By Maria Cohut Fact checked by Gianna D’Emilio Two new studies assess how working memory — the memory we use on a day-to-day basis in decision-making processes — is affected by age, mood, and sleep quality and whether these factors impact memory together or on their own. Working memory is the short-term memory that a person uses...
Tag: <span>Memory</span>
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How the olfactory brain affects memory
RUHR-UNIVERSITY BOCHUM How sensory perception in the brain affects learning and memory processes is far from fully understood. Two neuroscientists of Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have discovered a new aspect of how the processing of odours impacts memory centres. They showed that the piriform cortex – a part of the olfactory brain – has a direct influence on information storage in our most important memory structure, the hippocampus....
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Memory like a sieve
by Freie Universitaet Berlin Credit: CC0 Public Domain Humans are not only capable of forming memories but also recalling these memories years later. However, with advancing age many of us face difficulties with forming new memories, a process usually referred to as age-induced memory impairment. Developing an elaborate understanding of this process is a precondition for...
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More vitamin D may improve memory but too much may slow reaction time
Rutgers-led study of post-menopausal women finds potential risks and benefits RUTGERS UNIVERSITY How much vitamin D can boost memory, learning and decision-making in older adults, and how much is too much? A unique Rutgers-led study found that overweight and obese older women who took more than three times the recommended daily dose of vitamin D...
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Watching TV leads to a decline in memory in people over 50
There is nothing we value more than our mind. We want to be smart and we want to surround ourselves with smart people. We would do anything to make our minds healthy, but there are certain things that do not help our cognitive function and memory. Scientists from UCL found that watching TV for more than 3.5 hours per day...
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Why two people see the same thing but have different memories
Does it ever strike you as odd that you and a friend can experience the same event at the same time, but come away with different memories of what happened? So why is it that people can recall the same thing so differently? We all know memory isn’t perfect, and most memory differences are relatively trivial. But sometimes they can have serious consequences. Credit: Shutterstock/Photographee.eu Imagine if you both witnessed a crime. What factors lead...
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Working memory might be more flexible than previously thought
Breaking with the long-held idea that working memory has fixed limits, a new study by researchers at Uppsala University and New York University suggests that these limits adapt themselves to the task that one is performing. The results are presented in the scientific journal eLife. Credit: CC0 Public Domain You can read this sentence from beginning to end...
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Waves move across the human brain to support memory
The coordination of neural activity across widespread brain networks is essential for human cognition. Researchers have long assumed that oscillations in the brain, commonly measured for research purposes, brain-computer interfacing, and clinical tests, were stationary signals that occurred independently at separate brain regions. Biomedical engineers at Columbia Engineering have discovered a new fundamental feature of...
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What helps form long-term memory also drives the development of neurodegenerative disease
Dublin, Tuesday 22nd May, 2018 – Scientists have just discovered that a small region of a cellular protein that helps long-term memories form also drives the neurodegeneration seen in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). This small part of the Ataxin-2 protein thus works for good and for bad. When a version of the protein lacking this...
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New research puts distinct memories of similar events in their place
Neuroscientists have found new evidence on how distinct memories of similar events are represented in the brain. Its findings, which appear in the journal Neuron, correct a previous misconception of how such memories are stored in the hippocampus–a part of the brain crucial for memory and understanding space. “Previous research suggested that brain cells were ‘re-mapped’ in making...