Memory - Page 24 of 28

Long-Held Belief About How Memory Works Challenged by Exciting New Research

New memory research has important implications for Alzheimer’s disease.

New memory research has important implications for Alzheimer’s disease.

It should be possible to restore the memories of people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, scientists at UCLA have announced.

This is because long-term memory is not stored at the synapses — the connections between brain cells which are destroyed in Alzheimer’s disease — as neuroscientists have long thought.

Professor David Glanzman, who led the study, said:

“Long-term memory is not stored at the synapse.
That’s a radical idea, but that’s where the evidence leads.
The nervous system appears to be able to regenerate lost synaptic connections.
If you can restore the synaptic connections, the memory will come back. It won’t be easy, but I believe it’s possible.”

The conclusions come from research on a type of marine snail called Aplysia, which was published recently in eLife (Chen et al., 2014).

Professor Glanzman explained:

“If you train an animal on a task, inhibit its ability to produce proteins immediately after training, and then test it 24 hours later, the animal doesn’t remember the training.
However, if you train an animal, wait 24 hours, and then inject a protein synthesis inhibitor in its brain, the animal shows perfectly good memory 24 hours later.
In other words, once memories are formed, if you temporarily disrupt protein synthesis, it doesn’t affect long-term memory.
That’s true in the Aplysia and in human’s brains.”

The researchers carried out a number of experiments, all of which suggested that long-term memory was not stored at the synapses as was commonly thought.

Professor Glanzman continued:

“That suggests that the memory is not in the synapses but somewhere else.
We think it’s in the nucleus of the neurons.
We haven’t proved that, though.”

This research could have important implications for those with Alzheimer’s disease, Professor Glanzman believes.

If their research is correct, while the synapses are destroyed by the disease, the memories might still be present.

Glanzman continued:

“As long as the neurons are still alive, the memory will still be there, which means you may be able to recover some of the lost memories in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.”

Image credit: A Health Blog

Ten Essential Psych Studies of 2014: Making Narcissists Empathise, Memory Boosting Spice And More…

In 2014 we learned which habits make you feel happy, the emotion which lasts the longest and much more…

In 2014 we learned which habits make you feel happy, the emotion which lasts the longest and much more…

1. How to get a narcissist to feel empathy

Narcissists usually aren’t much interested in other people’s suffering or, for that matter, any of other people’s feelings.

But a study published this year found that narcissists can be made to feel empathy, if given a nudge in the right direction (note: throughout this article, follow the links for more info).

Erica Hepper, the study’s author, explained:

“If we encourage narcissists to consider the situation from their teammate or friend’s point of view, they are likely to respond in a much more considerate or sympathetic way.”

It’s not that narcissists can’t feel for others it’s that they need reminding, Hepper said:

“…narcissists’ low empathy is automatic (instead of consciously suppressed or under-reported), and also that perspective-taking induces genuine change in the way that narcissists process a distressed person’s experience.”

2. The emotion which lasts 240 times longer than others

Sadness is the longest lasting of the emotions, found one of the first ever studies to look at why some emotions last much longer than others.

When compared with being irritated, ashamed, surprised and even bored; it’s sadness which outlasts the others.

At the extremes, while disgust and shame tended to pass within 30 minutes, sadness continued on for an average of 120 hours.

Saskia Lavrijsen, who co-authored the study, explained:

“Rumination is the central determinant of why some emotions last longer than others.
Emotions associated with high levels of rumination will last longest.
Emotions of shorter duration are typically — but, of course, not always — elicited by events of relatively low importance.
On the other hand, long-lasting emotions tend to be about something highly important.”

3. 10 simple habits proven to make you happier

Here are ten everyday habits which science has shown can make people happier.

Giving: do things for others
Relating: connect with people
Exercising: take care of your body
Appreciating: notice the world around
Trying out: keep learning new things
Direction: have goals to look forward to
Resilience: find ways to bounce back
Emotion: take a positive approach
Acceptance: be comfortable with who you are
Meaning: be part of something bigger

A survey asked people which happy habits they actually practised and how they felt.

This found one of the largest associations between happiness and self-acceptance, despite the fact that people performed this habit the least.

4. Just 1 gram of this spice boosts memory in six hours

One gram of turmeric at breakfast was shown by a study in 2014 to improve memory in people with pre-diabetes.

Professor Wahlqvist, who led the Taiwanese study, explained the results:

“We found that this modest addition to breakfast improved working memory over six hours in older people with pre-diabetes.”

Turmeric’s distinctive yellow colour is given to it by a substance called curcumin, which makes up between 3-6% of turmeric.

It is the curcumin which is thought to have an active effect in reducing the memory problems associated with dementia.

5. The number of children that makes parents happiest

First and second children provide parents a boost in happiness up to a year before they are born but the third does not, new research found this year.

The increase in happiness lasts around one year from birth, after which some parents’ happiness returns to its usual pre-baby levels.

Parents who are highly educated or have their first children between the ages of 35 and 49 show the strongest gains in happiness around the birth of their children.

6. Two personal qualities more vital to success than IQ

Being open to experience and conscientious is four times more important than intelligence in predicting academic success, a review of the research found.

People who are open to experience are more likely to be imaginative, sensitive to their feelings, intellectually curious and seekers of variety.

Conscientious people, meanwhile, are disciplined, dutiful and good at planning ahead.

7. Memory loss from Alzheimer’s reversed with new approach

Memory loss in patients with Alzheimer’s disease may be reversed — and the improvement sustained — using a novel treatment approach, a small exploratory study found in 2014.

The study, which included 10 patients, used a combination of therapies which were personalised to help them reverse memory loss.

Each patient was given a specialised program, which often included things like exercise, optimising sleep, practising yoga, brain stimulation and taking supplements such as vitamin D3 and melatonin.

Within three to six months of the treatment all but one of the patients was seeing either objective or subjective improvements in their memory.

8. Husband or wife? The partner whose happiness matters more for the marriage

For marital quality, it seems the wife’s happiness matters more than the husband’s.

When the wife is happy with a long-term partnership, the husband is happier, no matter how he feels about the marriage.

Professor Deborah Carr, the study’s first author said:

“I think it comes down to the fact that when a wife is satisfied with the marriage she tends to do a lot more for her husband, which has a positive effect on his life.
Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships and their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives.”

9. This beverage reversed normal age-related memory loss

Cocoa flavanoids — like those contained in a cup of cocoa — can reverse age-related memory loss in older adults, a study found.

This is the first direct evidence that an important component of memory decline that comes with age can be improved with a simple dietary change.

Professor Scott A. Small, one of the study’s authors, explained the results:

“If a participant had the memory of a typical 60-year-old at the beginning of the study, after three months that person on average had the memory of a typical 30- or 40-year-old.”

10. Why you should talk to strangers

By shunning the company of strangers during the daily commute, people could be missing out on a vital little lift to their day, a study found.

It turns out that the commute can be made more positive when people talk to strangers.

One of the study’s authors, Professor Nicholas Epley, explained:

“Connecting with strangers on a train may not bring the same long-term benefits as connecting with friends, but commuters on a train into downtown Chicago reported a significantly more positive commute when they connected with a stranger than when they sat in solitude.”

The fact that this was the opposite of what they expected is fascinating.

Professor Epley continued:

“This misunderstanding is particularly unfortunate for a person’s well-being given that commuting is consistently reported to be one of the least pleasant experiences in the average person’s day.
This experiment suggests that a surprising antidote for an otherwise unpleasant experience could be sitting very close by.”

Image credit: ihave3kids

A Foolproof Way To Use Forgetting To Help You Remember, Study Reveals

When you save information digitally, your real memory for that information is worse, but a new study reveals a positive flipside.

When you save information digitally, your real memory for that information is worse, but a new study reveals a positive flipside.

Clicking ‘save’ on a digital file makes your memory worse for that information, but improves it for what you learn subsequently, a new study finds.

The trick probably works because taking a photo or saving a file flushes the information out of consciousness, freeing up cognitive resources for the next task.

Dr. Benjamin Storm, who led the study, said:

“We tend to think of forgetting as happening when memory fails, but research suggests that forgetting plays an essential role in supporting the adaptive functioning of memory and cognition.”

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, had participants study a file filled with words they were told to memorise (Storm & Stone, 2014).

Some were told to save the file after studying it, others were not.

They were then given a second file of words to remember.

The results showed that people remembered the words in the second file better when they had saved the first file.

Dr. Storm explained why the trick works:

“The idea is pretty simple: Saving acts as a form of offloading.
By ensuring that certain information will be digitally accessible, we can re-allocate cognitive resources away from maintaining that information and focus instead on remembering new information.”

While saving information makes our memory poorer for that information, at least we know where to find it.

Dr. Storm continued:

“As technology develops, computers and smart phones are making it easier and easier to save information, which seems to have important consequences for the ways in which our memory functions.
By treating computers and other digital devices as extensions of memory, people may be protecting themselves from the costs of forgetting while taking advantage of the benefits.”

Dr. Storm pointed out that forgetting old information may also help us be more creative:

“Coming up with a new idea or solving a problem often requires that we think outside the box, so to speak, and forgetting previous information allows us to do that.
By helping us to reduce the accessibility of old information, saving may facilitate our ability to think of new ideas and solve difficult problems.”

Image credit: A Health Blog

The Basic Emotion That Makes Infants Remember What They’ve Seen

Five-month-olds can remember what they’ve seen when it is paired with this emotion.

Five-month-olds can remember what they’ve seen when it is paired with this emotion.

Babies can remember what they’ve seen if it is paired with a positive emotion, a new study finds, but nothing otherwise.

The research, carried out by psychologists at Brigham Young University, is the first to look at how being exposed to different emotions affects the memory of infants.

The researchers tested the effect of a positive, negative and neutral tone of voice on which geometric shapes they could remember (Flom et al., 2014).

The five-month-olds in the study obviously couldn’t talk, but their eye gaze was measured to see which way they were looking and for how long.

The infants were tested five minutes after seeing the shapes and one day later — what psychologists consider long-term memory.

The results, published in the journal Infant Behavior and Development, showed that after both five minutes and one day, the infants remembered shapes that were initially paired with a positive voice.

In comparison, they seemed not to remember the shapes paired with neutral or negative voices at all.

Professor Ross Flom, who led the study, said:

“People study memory in infants, they study discrimination in emotional affect, but we are the first ones to study how these emotions influence memory.”

While scientists are not sure why babies remember things paired with positive emotions, they can extrapolate from studies on adults.

Professor Flom explained:

“We think what happens is that the positive affect heightens the babies’ attentional system and arousal.
By heightening those systems, we heighten their ability to process and perhaps remember this geometric pattern.”

Image credit: Paolo Marconi

Just 1 Gram of This Spice Boosts Memory in Six Hours

Memory improved by consuming small amount of this spice with breakfast.

Memory improved by consuming small amount of this spice with breakfast.

One gram of turmeric at breakfast has been shown by a new study to improve memory in people with memory problems.

In the study itself participants were given 1 gram of turmeric mixed into their ordinary breakfasts (Lee et al., 2014).

Their working memory was tested before and some time after their breakfast, and the results were compared with a placebo-control condition.

Professor Wahlqvist, who led the Taiwanese study, explained the results:

“We found that this modest addition to breakfast improved working memory over six hours in older people with pre-diabetes.”

Diabetes and memory problems are linked because having diabetes makes it more likely that a person will also develop dementia if the diabetes is not well controlled.

Turmeric is a yellow spice already widely used in cooking, especially in Asia.

Its distinctive yellow colour is given to it by a substance called curcumin, which makes up between 3-6% of turmeric.

It is the curcumin which is thought to have an active effect in reducing the memory problems associated with dementia.

Professor Wahlqvist explained the importance of working memory, which was tested in this study:

“Working memory is widely thought to be one of the most important mental faculties, critical for cognitive abilities such as planning, problem solving and reasoning.
Assessment of working memory is simple and convenient, but it is also very useful in the appraisal of cognition and in predicting future impairment and dementia.”

He concluded:

“Our findings with turmeric are consistent with these observations, insofar as they appear to influence cognitive function where there is disordered energy metabolism and insulin resistance.”

The Type of Exercise That Most Benefits Memory, Reasoning and Mental Flexibility

Study compared the mental effects of aerobic exercise, weight training and balance and co-ordination.

Study compared the mental effects of aerobic exercise, weight training and balance and co-ordination.

A new study of older people finds that there is no need to follow a special training programme to boost cognitive function.

Any type of exercise improves mental abilities: it doesn’t matter if it’s aerobic or strength or just improving balance and flexibility.

It didn’t even seem to matter if the participants were getting much fitter — as long as they got moving, they got the mental benefits of exercise.

For the research, people between the ages of 62 and 84 were put into three different groups (Berryman et al., 2014).

Two of the groups did strength training and high-intensity aerobic exercise.

A third group carried out activities that trained balance, co-ordination and other gross motor functions.

This third group did activities like throwing balls at targets, learning to juggle and yoga-type stretches.

Although the first two groups were the only ones to get physically fitter, all three groups showed similar benefits to executive function.

Dr. Louis Bherer, one of the study’s authors, explained:

“Our study targeted executive functions, or the functions that allow us to continue reacting effectively to a changing environment.
We use these functions to plan, organize, develop strategies, pay attention to and remember details, and manage time and space.”

Dr. Nicolas Berryman, the study’s lead author, said:

“For a long time, it was believed that only aerobic exercise could improve executive functions.
More recently, science has shown that strength-training also leads to positive results.
Our new findings suggest that structured activities that aim to improve gross motor skills can also improve executive functions, which decline as we age.
I would like seniors to remember that they have the power to improve their physical and cognitive health at any age and that they have many avenues to reach this goal.”

For younger people, it may well be that cardiovascular fitness — the kind you get from things like jogging — is better for your cognitive function.

But this study suggests that for older people, it’s less about the type of activity, and more about getting activity of any kind.

Image credit: A Health Blog

Light To Moderate Alcohol Intake Linked To Better Memory In Later Years

How light to moderate alcohol intake affects memory for past events.

How light to moderate alcohol intake affects memory for past events.

For people over 60, light or moderate alcohol intake is associated with better recall of past events, according to a new study.

Links were also found between increased size of the hippocampus — the area of the brain crucial to memory — and moderate alcohol consumption.

The study, published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias, used data from almost 700 people who have been followed since the 1970s (Downer et al., 2014).

They completed questionnaires about their alcohol intake, along with a battery of neuropsychological test which assessed their memory for past events, along with other cognitive factors.

The results showed that people who drank alcohol lightly or moderately had better memories for past events, although there was no association with overall mental ability.

Dr. Brian Downer, who led the study, cautioned of alternative explanations for the results:

“There were no significant differences in cognitive functioning and regional brain volumes during late life according to reported midlife alcohol consumption status.
This may be due to the fact that adults who are able to continue consuming alcohol into old age are healthier, and therefore have higher cognition and larger regional brain volumes, than people who had to decrease their alcohol consumption due to unfavorable health outcomes.”

That said, this is not the only study to identify this link.

Animal studies have supported the idea that alcohol may have a protective effect.

These have found that moderate alcohol consumption can preserve the hippocampal area of the brain by encouraging the regeneration of nerve tissue.

Alcohol may also increase the release of chemicals in the brain which boost its information processing functions.

Naturally, it’s proven that extended periods of alcohol abuse — defined as five or more drinks a day — can damage the brain.

But, light to moderate alcohol intake has been consistently linked with lower risk of dementia and cognitive decline in later years.

Image credit: Dave Dugdale

What Alzheimer’s Patients Feel After Their Memories Have Vanished

Is the emotional life of Alzheimer’s patients alive and well?

Is the emotional life of Alzheimer’s patients alive and well?

While patients with Alzheimer’s might not remember when their loved ones visit, it has a profound effect on how they feel, a new study finds.

The study showed both happy and sad video clips lasting around 20 minutes to people with Alzheimer’s disease and observed their emotional states (Guzmán-Vélez et al., 2014).

They did the same for a group of healthy adults.

Five minutes afterwards, all the participants were given a memory test to see if they could remember the video they had just seen.

As you’d expect, Alzheimer’s patients remembered significantly less about the clips they’d just seen than the healthy group.

In fact, four out of the 17 patients could not remember a single fact about the clips and one patient couldn’t remember having seen any movie clips, despite the fact it was only five minutes later.

Despite not being able to remember seeing the videos, they were happier (or sadder, depending on the clips they’d seen) for at least 30 minutes afterwards.

Amazingly, when patients remembered less of the sad video clips, their feeling of sadness lasted longer.

Edmarie Guzmán-Vélez, the study’s lead author, said:

“This confirms that the emotional life of an Alzheimer’s patient is alive and well.”

It also underlines the importance of generating positive emotions when visiting patients with Alzheimer’s.

Guzmán-Vélez continued:

“Our findings should empower caregivers by showing them that their actions toward patients really do matter.
Frequent visits and social interactions, exercise, music, dance, jokes, and serving patients their favorite foods are all simple things that can have a lasting emotional impact on a patient’s quality of life and subjective well-being.”

Image credit: Bev Sykes

Memory Loss From Alzheimer’s Reversed For First Time With New Approach

Nine out of ten patients with memory problems showed improvements with this novel multi-systems approach.

Nine out of ten patients with memory problems showed improvements with this novel multi-systems approach.

Memory loss in patients with Alzheimer’s disease may be reversed — and the improvement sustained — using a novel treatment approach, a small exploratory study has found.

The study, which included 10 patients, used a combination of therapies which were personalised to help them reverse memory loss (Bredesen, 2014).

Some patients were getting disoriented while driving, others mixing up names and some had been forced to quit their jobs.

Within three to six months of the treatment all but one of the patients was seeing either objective or subjective improvements in their memory.

Those who had been forced to quit work were able to return.

One of the patients was a 55-year-old attorney who had been suffering memory loss for four years, but showed a remarkable improvement from the program:

“After five months on the therapeutic program, she noted that she no longer needed her iPad for notes, and no longer needed to record conversations.
She was able to work once again, was able to learn Spanish, and began to learn a new legal specialty.
Her children noted that she no longer became lost in mid-sentence, no longer thought she had asked them to do something that she had not asked, and answered their questions with normal rapidity and memory.”

Professor Dale Bredesen, who authored the study, explained that the key is taking a multi-systems approach:

“The existing Alzheimer’s drugs affect a single target, but Alzheimer’s disease is more complex.
Imagine having a roof with 36 holes in it, and your drug patched one hole very well — the drug may have worked, a single “hole” may have been fixed, but you still have 35 other leaks, and so the underlying process may not be affected much.”

Each patient was given a specialised program, which often included things like exercise, optimising sleep, practising yoga, brain stimulation and taking supplements such as vitamin D3 and melatonin.

In total Professor Bredesen’s therapeutic plan has 36-points, the exact combination of which was tailored for each patient.

As he is the first to say, though, the study is only a small one:

“This is the first successful demonstration.
The current, anecdotal results require a larger trial, not only to confirm or refute the results reported here, but also to address key questions raised, such as the degree of improvement that can be achieved routinely, how late in the course of cognitive decline reversal can be effected, whether such an approach may be effective in patients with familial Alzheimer’s disease, and last, how long improvement can be sustained.”

Still, even though the study is small, the results are striking — and hopeful.

How Unwanted Negative Thoughts Could Be Treated By Changing Memories

Cutting-edge research explores how memories can be modified after recall.

Hope for effectively treating unwanted negative thoughts may come from new techniques that can alter vivid, long-established memories.

Unwanted negative thoughts are core components of problems like addictions and…

Cutting-edge research explores how memories can be modified after recall.

Hope for effectively treating unwanted negative thoughts may come from new techniques that can alter vivid, long-established memories.

Unwanted negative thoughts are core components of problems like addictions and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In PTSD, people suffer from frequent intrusions of traumatic memories from, for example, a car crash or other violent event.

In addictions, people’s behaviour is strongly influenced by memories of drug-taking and these motivate their future actions.

These are more extreme versions of the everyday occurrence of having flashbacks to embarrassing moments, or other painful episodes we’ve experienced.

But, what if it were possible to adjust memories of trauma or drug use?

According to a new review of the evidence, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, it may be possible to more effectively target a part of the learning process called reconsolidation (Schwabe et al., 2014).

The figure below shows the typical process of learning, from the initial memory — for example, a traumatic event — through to its retrieval and alteration.

Reconsolidation is the point at which a stored memory is recalled and, according to recent research, this is the point at which it may be changed.

During the reconsolidation phase, memories become particularly unstable, and so easier to change.

Memories could perhaps be modified years after they were initially laid down.

This is effectively what many therapists try to do when they treat patients suffering from unwanted intrusive thoughts.

Patients are encouraged to recall the memory, but then the therapist tries to adjust the response to that memory.

Unfortunately, the original memory is often so strong that it is very difficult to change the response.

But, with the new understanding of the role of reconsolidation, it may be possible to make this process more effective.

It will require linking the neurobiological understanding of reconsolidation with everyday clinical practices.

Research on those with PTSD, however, has already begun to show that the use of some drugs during reconsolidation can help extinguish traumatic thoughts.

Dr. Lars Schwabe, the lead author of the study, said:

“Memory reconsolidation is probably among the most exciting phenomena in cognitive neuroscience today.
It assumes that memories may be modified once they are retrieved which may give us the great opportunity to change seemingly robust, unwanted memories.”

→ Continue reading: 8 Ways to Get Rid of Unwanted Negative Thoughts.

Image credits: Zoltan Horlik & Elsevier