Category: Boost Brain Power

Smelling this scent made people expect to perform better.

The mere smell of coffee is enough to boost cognitive performance.

It doesn’t matter that the coffee has no caffeine in it and actually isn’t even coffee — just a scent that smells like it.

Professor Adriana Madzharov, who led the research, said:

“It’s not just that the coffee-like scent helped people perform better on analytical tasks, which was already interesting

But they also thought they would do better, and we demonstrated that this expectation was at least partly responsible for their improved performance.”

The study involved 100 students taking a standard graduate admissions algebra test (GMAT) in one of two rooms.

One room was unscented, while the other had a lingering aroma of coffee.

People in the coffee scented room did better on the test.

A follow-up survey revealed that it was down to expectations.

The coffee scent made them expect to do better on the test — and so they did.

Professor Madzharov said:

“Olfaction is one of our most powerful senses.

Employers, architects, building developers, retail space managers and others, can use subtle scents to help shape employees’ or occupants’ experience with their environment.

It’s an area of great interest and potential.”

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The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology (Madzharov et al., 2018).

One glass per day for 12 weeks improved brain function and cognitive abilities.

Concentrated blueberry juice improves cognitive function in older people.

Those who drank the juice also had better blood flow and activation in their brains as well as improvements to working memory.

The boost to brain power is likely down to the flavonoids in blueberries.

Flavonoids have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Dr Joanna Bowtell, the study’s first author, said:

“Our cognitive function tends to decline as we get older, but previous research has shown that cognitive function is better preserved in healthy older adults with a diet rich in plant-based foods.

In this study we have shown that with just 12 weeks of consuming 30ml of concentrated blueberry juice every day, brain blood flow, brain activation and some aspects of working memory were improved in this group of healthy older adults.”

For the research, 12 people were given the equivalent of 230g of blueberries in a concentrated juice each day for 12 weeks.

The remaining 14 were given a placebo.

After 12 weeks, all were tested for brain function and cognitive abilities.

The study’s authors conclude:

“…blueberry concentrate consumed once per day (30 ml, providing 387 mg anthocyanins) for 12 weeks increased activation of brain areas associated with cognitive processes including memory and executive function, which tend to deteriorate with age.”

Antioxidants are key to the beneficial effect of blueberries.

A previous study also found blueberries stave off brain ageing, as do walnuts and strawberries.

The results for memory in this study were marginal.

However, previous research has found that blueberries can improve memory and cognitive function.

The study was published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism (Bowtell et al., 2017).

The strange power of a virtual body swap.

Ordinary people who are made to feel like the great physicist Albert Einstein in virtual reality do get smarter.

Those with low self-esteem respond particularly well to being ’embodied’ as Einstein by showing the greatest improvements on cognitive tests.

People with low self-esteem likely have the most to gain by seeing themselves in a better light.

Imagining yourself as someone brilliant may unlock previously untapped cognitive resources.

Professor Mel Slater, study co-author, explained:

“Virtual reality can create the illusion of a virtual body to substitute your own, which is called virtual embodiment.

In an immersive virtual environment, participants can see this new body reflected in a mirror and it exactly matches their movements, helping to create a powerful illusion that the virtual body is their own.”

Having a virtual body different to your own can have striking psychological effects.

In one previous study, white people given a virtual black body showed less stereotyping of black people.

Professor Slater said:

“We wondered whether virtual embodiment could affect cognition.

If we gave someone a recognizable body that represents supreme intelligence, such as that of Albert Einstein, would they perform better on a cognitive task than people given a normal body?”

For the study, 30 young men took part in the virtual embodiment experiment.

Those who saw themselves as Einstein had a reduced unconscious stereotype against older people.

Those with low self-esteem saw the greatest improvements in their cognitive skills.

Professor Slater concluded:

“It is possible that this technique might help people with low self-esteem to perform better in cognitive tasks and it could be useful in education,”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Banakou et al., 2018).

Brain scans revealed more efficient processing during cognitive tasks.

Playing a musical instrument and learning another language both make your brain more efficient.

Bilingual people and musicians both use fewer brain resources when doing a memory task.

Dr Claude Alain, the study’s first author, said:

“These findings show that musicians and bilinguals require less effort to perform the same task, which could also protect them against cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia.

Our results also demonstrated that a person’s experiences, whether it’s learning how to play a musical instrument or another language, can shape how the brain functions and which networks are used.”

It is well-known to researchers that bilinguals and musicians have better memories, but the reason was a mystery.

The study scanned the brains of musicians, bilinguals and English-speaking non-musicians while they performed various cognitive tasks.

Dr Alain said:

“People who speak two languages may take longer to process sounds since the information is run through two language libraries rather than just one.

During this task, the brains of bilinguals showed greater signs of activation in areas that are known for speech comprehension, supporting this theory.”

The study was published in the journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (Alain et al., 2018).

Which types of exercise can help keep the brain healthy?

Almost any type of exercise can help improve cognitive performance, a review of 98 studies finds.

From yoga and tai chi to walking, running, cycling and weight lifting, all help maintain a sharp mind over the years.

Individuals who did at least 52 hours of these exercises across six months saw the greatest benefits, the review of thousands of separate studies found.

That works out to 2 hours a week.

The exercise was beneficial to both healthy older adults and those with mild cognitive impairment.

Dr Joyce Gomes-Osman, the study’s first author, said:

“While there is solid evidence to suggest that maintaining a regular exercise regimen can improve brain health we were most interested in how we could practically apply these scientific findings to the lives of our patients, their family members and even to ourselves.

For other forms of treatments such as prescription drugs, patients are prescribed a specific amount.

Our study highlights the need to get this specific with exercise, too.”

The conclusions come from a review of 4,600 different studies, from which 98 high quality trials were analysed.

The results suggested that consistent exercise over a long period was the key to maintaining healthy cognitive function.

Professor Alvaro Pascual-Leone, study co-author, said:

“It’s very encouraging that the evidence supports all sorts of different exercise interventions, not just aerobic, to improve thinking abilities.

The most stable improvements in thinking abilities were found in processing speed, both in healthy older adults and individuals with mild cognitive impairment.”

Strength training, aerobic workouts and mind-body exercises or any combination thereof, were found to be helpful.

Dr Gomes-Osman said:

“We are still learning about all the ways in which exercise changes our brain, and we are also all different, so identifying an ideal exercise dose remains a challenge.

We have many more questions about exercise dose, and we will design further studies to follow up.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology: Clinical Practice (Gomes-Osman et al., 2018).

A simple 8-minute exercise can free up your brain and make you more efficient under stress.

Writing about your feelings can help your brain work more efficiently, research finds.

For people who are chronic worriers, this method can help free up a lot of cognitive resources.

Mr Hans Schroder, the study’s first author, said:

“…it’s kind of like people who struggle with worry are constantly multitasking — they are doing one task and trying to monitor and suppress their worries at the same time.

Our findings show that if you get these worries out of your head through expressive writing, those cognitive resources are freed up to work toward the task you’re completing and you become more efficient.”

In the study, one group of chronic worriers wrote about their deepest feelings for eight minutes before they did a stressful task.

They were compared to a group who wrote about what they had done the previous day.

Scans revealed that the brains of those who had expressed their emotions worked more efficiently under stress.

Dr Jason Moser, study co-author, said:

“Here, worried college students who wrote about their worries were able to offload these worries and run more like a brand new Prius, whereas the worried students who didn’t offload their worries ran more like a ’74 Impala — guzzling more brain gas to achieve the same outcomes on the task.”

Studies have shown repeatedly that expressive writing can be useful for dealing with stressful events in the past.

This study, though, suggests it can help people deal with upcoming stressful events.

Dr Moser said:

“Expressive writing makes the mind work less hard on upcoming stressful tasks, which is what worriers often get “burned out” over, their worried minds working harder and hotter.

This technique takes the edge off their brains so they can perform the task with a ‘cooler head.'”

The study was published in the journal Psychophysiology (Schroder et al., 2017).