Training boosts your memory in 40 days

London: You can acheive a super-sized memory like that of a world champion, suggests a new study which found that the ability to perform astonishing feats of memory can be learned.

After 40 days of daily 30minute training sessions using a strategic memory improvement technique, people who had typical memory skills at the start and no previous memory training more than doubled their capacity.

From recalling an average of 26 words from a list of 72, the participants were able to remember 62, researchers at Radboud University Medical Centre in The Netherlands found.

Four months later, without continued training, recall performance remained high.

Brain scans before and after training showed that strategic memory training altered the brain functions of the trainees, making them more similar to those of world champion memory athletes, researchers said. “After training we see massively increased performance on memory tests,” said Martin Dresler, assistant professor at Radboud University Medical Centre.

“Not only can you induce a behavioural change, the training also induces similar brain connectivity patterns as those seen in memory athletes,” said Dresler.

Dresler, who began the work at Stanford University School of Medicine examined the brains of 23 world-class memory athletes and 23 people similar in age, health status.