Wakeful resting boosts memory

I saw the  following in my Mind, Mood & Memory newsletter from Massachusetts General Hospital and thought it fairly important - especially with so many of us going back to school. You might want to show this to the student in your household.

Here’s the article:

To fix information firmly in your mind, try taking a brief rest after learning it. The simple act of giving your brain a respite - while awake - can lead to better memory, according to a study published in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Neuron. Earlier research has shown that memory consolidation occurs during sleep, but this is the first study to demonstarate that it also takes place during resting.

“The research suggests that slowing down our fast-paced lifestyles and taking time for reflection and relaxation may help our brains perform better,” says Cornelia Cremens, MD, MPH, a geriatric psychiatrist at MGH.

The resarchers asked 16 adult volunteers to view paris of images (e.g., an object and a face, or an object and a scene) without informing the study participatns that they would be asked to remember the images later. Following the image-viewing, volunteers were instructed to rest for a time without falling asleep and think about whatever they liked.

After the rest period, the participants underwent testing to determine how well they remembered the imge pairs. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure the volunteers’ brain activity before, during, and after the testing. Brain scans revealed that while the participants were viewing the images and again while they were resting, they showed increases in activity between the hippocampus ( a key memory region of the brain) and the neocortex, where processing of images occurs. There was a significant correlation between brain activity during image-viewing and uring resting if the images were well remembered later, but little correlation if the images were not memorable, suggesting that brain activity in the resting phase was related to memory consolidation.

Participants who showed strong brain activity correlations between iage-viewing and resting also did better on the memory test later compared to participants with weak correlations, the researchers found.

“Your brain wants you to tune out other tasks so you can tune in to what you just learned,” said Lila Davachi, PhD, an author of the study. “This is something we don’t appreciate much, especially when today’s information technologies keep us working round-the-clock.”

Make your own flash memory hard drive

Stress and memory? Good causal links.

In these highly stressful times, it might be good to know what adverse effects stress has on higher brain function, and what we can do to mitigate those negative responses.

Stress, in and of itself, is not bad. However, our response to stress is where events can take a wrong turn, sometimes leading to ill health, toxic relationships and more.

Learning to cope in controlled ways to stress, and to manage our response is the key.

So, what to do?

Well, here are a few ideas, although I don’t recommend them.

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8 Resolutions toward a better brain for 2010

I was reading in the Massachusetts General Hospital ‘Mind, Mood & Memory’ today and their experts offered some pretty common sense tips that are in keeping with current brain research discoveries -particularly how to keep your brain as active and sharp as possible well into old age.

Dealings with some elderly friends and relatives this year have served to remind me about the importance of keeping the brain as healthy as the body. It won’t matter how healthy your body is, if the brain is impaired. Depression won’t be far behind when you know you’re not performing up to snuff.

The good news is that you can take charge at any point in the process - sometimes with some help - and stop, reverse or mitigate trends toward cognitive impairment.

Here’s what the experts recommend:

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Brain training improves memory and attention, with lasting effects

(Chicago, IL) May 1, 2009 – Older adults can improve memory and attention by training on computerized brain exercises according to study data presented today at the annual meeting of the American Geriatrics Society in Chicago. Elizabeth Zelinski, PhD, lead investigator on the study and a professor at the University of Southern California, also reported on new data showing that the gains persist months after the training ended.

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Nutrition Action from CSPI

That’s the Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of my enduringly favorite sources of reliable information. Really, if you want the straight scoop about food, nutrition and other health and wellness issues, this is one of the best places you can go to.

In this months’ newsletter there is a large article on how to keep your brain young - which all of us seem to be interested in these days. It seems that the bottom line is as follows:

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Low carb diets: Are they making us stupid?

The answer is apparently, ‘yes’ from the researchers at Tufts University, who studied the popular low and no carb diets like Atkins. They theorized that since the brain feeds on carbs - stored as glucose - then a negative impact could result from severely limiting the carbs in the diet. The brain, you see, doesn’t store glucose, and after a day or two of serious carb cutting, the body’s glucose reserves become exhausted.

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6 Tricks to Help You Remember

Here’s the good news: according to the Massachusetts General Hospital ‘Mind, Mood & Memory’ newsletter that I get, having mild cognitive impairment (MCI) - memory problems more severe than normal that do not meet the criteria for dementia - has been thought be many experts to increase significatly the possibility than an individual might go on to develop mementia. Now a new study suggest that the true risk of progression to dementia may be just one-third of the previously expected risk.

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Sharp at any age: exercise to reverse cognitive decline

We know that there a lot of great reasons to stay active and physically fit, but in our culture most of the attention goes to the relationship between activity and our appearance.

Exercise has so many other really valuable benefits, beyond a healthy physical appearance, that we need an occasional reality check.

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