Recent sleep research has focused on memory, but results of a new study suggest another key effect of sleep is enhancing complex cognitive skills such as decision-making. One of the first studies of its kind supports the adage that “sleeping on it” is good advice when facing an important decision.
How human children acquire language remains largely a mystery. A groundbreaking study by cognitive scientists at The Johns Hopkins University confirms that human beings are born with knowledge of certain syntactical rules that make learning human languages easier.
Many patients who undergo bone marrow or blood stem cell transplantation to treat blood cancers or a “pre-leukemic” condition called myelodysplasia experience a decline in mental and fine motor skills due to the toll of their disease and its treatment. A new study led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, published in the May 2, 2011 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that overall, these effects are largely temporary and that most patients can expect a return to normal motor and memory function within five years. However, the study also found that deficits in fine motor skills and verbal memory remained for a significant percentage of patients and warrant more attention by health care providers.
If you’ve ever lost your keys or stuck the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the refrigerator, you may have been the victim of a tired brain region that was taking a quick nap.
According to research conducted at Rush University Medical Center, frequent social activity may help to prevent or delay cognitive decline in old age. The study has just been posted online in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.
Functional MRI shows that Buddhist meditators use different areas of the brain than other people when confronted with unfair choices, enabling them to make decisions rationally rather than emotionally.
University of Utah psychologists have learned why many people experience “inattention blindness” – the phenomenon that leaves drivers on cell phones prone to traffic accidents and makes a gorilla invisible to viewers of a famous video.
Across many groups of animals, species with bigger brains often have better cognitive abilities. But it’s been unclear whether overall brain size or the size of specific brain areas is the key. New findings by University of Washington neurobiologists suggest that both patterns are important: bigger-bodied social wasps had larger brains and devoted up to three times more of their brain tissue to regions that coordinate social interactions, learning, memory and other complex behaviors.
Laboratories at University of New Mexico, Brown University, and House Ear Institute developed a new technique to observe herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) infections growing inside cells. Re-activation and growth of HSV1 infections contribute to cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have developed a new way to stimulate neuron production in the adult mouse brain, demonstrating that neurons acquired in the brain's hippocampus during adulthood improve certain cognitive functions.
Toy libraries offer multiple benefits for children, their parents, their community, and society in general.
New research brings scientists one step closer to to isolating the mechanisms by which the brain compensates for disruptions and reroutes neural functioning – which could ultimately lead to treatments for cognitive impairments in humans caused by disease and aging.
It is no surprise to scientists that the largest social network on the web is called Facebook. Identifying people by their face is fundamental to our social interactions, one of the primary reasons vision researchers are trying to find out how our brain processes facial identity. In a study recently published in the Journal of Vision, scientists used an original approach — a method that “shakes” the brain gently and repeatedly by making an image appear and disappear at a constant rate — to evaluate its sensitivity to perceiving facial identity. The technique is called steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP).
Using a sophisticated imaging test to probe for higher-level cognitive functioning in severely brain-injured patients provides a window into consciousness -- but the view it presents is one that is blurred in fascinating ways, say researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in the Feb. 25 online edition of the journal Brain.
Mothers who are depressed respond differently to their crying babies than do non-depressed moms. In fact, their reaction, according to brain scans at the University of Oregon, is much more muted than the robust brain activity in non-depressed moms.
Language may play an important role in learning the meanings of numbers. A study of deaf people in Nicaragua who never learned sign language showed that people who communicate using self-developed gestures, were unable to comprehend the value of numbers greater than three because they had not learned a language containing symbols used for counting.
When a laboratory rat learns how to reach for and grab a food pellet – a pretty complex and unnatural act for a rodent – the acquired knowledge significantly alters the structure of the specific brain cells involved, which sprout a whopping 22 percent more dendritic spines connecting them to other motor neurons.
Older people with larger waistlines, high blood pressure and other risk factors that make up metabolic syndrome may be at a higher risk for memory loss, according to a study published in the February 2, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Talking with your hands can trigger mental images that help solve complex problems relating to spatial visualization, an important skill for both students and professionals, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
Slightly over over 5 percent of the nearly 39 million Americans age 65 and older in 2007 reported one or more cognitive disorders, such as senility or dementia.
New research shows how humans, unlike any other species on Earth, readily learn to throw long distances. This research also suggests that this unique evolutionary trait is entangled with language development in a way critical to our very existence.
A new evidence review suggests that memory drills and similar brain-boosting activities are not any better than simple conversations at improving memory in older adults.
Older adults without dementia and with lower levels in plasma of the biomarkers beta-amyloid 42/40 (protein fragments) had an increased rate of cognitive decline over a period of 9 years, according to a study in the January 19 issue of JAMA. The researchers also found that this relationship was stronger among individuals with less education and lower levels of literacy.
Researchers have developed a device to help reduce the occurrence of post-operative cognitive decline, a condition that affects memory and concentration.
Combining the cutting-edge technologies of MRI and MEG, scientists at the University of California, San Diego show that babies just over a year old process words they hear with the same brain structures as adults, and in the same amount of time. Moreover, the researchers found that babies were not merely processing the words as sounds, but were capable of grasping their meaning.
The Mediterranean diet, rich in vegetables, fish and olive oil and moderate in wine and alcohol, is associated with slower rates of cognitive decline in older adults, according to researchers at Rush University Medical Center.
Prenatal iron-folic acid supplementation increased offspring intellectual and motor functioning.
Brain scans of adolescents with dyslexia can be used to predict the future improvement of their reading skills with an accuracy rate of up to 90 percent, new research indicates. Advanced analyses of the brain activity images are significantly more accurate in driving predictions than standardized reading tests or any other measures of children’s behavior.
A new cognitive robotics lab at Rensselaer allows students to put theories of cognition to a real-world test.
Children exposed to Jalan Sesama, an Indonesian version of the children’s television show Sesame Street, had improved educational skills and healthy development, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Over a 14-week period, the children who had the greatest exposure to Jalan Sesama improved significantly in literacy, mathematics, early cognitive skills, safety knowledge and social awareness, compared to those with no or low exposure to the program.
Many people believe that the popular herb ginseng can improve thinking ability and prevent or even treat dementia. However, a comprehensive review of research failed to find convincing evidence of these benefits.
Research by a University of Iowa psychologists finds that tots who played with a broad array of objects learned new words twice as fast as those who played with a less diverse set of similar objects.
Exposure to nicotine during pregnancy leads to a decrease in adult stem cells and a change in synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus of the offspring, according to new research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Researchers say this could be a possible cause for behavioral problems such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) seen in children whose mothers smoked.
A mathematical model based on psychology theory allows computers to mimic human creative problem-solving, and provides a new roadmap to architects of artificial intelligence.
One person correctly remembers four of eight items just seen but is fuzzy on details. Another person recalls only two of the items but with amazingly precise clarity. So what ability translates to higher IQ? According to a University of Oregon study, the answer is very clear.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University used an fMRI to document reactions in the brain to compassionate and critical coaching. Students tended to activate areas of the brain associated with openness to learning when working with a coach who inspires. Students tended to shut down when they perceived the coach as judgmental.
A brain area known to play a critical role in vision is divided into compartments that respond separately to different colors and orientations, Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered. The findings have important implications for furthering our understanding of perception and attention.
Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may blame their daytime difficulties on simple sleepiness, but new research suggests that their brains may be to blame. Specifically, their cognitive challenges may be caused by structural deficits in gray matter, brought on by the intermittent oxygen deprivation that comes with OSA.
Ryerson researchers explore how cultural backgrounds may play a role in improving memory.
The amount of time parents spend talking about numbers has a much bigger impact on how young children learn mathematics than was previously known. Children whose parents talked more about numbers were much more likely to understand the number principle that the size of a set of objects is determined by the last number reached when counting the set.
People aren’t very accurate at predicting how good or bad they’ll feel after an event -- such as watching their team lose the big game or getting a flat-screen TV. But afterwards, they “misremember” what they predicted, revising their prognostications after the fact to match how they actually feel, according to new research.
Talking with other people in a friendly way can make it easier to solve common problems, a new University of Michigan study shows. But conversations that are competitive in tone, rather than cooperative, have no cognitive benefits.
Older adults who survived severe sepsis were more likely to develop substantial cognitive impairment and functional disability, according to a study in the October 27 issue of JAMA.
A study published Oct. 19 in the open access journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE, shows that not just human memories fade. Scientists from Arizona State University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences examined how aging impacts the ability of honey bees to find their way home.
Because of impairments in their insulin sensitivity, obese individuals demonstrate different brain responses than their normal-weight peers while completing a challenging cognitive task, according to new research by psychologists at The University of Texas at Austin.
New research suggests that walking at least six miles per week may protect brain size and in turn, preserve memory in old age, according to a study published in the October 13, 2010, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Turns out the silent and stoic response to stress might be a guy thing after all. A new study by USC researchers reveals that stressed men looking at angry faces had diminished activity in the brain regions responsible for understanding others’ feelings.
Children conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF) perform at least as well as their peers on academic tests at all ages from grade 3 to 12, according to a new University of Iowa study.
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that the naturally-occurring hormone oxytocin selectively improves social cognitive abilities for less socially proficient individuals, but has little effect on those who are more socially proficient. The study was published today in Psychological Science.
Cognitive scientists from the University of Rochester have discovered that playing action video games trains people to make the right decisions faster. The researchers found that video game players develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, and this benefit doesn’t just make them better at playing video games, but improves a wide variety of general skills that can help with everyday activities like multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends in a crowd, and navigating around town.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right