Back in 2010, I briefly reported on a study suggesting that a few minutes of ‘quiet time’ could help you consolidate new information. A new study provides more support for this idea.
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Here’s an exciting little study, implying as it does that one particular aspect of information processing underlies much of the cognitive decline in older adults, and that this can be improved through training. |
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HIV-associated dementia occurs in around 30% of untreated HIV-positive patients. Surprisingly, it also is occasionally found in some patients (2-3%) who are being successfully treated for HIV (and show no signs of AIDS). |
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Spatial abilities have been shown to be important for achievement in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, math), but many people have felt that spatial skills are something you’re either born with or not. |
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I’ve reported, often, on the evidence that multitasking is a problem, something we’re not really designed to do well (with the exception of a few fortunate individuals), and that the problem is r |
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What underlies differences in fluid intelligence? How are smart brains different from those that are merely ‘average’? |
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My recent reports on brain training for older adults (see, e.g., Review of working memory training programs finds no broader benefit; |
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Genetic comparisons have pinpointed a specific protein as crucial for brain size, both between and within species. |
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Back in 2009, I reported briefly on a large Norwegian study that found that older adults who consumed chocolate, wine, and tea performed significantly better on cognitive tests. |
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Two years ago, I reported on a clinical trial of a nutrient cocktail called Souvenaid for those with early Alzheimer’s. |
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In the light of a general increase in caesarean sections, it’s somewhat alarming to read about a mouse study that found that vaginal birth triggers the expression of a protein in the brains of newborns that improves brain development, and this protein expression is impaired in the brains of thos |
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Adding to the growing evidence for the long-term cognitive benefits of childhood music training, a new study has found that even a few years of music training in childhood has long-lasting benefits for auditory discrimination. |
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Our life-experiences contain a wealth of new and old information. The relative proportions of these change, of course, as we age. But how do we know whether we should be encoding new information or retrieving old information? |
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I’ve reported before on how London taxi drivers increase the size of their posterior |
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A large long-running New Zealand study has found that people who started using cannabis in adolescence and continued to use it for years afterward showed a significant decline in IQ from age 13 to 38. This was true even in those who hadn’t smoked marijuana for some years. |
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We know that emotion affects memory. |
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The question of whether supplements of omega-3 fatty acids can help memory and cognition has been a contentious one, with some studies showing a positive effect and others failing to find an effect. |
Meditation may improve multitasking |
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The research is pretty clear by this point: humans are not (with a few rare exceptions) designed to multitask. |
Grasp of fractions and long division predicts later math success |