Midlife hypertension has been confirmed as a risk factor for the development of dementia in late life, but there have been conflicting findings about the role of late-life hypertension. Now a five-year study involving 990 older adults (average age 83) with cognitive impairment but no dementia, has found that dementia developed at around the same rate among participants with and without hypertension, among those with memory dysfunction alone and those with both memory and executive dysfunction.
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Following on from research showing that pulling an all-nighter decreases the ability to cram in new facts by nearly 40%, a study involving 39 young adults has found that those given a 90-minute nap in the early afternoon, after being subjected to a rigorous learning task, did markedly better at a later round of learning exercises, compared to those who remained awake throughout the day. The former group actually improved in their capacity to learn, while the latter became worse at learning.
Using a large data set of 241 brain-lesion patients, researchers have mapped the location of each patient's lesion and correlated that with each patient's IQ score to produce a map of the brain regions that influence intelligence. Consistent with other recent findings, and with the theory that general intelligence depends on the brain's ability to integrate several different kinds of processing, they found general intelligence was determined by a distributed network in the frontal and parietal cortex, critically including white matter association tracts and frontopolar cortex.
A study involving 42 students who were ecstasy/polydrug users has found that ecstasy, or the regular use of several drugs, affects users' prospective memory (remembering things you plan to do), even when tests are controlled for cannabis, tobacco or alcohol use. Cocaine use in particular was prominently associated with prospective memory impairment. Deficits were evident in both lab-based and self-reported measurements.
A study involving 57 cognitively healthy older adults has found that those who showed decreased memory performance two years later (20 of the 57) had higher baseline levels of phosphorylated tau231 in the cerebrospinal fluid, and more atrophy in the medial temporal lobe. Higher levels of damaged tau protein were associated with reductions in medial temporal lobe gray matter. The finding may be useful in early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
Following on from studies showing that a Mediterranean-like diet may be associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and may lengthen survival in people with Alzheimer's, a six-year study of 712 New Yorkers has revealed that those who were most closely following a Mediterranean-like diet were 36% less likely to have brain infarcts (small areas of dead tissue linked to thinking problems), compared to those who were least following the diet. Those moderately following the diet were 21% less likely to have brain damage.
A new theory suggests that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values, and that these values include liberalism (caring about numerous genetically unrelated strangers they never meet or interact with), atheism, and, in men, monogamy.
A study involving 132 8- and 9-year-old children, some of whom had been adopted into U.S. homes after spending at least a year and three-quarters in institutions in Asia, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe, and Africa, while others were adopted by the time they were 8 months old into U.S. homes from foster care in Asia and Latin America, having spent no or very little time in institutional care, has found that those adopted early from foster care didn't differ from children who were raised in their birth families in the United States.
Rapamycin, a drug that keeps the immune system from attacking transplanted organs, was recently found to extend the life span of aged research mice. Now a study involving genetically engineered mice has found that 10 weeks of taking the drug improved learning and memory and reduced Alzheimer's-like damage in the brain.
Mindfulness Training had a positive effect on both working memory capacity and mood in a group of Marine reservists during the high-stress pre-deployment interval. While those who weren’t given the 8-week MT program, as well as those who spent little time engaging in mindfulness exercises, showed greater negative mood and decreased working memory capacity over the eight weeks, those who recorded high practice time showed increased capacity and decreased negative mood. A civilian control group showed no change in working memory capacity over the period.