World-renowned jazz musicians are often praised for their creative ingenuity. But how do they make up improvisations? And what makes artists’ solos more enticing than those of less skilled players?
It is difficult to assess brain health status and risk of cognitive impairment, particularly at the initial evaluation. To address this, researchers have developed the Brain Health Platform to quantify brain health and identify Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.
A gene recognized as the strongest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) alters the way cholesterol moves around the brain and as we age, this altered movement likely contributes to loss of learning and memory, a team of researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reports.
A study suggests that exposure to violent screen content in the preschool years is associated with a heightened risk of psychological and academic difficulties in adolescence.
Recent research in Psychological Science expands on past work by indicating that experiences of deprivation and threat may influence children’s psychological development differently. That is, early deprivation experiences, such as parental neglect and financial difficulties, appear to be more closely associated with cognitive and emotional functioning in adolescence than early threat experiences, such as exposure to abuse.
Growing up in a socioeconomically disadvantaged household may have lasting effects on children’s brain development, a large new study suggests. Compared with children from more-advantaged homes and neighborhoods, children from families with fewer resources have different patterns of connections between their brain’s many regions and networks by the time they’re in upper grades of elementary school.
One socioeconomic factor stood out in the study as more important to brain development than others: the number of years of education a child’s parents have.
Daniel Mackin Freeman, a doctoral candidate in sociology, and Dara Shifrer, an associate professor of sociology, used a large nationally representative dataset to see which types of arts classes impact math achievement and how it varies based on the socio-economic composition of the school.
In addition to a rise in school shootings, students, parents and teachers are dealing with another threat to the classroom: False shooting reports across the U.S. have become a recent trend in school safety.
A study of nearly 2,000 children found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control and working memory compared to children who had never played video games.
The cognitive decline and memory loss observed in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is attributed to the accumulation of β-amyloid protein (Aβ), which impairs neural function in the brain.
Embracing a broader definition of learning that includes any behavioral adaption developed in response to regular features of an environment could help researchers collaborate across the fields of psychology, computer science, sociology, and genetics, according to a new Perspectives on Psychological Science article.
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin believe our brains could use quantum computation after adapting an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings.
After reviewing more than 100 years of research on learning, authors of a new paper say combining two strategies – spacing and retrieval practice – is key to success.
The cerebellum is known primarily for regulation of movement. Researchers at the University of Basel have now discovered that the cerebellum also plays an important role in remembering emotional experiences. The study appears in the journal PNAS.
Higher levels of a key inflammatory marker were related to older breast cancer survivors reporting cognitive problems, researchers found in one of the first long-term efforts to examine the potential link between chronic inflammation and cognition in older breast cancer survivors.
Scientists from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital identified the mechanism by which the disorder enhances the ability to discriminate between sounds as interneuron hyperexcitability in the auditory cortex.
A new study, published in Frontiers in Psychology, has examined the impact passive screen use has on a young child’s cognitive development. It found screen exposure - whether that be from a TV or mobile device – can be beneficial, depending on the context in which it’s viewed.
It’s a phenomenon that we have probably all experienced. You’re in a packed place surrounded by a swirling mass of people, and someone looks you in the eye.
Researchers introduce a new neurocomputational model of the human brain that could bridge the gap in understanding AI and the biological mechanisms underlying mental disorders.
The memory system alternates between periods of learning and remembering. These two functions are controlled by different neural circuits. Using an animal model, scientists from the Institut Pasteur recently identified a neural signal in the hippocampus, a brain region essential for forming and recalling memories, that enables the brain to alternate between remembering and learning modes. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications on July 15, 2022.
New research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine shows that taking a daily supplement may improve cognition in older adults. In the study, researchers estimated that three years of multivitamin supplementation roughly translated to a 60% slowing of cognitive decline (about 1.8 years).
One of the most upsetting aspects of age-related memory decline is not being able to remember the face that accompanies the name of a person you just talked with hours earlier.
“Super-recognizers,” who account for about 2% of the population, rely not on photographic memories but “their ability to pick up highly distinctive visual information and put all the pieces of a face together like a puzzle, quickly and accurately.”
An Inserm team at the Lille Neuroscience & Cognition laboratory (Inserm/Université de Lille, Lille University Hospital) has joined forces with its counterparts at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) to test the efficacy of GnRH injection therapy in order to improve the cognitive functions of a small group of patients with Down syndrome.
Researchers at the George Washington University have gained important insight into how the human brain processes an object in the visual system and where in the brain this processing takes place. Their study, “Mugs and Plants: Object Semantic Knowledge Alters Perceptual Processing with Behavioral Ramifications,” shows people perceive objects differently depending on their prior knowledge and experience with that object.
All newly detected areas are now available as 3D probability maps in the Julich Brain Atlas, and can be openly accessed via the HBP’s EBRAINS infrastructure.
A single mutation in a gene, Kcnc3, which encodes a potassium channel in neurons, causes learning deficits in mice, UT Southwestern researchers report in a new study in PNAS. The novel mutation decreases the activity of neurons in the hippocampus, the area of the brain important for learning and memory, and highlights a new role for potassium channels.
When our eyes move during REM sleep, we’re gazing at things in the dream world our brains have created, according to a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco. The findings shed light not only into how we dream, but also into how our imaginations work.
RUDN psychologists have found that the cognitive abilities of schoolchildren affect their understanding and acceptance of representatives of different countries and cultures. Moreover, the study showed that this intercultural competence is worst of all among boys with poor academic performance.
From tree-branch tepees to bush tucker gardens, mud kitchens and even functional fire pits, primary schools are sprouting all sorts of nature play environments in an effort to better connect primary students with the outdoors.
Adults aged 60 and older who sit for long periods watching TV or other such passive, sedentary behaviors may be at increased risk of developing dementia, according to a new study by USC and University of Arizona researchers.
A study that assessed the brains of 99 World Trade Center (WTC) responders showed that WTC responders with cognitive impairment (CI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have a different presentation of the white matter in their brains compared to responders with CI without PTSD.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered that increasing the production of new neurons in mice with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) rescues the animals’ memory defects. The study, to be published August 19 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), shows that new neurons can incorporate into the neural circuits that store memories and restore their normal function, suggesting that boosting neuron production could be a viable strategy to treat AD patients.
Children who enter preschool with good vocabulary and attention skills do better in class, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Early Education and Development. The findings based on 900 four-year-olds from eight US states show how a child’s ability to engage with teachers and peers is affected by the range of words they know.
The majority of people who were likely infected with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, didn’t know they had the virus, according to a new study from Cedars-Sinai investigators. The findings are published in JAMA Network Open.
In learning to communicate, a good teacher is essential. Take zebra finches, for example. Juveniles of the species learn songs directly from a tutor – usually their father – through a social interaction that keeps them motivated and on-task.
Notre Dame researchers sought to investigate whether and to what degree early childhood educational outcomes are affected by childhood lead exposure and whether racial residential segregation has a compounding effect.