Video: Learn anatomy with humor - mnemonics

Roger Rabbit Likes To Smoke Pot at 3:45 And Sometimes at 1. No, I haven’t lost my mind, and no, this is not some pitch for a strange reboot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This, my friends, is a mnemonic for remembering the scapular sling muscle group, which are the muscles that anchor your upper limb to your torso. That’s right. Roger Rabbit and his questionable habits can help you ace your anatomy exam. You see, each word in the mnemonic represents a specific muscle in the scapular sling. It’s weird. I get it, but it is absolutely effective.

In today’s video, we’re going to do a deep dive into what I personally believe to be the easiest way to memorize human anatomy - funny and strange mnemonics. We’re going to see why these memory aids work so well and I’ll even show you how to create your own. So, grab your funny bone and let’s get started.

Mnemonics work by leveraging several key principles of memory and learning. So first up we have what’s called Elaborative Encoding, and this is where you are connecting new information to existing knowledge. And it’s a deeper level of processing and it just enhances your ability to form new memories but also to recall them.

So next up we have what’s called Dual Coding Theory, and this theory suggests that verbal and nonverbal information are actually processed differently in the brain. So what a mnemonic does is it takes the verbal information - so this is like the actual written mnemonic - as well as the information that it represents and then you’re pairing that with just something absurd - some absurd visualization - and that’s going to help you remember it more.

So think like Roger Rabbit smoking pot. I mean, that’s just absolutely ridiculous. But it’s going to stand out in your mind more because of the next on our list which is called the Von Restorff Effect. And this is also known as the Isolation Effect. And it’s simply… it’s a principle that states that an item that stands out is more likely to be remembered.

And I think this is pretty intuitive to most of us. I mean, especially when you’re taking an anatomy course. I love anatomy, but it can be boring at times because it’s just a science of classification. You’re learning a muscle then you’re learning another muscle then another muscle; a blood vessel, another blood vessel - it all just starts to kind of like merge together and blend together so you need to find a way to cause that information to stand out. And that’s exactly what the Von Restorff effect does and you do it with mnemonics, at least, by making it just absolutely absurd and ridiculous. That way, it just makes it easier for your brain to process and just enhance that memory.

And so another reason that mnemonics work is because it triggers an emotional arousal. It triggers a positive emotional response. There’s a reason why when we find something funny, like a meme for instance, we send it to people. We tell each other jokes. If something humorous happens to us throughout the day, we like to share it with other people. Again, these things stand out. It’s the positive emotion of it that just helps our memory formation around that item or event in our lives.

And the last reason that funny mnemonics are so effective comes down to what’s called Chunking. Now chunking is where you’re breaking large pieces of information down into smaller, more manageable units. I guarantee you’ve experienced this before like you’re taking an exam and you’re trying to remember what you need to remember and then as you’re scanning, say, through the test, you see this word and it triggers something. All of a sudden, you’re like, “Oh, yeah.” And you have this flood of memory come back to you and you can then turn the pages back to what you need to.

The fact is it can be really difficult to memorize entire lines of text, or sometimes, paragraphs. You may need to remember paragraphs. So instead, you get these like trigger words, right. There’s these certain words. You see it. You’ve chunked it out, and that will then cause you to remember more massive or larger pieces of information. And that’s exactly what mnemonics are there to do. Instead of trying to remember like all the different cranial nerves, just remember a couple of ridiculous words and then it just all kind of starts to flow out from there.

But not all mnemonics are the same. So what I want to do is go over the various types of mnemonics and see which of them are going to best fit your specific learning style.

So first up we have Acronyms and Acrostics. So an acronym takes the first letter in each word you need to remember and creates a new word or new phrase from that. So, a real easy example is the acronym SITS. This is for the muscles in the rotator cuff muscle group. So we have Supraspinatus, Infraspinatus, Teres minor, and Subscapularis.

An acrostic, on the other hand, takes us a step further and instead of just creating a new word, you create an entire sentence. So we have this obscenely nerdy Harry Potter mnemonic - On, On, On They Traveled And Found Voldemort Guarding Very Ancient Horcruxes. Every word represents a cranial nerve in order - Olfactory, Optic, Oculomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibulocochlear, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Accessory, and Hypoglossal.

So next up, we have Rhymes and Songs. And all you’re really doing here is just leveraging the power of rhythm and melody to help you memorize the information. So, for example, let’s say you wanted to remember flexor, extensor, abductor, and adductor. Well, you could pair that with the tune - head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes. And you could say - flexor, extensor, abductor, adductor. It works.

And next up you want to have Absurd or at least Vivid Visualizations. So, let me give you a real easy example of this. There is a group of muscles in your true back. They’re called the erector spinae group. And the muscles are iliocostalis, longissimus, and spinalis. And whenever I’m teaching about these muscles, students will say something like, “I have a mnemonic for it. I Love Sushi or I Love Spaghetti or I Love School.” And I’m just like, stop it.

We all know what we need to do here and that is I Love Sex. It just fixes everything. Look, like, sex is not inherently absurd but it’s a vivid visualization that sticks in your brain. And the more vivid you can make it, the better. So, in fact, I even extend it from there. So if you include all of the extensors of the back, then you have this new mnemonic and it’s Some Say I Love Sex So Much Seriously. And that stands for Splenius capitis, Splenius cervicis, Iliocostalis, Longissimus, Spinalis, Semispinalis, Multifidus, and then the Suboccipitals.

The fact is I actually don’t know if I could tell you all of those muscles without thinking of the acrostic mnemonic first, but I’ve been doing it for so many years it’s just like part of who I am and then sex is involved so it’s easier to stick in my brain. I mean it. The more often you can put sex into something, the better your life is going to be in trying to remember that information.

So then we have Puns and Wordplay. So if you’re a pun person, this is your time to shine, right, because a pun is just taking advantage of the fact that there can be multiple meanings to a word or you can kind of be playful with that word to make it mean something else. So like, a quick example might be like, “You’re really ‘Tendon’ to that muscle there.”

It’s not my best pun. I fully admit that’s not my best pun. I’m not the best pun person out there, but it kind of highlights the fact that tendons are related to muscles. So, like whenever I’m teaching, there’s always a student who is just shouting out puns. Like they’re just - that’s just what they do, and I can’t tell you how many times students - fellow students - have just written those puns down and then I will see them written on the sides of the pages during an exam.

Puns really work. So if you are a “pun-ny” person, you got this.

And last we have what’s called the Method of Loci, or what you’ve probably heard of it as a Memory Palace. And the idea is very simple. What you’re doing is you’re attaching the information that you need to memorize with a physical location that you are familiar with. So this could be like your home, your work, your school. And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to kind of like walk through the area and you’re going to look at something and then attach a piece of information to it.

So, for instance, I have a coffee maker right next to me here. I could attach a piece of information to that, and then what I do is I’d walk through my home studio here, and as I look at the coffee, I would then be able to recall that piece of information.

So like to give you an example, I want you to think of your childhood home as a bizarre anatomy museum. The femur is a giant bone replacing your front door, the patella is a kneecap-shaped disco ball in the living room, and the tibia and fibula are a pair of comedic legs at the bottom of a step ladder.

All right, so how do we make our own mnemonics? Because, if you’re anything like me, this process of being clever and witty through creative writing is not the easiest and most natural thing in the world, which is why I’m a big believer in this process I’m about to share with you. It’s super simplified and streamlined and I really believe that it can help you.

So first you’re going to identify the information that you need to memorize. You’re going to figure out what you are trying to learn, and then you are going to analyze that information. You’re going to look for patterns, shared characteristics, or anything unique about the terms. Then, you will choose the mnemonic type. Is it an acronym? An acrostic? Is it a memory palace? Is it a pun? Then, you get creative. This is where you are brainstorming, looking for words or phrases that begin with the same letters as your terms.

And then you visualize and associate. This is where you’re looking for a mental image to go along with your mnemonic, and remember, the more absurd typically, the better things are. And then last, you are going to practice and refine. Remember, you’re not being graded on your mnemonic. You’re being graded on the information that mnemonic is trying to help you remember.

Okay, so you might be thinking, “Justin, this is a lot of work. There has to be an easier way.” And I will be completely honest with you, there is. There’s a much easier way to do this. But before I tell you what that is, I strongly encourage you to figure out how to do this first because it’ll actually make it easier to take the easier road that we’re about to talk about.

I’ve been teaching my students how to create their own mnemonics for years now and there have been so many mnemonics that my students have created that I have then stole - I’ve told them I’m stealing it - and then told to other students of mine down the road.

Learning this process is really good for you and oftentimes - not always - but oftentimes, the more difficult path is the right way to go. You know, earning and building this skill is going to be fantastic for you, but I totally get it. We all have limited time, especially if you’re a student, right? You have other classes and courses you’re taking. You probably have a job on top of this. You know, finding a way to blend creative writing with your anatomy class is probably not what you want to be doing with your free time, which is why the easier route is actually to have artificial intelligence, so an AI like ChatGPT or, you know, Claude, will be your collaborator and help you create these mnemonics.

All right, so I’m going to go ahead and show you how to do this in real time now. I’m using the artificial intelligence - the LLM Claude just happens to be my go-to these days. But again, you can use whatever you want. And I’ve just put in a very simple prompt here. It says “Create a simple, but strange acrostic mnemonic for the connective tissues of the human body.” Just - I didn’t do this ahead of time. I have literally no idea what this is going to say, so I’m going to press enter here.

And it says, “Here’s a simple yet strange acrostic mnemonic for the connective tissues. So, Tendons Endure Nasty Darning On Muscles, Ligaments Ignore Gravity’s Allure, and Cartilage Offers Noses Flexibility.” This is ridiculous. “This acrostic covers tendons, ligaments, and cartilage and it also includes some odd imagery to make it more memorable. Tendons being darned or sewn onto muscles. Ligaments defying gravity. Cartilage giving flexibility to noses.”

This is not at all what I anticipated. And this is one reason why, though, I also am not the biggest fan of using AI to do this stuff, right. As cool as it can be, it can come up with some pretty different stuff. And so, oftentimes, you have to get like hyperspecific with exactly what you want. So when I’m talking about the four, like the connective… the connective tissues of the body, I’m really talking personally in my head, I’m thinking what I would refer to as here’s an acronym for you, the CBGBs, right. So, the CBGBs is Connective tissue, Bone, General connective tissue, and Blood. Technically, blood isn’t really considered a connective tissue these days, but that’s neither here nor there, but let’s, like, let me actually add that to here.

So, “I was actually thinking that we could make the mnemonic about Cartilage, Bone, General...” - if I could spell that right - “…General connective tissue, and Blood.” So let’s - so now I’ve actually been a little more detailed and given it more information. Let’s see what it says.

It apologizes. Thank you, Claude, for apologizing to us all. And it comes out with now, “Creaky Bones Grow Bizarrely”, okay. So creaky bones. Also, “Cartilage Bends, Gnomes Bleed. I mean, it’s a powerful visual. Again, it’s not what I would have come up with, but all right, Claude. And it covers them exactly… exactly.

So then what you can even do is sometimes I’ll even say like, “I like the creaky bones grow bizarrely but can we come up with another word besides bizarre”, right. You can really start playing with this, however, makes sense to you and I strongly encourage you to play around with it because this is just a really speedy and fast way to do it. And it oftentimes even gives you more context with it, like it’s telling you, “Oh, this is why I chose it. This is…” I like what AI is capable of. It’s still not exactly where I want it, but it can be very, very helpful.

I’m a big fan of using technology to work smarter instead of harder. This is… like, look. The fact is AI is here. It’s not going anywhere, so me telling people not to use it is honestly just kind of foolish at this point. But at the same time, you don’t want to become overly reliant upon it. And that goes for everything and anything but it’s relevant to us here as well.

So, you know, try to find the way that you can integrate this into your workflow and your study flow that is not just becoming dependent upon it. So maybe you use it to brainstorm or maybe you come up with the brainstorming yourself and then kind of feed those ideas directly into the AI. Or, again, maybe you just learn how to do this really extensively on your own and then kind of like just use AI as a collaborator for that. And then you’re kind of like, I don’t know, I guess, titrating it, right. You’re kind of like, you’re doing like small increases and changes and just trying to find the most optimal way to do this.

Again, I really am a big supporter of using AI. Just use it intelligently and not this way that you’re just completely dependent upon it.

So now you might be thinking, “Justin, this is great and all, but still there’s a lot of mnemonics I need to come up with. I mean - and I don’t have that much time even if I’m using AI.” Well, in that case, lucky for you, Kenhub has your back.

At Kenhub, we’re all about making anatomy learning as easy and enjoyable as possible. That’s why we’ve incorporated mnemonics into our content including our articles and videos. In fact, we just published an article titled How to Learn Anatomy with Mnemonics which discusses the basics of mnemonic devices and then gives plenty of examples of mnemonics that you can use in your class, in your studies, from various parts of the body.

But mnemonics are only just one small part of what Kenhub has to offer. With videos covering over 600 topics in less than 30 minutes each, six types of spaced repetition-inspired quizzes, a huge library of easy-to-read articles, and a complete HD color atlas, it’s your one-stop shop for all things anatomy learning.

If you haven’t already, be sure to give this video a like. And also, let us know in the comments what your favorite mnemonic is. I’m sure if we start crowdsourcing these again, there are going to be a lot of creative ones out there.

But thanks for watching, and until next time, may your memory be sharp and your mnemonics have a funny bone.