Category: Memory

Research finds the herbs that can improve mood, memory and induce calmness.

Chamomile, peppermint, rosemary and lavender can all affect mood and memory, new research finds.

Peppermint tea can improve alertness while chamomile does indeed provide a calming effect.

Smelling rosemary, meanwhile, improved the memories of people over 65 by an average of 15%.

Lavender, though, impaired their memory.

The conclusions come from a series of studies which compared memory and thinking skills before and after exposure to various  herbs.

Dr Mark Moss, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Peppermint has a reputation for being psychologically or mentally alerting.

It picks you up and makes you feel a little bit brighter, so we endeavoured to test this out by giving people peppermint tea, or chamomile tea, which is a more calming drink and then put them through some computerised tests.

We found that those people who had drunk the peppermint tea had better long-term memory.

They were able to remember more words and pictures that they had seen.

Dr Moss continued:

“In contrast, the people who had the chamomile were slower in responding to tasks.

Rosemary meanwhile has a reputation about being associated with memory – even Shakespeare said ‘rosemary is for remembrance’ – and it’s also associated with being invigorating.

We have found that people are more alert after being in a room that has rosemary aroma in it.

We tested prospective memory – our ability to remember to remember to do something – on people over 65 years of age, to see if we could improve their ability and we found that rosemary could do that.

This is potentially very important because prospective memory, for example, enables you to remember to take your medication at certain times of the day.

Dr Moss said the varied results for different herbs were interesting:

“It is interesting to see the contrasting effects that different herbs can have on both mood and memory, and our research suggests that that they could have beneficial effects, particularly in older age groups.

If you were otherwise healthy then this research suggests that there is an opportunity to have an improved memory.”

The findings were presented at the annual British Psychological Society Conference in Nottingham (26-28 April 2016).

Study tests effects of mental imagery on memory.

Mental imagery is an effective way to improve memory and reduce some false memories, new research finds.

People in the study who were told to create images for words were better able to remember them.

Images also helped people avoid false memories.

Ms Merrin Oliver, the study’s first author, said:

“Creating images improved participants’ memories and helped them commit fewer errors, regardless of what kind of list we gave them.”

False memories can be related to misremembering the source, Ms Oliver explained:

“We aren’t good at judging the source of our memories.

These lists usually remind people of a word that they didn’t actually study, so they mistakenly recollect studying words similar to those on the list.”

For the research, one group were told to use imagery to remember a list of words while the other were just told to remember the words.

Ms Oliver said:

“Our study suggests more detailed imagery instructions are necessary to help filter out false memories during a recognition test, where false memories are typically very high.

People should create detailed images with unique characteristics to help avoid the endorsement of false memories on recognition-based tests like true/false or multiple-choice assessments, where you are tempted by lures and possible false memories.”

The study was published in The Journal of General Psychology (Oliver et al., 2016).

How Memory Works: 21 Psychological Insights

Brain image from Shutterstock

Study compares writing by hand with real and virtual keyboards.

Writing by hand strengthens memory in comparison to writing on a real or virtual keyboard, new research finds.

The motor feedback from the process of writing along with the sense of touching paper and pen helps people learn.

Areas of the brain vital to language are more strongly activated by the physical activity.

The study compared 36 people writing in three different ways:

• on a conventional keyboard,
• on a virtual keyboard (like an iPad),
• or handwriting.

They were read a list of words which they wrote down.

Their memory for the words was then tested for both free recall and recognition.

The results showed that the method of writing down the words did not effect recognition, but free recall was better for handwriting.

Since it is much harder to recall a word than to recognise it, memory was stronger for handwritten words.

The authors explain the study’s results:

“…keyboard writing per se (whether on a virtual or a conventional keyboard) attenuates or disrupts memory for what is written.

However, with respect to aspects of word recall, our findings indicate that there may be certain cognitive benefits to handwriting which may not be fully retained in keyboard writing.”

The advantage of handwriting is that the attention is all on the same thing at the same time.

The study’s authors think the problem with keyboard writing could be partly down to a split in attention:

“The visual attention of keyboard writers is split between looking at the emerging text and looking at the keyboard on which they write.

From a visual-spatial perspective, a keyboard separates the “motor area” (or input area) where the letters are being produced (the keyboard) from the visual presentation area of the letters (the screen; or output area).

A keyboard thereby provides less real-time sensory and visual information about the writer’s own writing process, a fact which may result in less robust mental representations of the words.

One consequence of such a separation may be that the writer engages less with the written text and consequently is provided with an attenuated visual memory of the word, than in the handwriting condition, where the subject may fixate near the point where the physical writing takes place.”

The study was published in the Journal of Writing Research (Mangen et al., 2016).

Handwriting image from Shutterstock

The experience of distressing, intrusive memories was reduced by over a half.

Inhaling laughing gas after a traumatic event reduces the later intrusion of distressing memories, new research finds.

People who inhaled nitrous oxide experienced fewer intrusive thoughts a day later, the study found.

Dr Ravi Das, the study’s first author, explained:

“The day after they saw the film, the number of intrusions experienced by the group who received nitrous oxide fell by over a half.

By contrast, the decline in intrusions was much slower in the group who received air, where there was not a significant drop in intrusions until the fourth day.

We think that this is because nitrous oxide disrupts a process that helps permanent memories to form.”

The study involved participants watching a distressing video clip.

Afterwards, half were given air, the other half a mixture containing the laughing gas.

Dr Das said:

“On any given day your brain will be exposed to a huge amount of information, some important, but most trivial.

If information is ‘important’ enough to remember, for instance because it produces a strong emotional response, it is ‘tagged’ for storage.

The brain requires N-Methyl D-Aspartate (NMDA) receptors to tag information during the day, which is then filed for long-term storage while we sleep.

We know that nitrous oxide blocks NMDA receptors, so could interfere with tagging.

This might explain why the nitrous oxide group seemed to have weaker memories of the film the day after they watched it.”

Dr Sunjeev Kamboj, one of the study’s co-authors, said:

“Nitrous oxide is routinely used as a painkiller by paramedics and in A&E departments because it is safe and easy to administer.

Many people who end up in an ambulance will have undergone some form of psychological trauma, and our study suggests that the nitrous oxide is likely to be having some effect on how their brain processes it.

However, whether it helps to prevent symptoms of PTSD or makes them more likely may depend on how dissociated patients feel before they receive it.

Further research is now needed to determine whether dissociation similarly affects the response of trauma victims who receive nitrous oxide or other painkillers such as ketamine.

It is worth noting that our volunteers were given nitrous oxide continuously for half an hour, whereas the amount that hospital patients receive will vary significantly.

Some may only receive small doses in the ambulance whereas others could be breathing it on-and-off for hours in a hospital bed.

Any effects, positive or negative, are also likely to vary depending on the dose.

The amount of nitrous oxide used recreationally in a balloon, for example, would likely be too small to have a noticeable effect on memory formation.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Medicine (Das et al., 2016).

Sad man image from Shutterstock

New research suggests people’s cognitive abilities are affected by the seasons.

Brain scans show that people’s short-term memory is generally best in fall (autumn) and worst in spring.

In mid-December, though, people’s attention skills are at their lowest ebb.

Attention doesn’t come up to full strength until June.

Dr Gilles Vandewalle, one of the study’s authors, said that the causes are likely down to multiple factors, but:

“…we may be tuned to lower brain activity in winter, and that could cause changes in brain activity.

But in modern society we are similarly active throughout the year.”

It could also be that people who experience seasonally affected disorder may be particularly vulnerable to changes in cognition over the year.

Brain Scans Reveal Why Up To One in Six People Get SAD in Winter

The new research had 28 men and women visit the lab at different times of the year to take various tests.

Both brain scans and behavioural tests were used.

Only the brain scans showed the differences, not the behavioural tests.

The study was published in the journal PNAS (Meyer et al., 2016).

Image credit: Noukka Signe

Certain diets can damage learning and memory, but the brain can recover, a new study finds.

High-fat diets have long been linked to all kinds of psychological problems, including depression, anxiety and learning and memory deficits.

Now, research on mice has found that memory and learning problems disappear over time, even while maintaining the high-fat diet.

In the study, some of the mice were fed a high-fat diet.

Compared with another group fed a normal diet, after three months they showed severe problems with spatial memory.

But, after 12 months, their brains seemed to have adjusted to the high-fat diet.

High-Fat Diet May Disturb a Range of Thoughts And Feelings

Ms Erica Underwood, one of the study’s author, said:

“Other factors behind the impairment must be recovering in the long term.

That’s the beautiful thing about the brain.

It can often recover or find alternate routes to allow normal function in spite of impairment.”

While the mice’s brains coped with the diet, their bodies fared less well.

The high-fat diet caused obesity and the males developed the symptoms of type-2 diabetes.

Professor Lucien Thompson, who co-authored the study, said:

“We saw that the males’ brains, as well as bodies, became insulin-insensitive.

They were producing more insulin because of the fatty diet, but not enough to cover blood glucose surges after an oral dose of glucose.

And while insulin normally stimulates hippocampal neurons, high-fat diet males stopped responding to insulin.”

Ms Underwood concluded:

“For the first time in human history we have large numbers of toddlers who are severely overweight.

It’s unprecedented.

With this new type of physiology we’re seeing, we don’t really know what’s going to happen to these children 20 or 50 years from now.”

The study was published in the journal Neural Plasticity (Underwood & Thompson, 2015).

I am busy image from Shutterstock

In a few seconds our brains can play out events that would take hours or days at real time.

The imagination has an amazing ability to compress time.

In a few seconds our brains can play out events that would take hours or days at real time.

It’s an ability we take for granted and one we need to help plan for the future.

The key to how we are able to do this is a type of brain wave which is separate to the one we use for remembering real-time experiences.

Brain cells use a series of different electrical frequencies to communicate with each other.

It’s like the way radio waves are used to communicate over long distances.

One of these frequencies, however, allows the brain to play back memories or plan future events in fast forward.

Dr Laura Colgin, one of the study’s authors, explained:

“The reason we’re excited about it is that we think this mechanism can help explain how you can imagine a sequence of events you’re about to do in a time-compressed manner.

You can plan out those events and think about the sequences of actions you’ll do.

And all of that happens on a faster time scale when you’re imagining it than when you actually go and do those things.”

It’s known that fast gamma rhythms are used to encode memories happening right now, in real time.

The researchers discovered that slow gamma rhythms are used to retrieve memories and plan for the future in fast forward.

Naturally, the extra speed causes the memories and plans to lose resolution.

It’s the same as when you compress a file on the computer and it loses some information along the way.

The findings could also have implications for mental illness, Dr Colgin thinks:

“Maybe they are transmitting their own imagined thoughts on the wrong frequency, the one usually reserved for things that are really happening.

That could have terrible consequences.”

The study was published in the journal Neuron (Zheng et al., 2016).

Brain image from Shutterstock

Study of 3,718 older people found that, cognitively, some people’s brains were 5 years younger.

Eating vegetables — but not fruit — helps preserve memory, research finds.

The study of 3,718 people over 65 living in Chicago asked how often people ate particular foods and administered cognitive tests.

Professor Martha Clare Morris, who led the study, explained the results:

“Compared to people who consumed less than one serving of vegetables a day, people who ate at least 2.8 servings of vegetables a day saw their rate of cognitive change slow by roughly 40 percent.

This decrease is equivalent to about 5 years of younger age.”

Green leafy vegetables showed the strongest association with a better memory.

Older people in the study got the greatest benefit from eating more vegetables.

More than two servings of vegetables per day was linked to the slowest rates of cognitive decline in older people.

Professor Morris was surprised to find there was no link between fruit consumption and a preserved memory:

“This was unanticipated and raises several questions.

It may be due to vegetables containing high amounts of vitamin E, which helps lowers the risk of cognitive decline.

Vegetables, but not fruits, are also typically consumed with added fats such as salad dressings, and fats increase the absorption of vitamin E.

Further study is required to understand why fruit is not associated with cognitive change.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology (Morris et al., 2006).

Vegetable brain image from Shutterstock