Once upon a time we made a clear difference between emotion and reason. Now increasing evidence points to the necessity of emotion for good reasoning. It’s clear the two are deeply entangled.
Now a new study has found that those with a higher working memory capacity (associated with greater intelligence) are more likely to automatically apply effective emotional regulation strategies when the need arises.
A study in which mice were exposed to polluted air for three 5-hour sessions a week for 10 weeks, has revealed that such exposure damaged neurons in the hippocampus and caused inflammation in the brain. The polluted air was laden with particles collected from an urban freeway.
A working memory training program developed to help children with ADHD has been tested by 52 students, aged 7 to 17. Between a quarter and a third of the children showed significant improvement in inattention, overall number of ADHD symptoms, initiation, planning/organization, and working memory, according to parental ratings. While teacher ratings were positive, they did not quite reach significance. It is worth noting that this improvement was maintained at the four-month follow-up.
A study involving 48 adolescents, of whom 19 had been diagnosed with substance abuse/dependence, and 14 had a family history of substance abuse but no history of personal use, has found that greater alcohol use was associated with a significant decrease in attention and executive function (which is involved in planning and decision-making), while greater marijuana use was associated with poorer memory.
Data from 217 children from Inuit communities in Arctic Quebec (average age 11), of whom some had mothers that reported binge drinking during pregnancy, has revealed that the alcohol-exposed group, while similar to the control in accuracy and reaction time, showed a significant differences in their brains’ electrical activity while doing those tasks (a Go/No-go response inhibition task and a continuous recognition memory task).
A study involving 48 healthy adults aged 18-39 has found that extraverts who were deprived of sleep for 22 hours after spending 12 hours in group activities performed worse on a vigilance task that did those extraverts who engaged in the same activities on their own in a private room. Introverts were relatively unaffected by the degree of prior social interaction.
Confirming earlier indications from small studies, a very large nationwide survey has found that people who have had cancer are 40% more likely to experience memory problems that interfere with daily functioning.
The U.S. study involved nearly 10,000 people aged 40 and older, of whom 1,305 (13.3%) reported they had cancer or a history of cancer. Of these, 14% answered yes to the question "Are you limited in any way because of difficulty remembering or because you experience periods of confusion?" Of those who did not have a history of cancer, 8% answered yes to this question.
Recent rodent studies add to our understanding of how estrogen affects learning and memory. A study found that adult female rats took significantly longer to learn a new association when they were in periods of their estrus cycle with high levels of estrogen, compared to their ability to learn when their estrogen level was low. The effect was not found among pre-pubertal rats. The study follows on from an earlier study using rats with their ovaries removed, whose learning was similarly affected when given high levels of estradiol.
Many survivors of childhood cancer experience cognitive problems as a result of their treatment. The drug methylphenidate (marketed under several names, the best known of which is Ritalin) has previously been shown to help attention problems in such survivors in the short term. Now a new study demonstrates that it can also be of benefit in the long term.
Analysis of DNA and lifestyle data from a representative group of 2,500 U.S. middle- and high-school students tracked from 1994 to 2008 in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health has revealed that lower academic performance was associated with three dopamine gene variants. Having more of the dopamine gene variants (three rather than one, say) was associated with a significantly lower GPA.