The interconnected recurrent neural networks are well-known with their abilities of associative memory of characteristic patterns. For example, the traditional Hopfield network (HN) can recall stored pattern stably, meanwhile, Aihara's chaotic neural network (CNN) is able to realize dynamical recollection of a sequence of patterns. In this paper, we propose to use meta-heuristic (MH) methods such as the particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the genetic algorithm (GA) to improve traditional associative memory systems. Using PSO or GA, for CNN, optimal parameters are found to accelerate the recollection process and raise the rate of successful recollection, and for HN, optimized bias current is calculated to improve the network with dynamical association of a series of patterns. Simulation results of binary pattern association showed effectiveness of the proposed methods.