Medical Minute: What are the 3 types of memory?
Last Updated: Dec 16 2024
Table of Contents
To understand personalized dementia treatment, it helps to understand where memory “lives” in the brain.
This article explains the 3 main memory centers in the brain.
What memory center is capturing this moment?
The Three Types of Memory
Memories are made and stored in more than one place.
There are several interconnected regions that all work together. These include your working memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.
Memory lives in multiple parts of the brain, all of which work together.
1.Working Memory
This is your memory of what just happened in the last 5 minutes.
It is used to keep information in your mind just long enough to use it immediately.
Examples include:
remembering what someone just said in order to reply to it properly,
reading recipes and remembering just long enough to measure out the right amount of sugar,
watching tv and remembering just long enough to follow the plot
Working memory is closely linked to your “attention span”, and both sit in the front part of your brain, called the FRONTAL LOBE, as shown in the diagram above.
People with problems here tend to be distracted or absent minded.
Common causes of difficulty with working memory include psychoactive medications, poor sleep or sleep apnea, depression, anxiety, menopause, and ADHD.
Working memory is reading how much sugar is called for in a recipe and remembering what it said for the next 5 minutes
2. Short-Term Memory
This is your memory of recent events; anything that happened between about 5 minutes and several years ago.
This includes things like:
what you had for breakfast,
who visited last week,
whether you told this story already to your friend, or
whether you took your medications this morning.
This type of memory is made along the side of the brain in your TEMPORAL LOBE (specifically the hippocampus).
People with problems here tend to be truly “forgetful”.
Common preventable causes include essentially all of the Aldora 18 lifestyle targets that prevent dementia. Alzheimer’s dementia also commonly starts here.
The memories of what we did today, last week, and the last few years are stored in our hippocampus as "short-term memories".
3. Long-Term Memory
Long-term memory refers to information from your distant past.
This includes things like:
where were you born,
what school you went to,
the names of your kids,
a favourite trip you went on, etc.
Where long-term memory lives is the least well defined by scientists right now. We know that short-term memories are transformed into long-term memories through an interconnected process that involves deep structures in your brain and the outer layers, which are the wrinkly bits called the CORTEX.
In the first diagram above, long-term memory is shown in one position but in reality long-term memory is scattered throughout the whole outer layers of the brain.
People with problems here tend to report a “spotty" memory.
Common causes include depression, anxiety, grief, concussions, or the moderate to severe stages of dementia.
Memories from many years ago are stored in the outer parts of our brain as "long-term memories".
Why does this matter?
When people report “memory problems”, it’s important to know which type of memory is being impacted so that we can figure out what is causing the problem.
Different things affect working memory, short-term memory, and long-term memories!
Take a look at the following two infographics and see if you can 1) find a story that sounds like you, and then 2) match your story to potential reversible causes.
1) Find your story
2) Match the story to potential causes
Start a conversation with your healthcare provider about addressing all potentially reversible causes, or read more about each one with Aldora.
More like this…
Disclaimer: The content on Aldora Health is for educational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website.