Big Think: A neuroscientist’s guide to protecting your brain, in 58 minutes | Lisa Genova: Full Interview (6/26/2026)

A retired Japanese engineer once memorized pi to over 111,000 digits using nothing but storytelling and visualization. He also forgot his wife's birthday that same year.

Neuroscientist Lisa Genova uses this contradiction to dispel a persistent collective fear: that ordinary forgetting is an early warning sign of Alzheimer's.

0:00 Chapter 1: How your memory works
3:15 What memory actually is
6:34 The 4 steps of making a memory
9:00 Why meaning, emotion, and repetition make memories stick
19:48 Chapter 2: 8 techniques to protect your memory
24:03 How to actually make memories stick
31:06 The imagination trick that beats forgetting
35:16 Is technology making your memory worse?
39:09 Chapter 3: How to protect your brain from Alzheimer’s
44:49 The lifestyle habits that protect your brain
51:21 Why chronic stress literally shrinks your memory
55:31 How learning new things builds an Alzheimer's-resistant brain

About Lisa Genova:

Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O’Briens, and Every Note Played. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart. Lisa graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. She travels worldwide speaking about the neurological diseases she writes about and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, PBS NewsHour, CNN, and NPR. Her TED talk, “What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s,” has been viewed more than five million times. The New York Times bestseller REMEMBER is her first work of nonfiction.