and be quick. Okay, thanks.
Yeah, believe it or not, I have an association. I take care of the EEG carts and evoke potential cards for neurosurgery in a hospital you might be affiliated with as a button. So my question is, sometimes I'm doing a task and I get up from my workbench to go and get something, and I'll completely blank out on what I just got up to go and get, and I have to like go back from my thoughts and say, oh, I was going to get that particular screwdriver or tool.
That's another great question.
Yeah that actually, yeah, it's actually one of the most common issues. And the first thing that I want to say to reassure you and all the other listeners out there is that is totally normal. And what happens is that we get up and we get distracted by something we see or something else that you know, comes into our mind, and so we lose the train of thoughts. So essentially we sort of lose focus and stop paying
attention to what we were getting up to do. And it's it's very very common, so not something to worry about.
And the other thing that so I'll be going to throw my clean socks and the clean soos bin and I will, for some stupid reason throw them in the dirty laundry bin instead, And I'll go, why did I just do that? How did I reverse that association? Is that also a thing like the old person steps from the instead of the break and drives through the storefront.
Well, well, I think it's a testament to the fact that most people don't drive through the storefront. That you know, some types of automatic procedures that we learn to do and become what we call procedural memory. Some people think of it like motor memory or something like that. We actually get quite good at doing the right things. But for whatever reason, you know, sometimes we get in the
habit of doing the wrong thing. And when you get in the habit of doing the wrong thing, every time you do the wrong thing, it reinforces the fact that you did the wrong thing, and you're likely to do the wrong thing again. So if you really want to break that bad habit, what you need to do is you need to put a little sign on, you know, whatever sock bin that's throwing you for a loop, that says, stop and think about what you're doing before you do it.
And by consciously interrupting the repetitive cycle of doing the wrong thing, you can practice the skill of doing the correct thing. It's just like if you're playing tennis and you're doing something wrong with your backhand. You know, if you keep doing it wrong, it's going to keep reinforcing the wrong thing. You've got to stop, take your deep breath, do it the right way, and try and do it the right way every time. Then you'll learn the automatic correct habit.
All right, appreciate it, Scott, I gotta help with you other folks. Thank you much. You soon get a Gina in Bridgewater. Geenie, you were next on nightside.
Hi, good evening, guys.
I just have a quick question, and.
I believe I already know the answer. I need to know what you think of a nursing home slash rehabilitation place that refuses to answer some calls and if they see a call coming through, they ignore it, and they don't let people talk to the loved ones or friends. Some of them people do have dementia and everything in there.
I believe that the best thing.
Is I think I think you're you're Gina. I think you're asking an unfair question to I.
Think it's very fair because I'm the person who gets to determine that, Gina, because again, I don't want him to be putting in an uncomfortable position.
I think the way you're phrasing the question is, of course, the answer is that I think anyone you don't have to be doctor, butdson that if someone is calling a care center, someone should answer the phone.
Yeah, well they're not, and people are refusing them to be with loved ones or even talk to them, and that's not very suggest you.
Have a lawyer.
You need a lawyer to assert your rights. That's what you got to do.
Okay, all right, thank you, you have a good night.
All right, thanks Gina, thank you doctor. Butson did mean to cut you off there, but no, no, no, it's unfair question. Okay, it's a question that there are no basis orchnology. Phil is in law or Phil you're next on nights? I go ahead, I hid.
Listen.
I have a bad memory at times. And you know what, my even with my siblings, like, we're always trying to like get our word in first, and then if they get in I forget what I was going to say.
Yep, yeah, that's that's very common. And and it's because you're spending so much of your attention to try to get a word in edgewise that you weren't paying attention to what you were going to say. And it is a very common thing that can happen to anybody, and it's something that you can learn to do a little bit better. You know, you have to just keep saying to yourself in your mind, this is what I'm trying to This is the point I'm trying to make. This
is the point I'm trying to make. You got to just keep in the front of your mind so you don't lose it.
How are you?
Yeah, can I just say one more thing. Got to be like my sisters. Uh, you speak and then you listen, because look like really having a conversation.
You know.
Good luck sounding where to live by?
Thanks Phil, all right, we support you very quickly. Let me go to Bruce and hol Bruce, I got about a minute for you. You've called late, but you got to get on quickly. Go ahead, Bruce.
I'll be I'll be real quick.
I have.
It was passed on to me by a friend, but I have and it's been working for years. A number system. For example, I have a three piece enter that's number one. I put my phone in my pocket. If it isn't there when I touch my pocket, I don't go past number two. I go find the phone. So I have a six pieces that I have to account for before I leave my house or go anywhere. And now what do you think of that system?
I think that is perfect. That is a very old and very effective system. Before I go out for a run, I make sure I have my handkerchief, my cell phone, my earbuds, my hat, and my water bottle and I count those one through five and make sure I have them before I head out the door. That is a great system. And as you can tell, I use it myself and strongly endorse it.
Bruce.
Let me ask you, Bruce, you had six things. I have six Okay, I hope one of them will have my.
Teeth.
May not care for this call, but I mean the answer, and I do have one comment for you. My teeth, my phone, my wallet, my keys, my pot, and my man.
First.
Those are my six things. And I don't leave the house without those six things.
Here to the list of your pims.
Now, I want to make a comment. I've been listening to your show since you started, not every single night, but a lot of nights because I'm on the road, and I got to say this show is the best of all of them. I learned more tonight from you, doctor than I've learned in years about fog memory and not remembering things when you get up to leave your desk and wow, I am.
In all right.
Well, thanks very much again, that's okay, very much for your kind doctor. Okay, thank you, Bruce. Well, that was a man who's got he's never forget anything, doctor Andrew Butdson, thank you very much again. I'd like to mention that book one more time, Why we forget and how to Remember Better by doctor Andrew Butson, his co author's professor
Elizabeth Kensinger of Boston College. That book is available, and again thanks to the Globe report of Police Friar who introduced us to Well through the Boston to doctor Butson. Doctor Butson, the hour did not disappoint it. I had pretty high expectations that you met and exceeded the bar. Thank you, my friend. I hope we can talk again.
No, it would be my pleasure. Dan, thanks so much for having me.
You were more than welcome. And hopefully that book are going to get a copy of the Truth.
That's that's one.
Thank you very much. Not be a good book, but it's a good book, nonetheless. Thanks So there you go, all right, when we come back US missiles. Missiles now are available to Ukraine. Does anyone remember arch dukes Archduke friends fernandand of Austria. We'll talk about this right after the ten o'clock news