It is commonly known that gray matter, a tissue type with high concentrations of neuronal cell bodies, is indicative of brain health. Nonetheless, there has not been a lot of research on the relationship between gray matter volume and incidental memory. In my study, I analyzed the anatomical images of the participants of the Magic, Memory, and Curiosity research project, a study dedicated to the influence of magic tricks on a subject's curiosity and incidental memory. Using the provided masks, I utilized FSL to calculate the ratio of gray matter volume to total brain volume. After doing so, I calculated the p-value and r-value for the correlation between the volume ratio and the eight different memory scores. The recollection and recall scores turned out to be a moderate combination of positive and negative correlation coefficients, and an appreciable number turned out to be statistically significant. It follows that there is a correlation between gray matter volume and recall as well as recognition memory. In the future, scientists could measure the volume ratio of a brain region specifically associated with memory, such as the hippocampus or amygdala. Perhaps, measuring the gray matter thickness or using another set of measures would have also yielded more significant results.
