Neuroscience

Your memory can play tricks on you. Shutterstock By Catherine Loveday, University of Westminster Six weeks ago I arrived back in London after my first trip to Australia. It felt considerably colder than the 34 degrees we’d left behind in Sydney, but the skies were clear and blue. Or were they? My partner said no, it had been pouring with rain. I had felt absolutely sure, but now I had started to doubt myself, like those moments when you vividly remember leaving something somewhere, only to find it’s not there. Humor me a moment and try the same thing. Think back to a specific event that you…

It's not in the bones, but it might not be in the brain either. X-ray image by Shutterstock By Andreas Goebel, University of Liverpool One in five of us has been experiencing chronic pain over the past three months, or longer. Chronic pain won’t kill us; it just makes our lives miserable. More miserable, research suggests, than for example having asthma or diabetes. So if chronic pain is a common, dismal health state, why don’t we talk more about it? Perhaps because in many cases we don’t know why we get it. As we often don’t find a reason for this invisible conundrum, we may tend to believe…

Imagine we gave you three letters, say G, C and D. Then we gave you a name to associate to some combination of those three letters. How many could you recall on command? Guitarists in cover bands do that all of the time. They can play thousands of songs from memory, and it's not uncommon in most musicians. There have been numerous studies regarding music and memory and a peek inside the brains of professional musicians adds to that. Heekyeong Park, assistant professor of psychology at University of Texas at Arlington, and graduate student James Schaeffer used electroencephalography (EEG)…

Neurons - cells in the brain that communicate chemical and electrical information - belong to one of two groups, inhibitory or excitatory. Much is known about excitatory neurons but not so much for inhibitory ones. Inhibitory neurons can vibrate and they are equipped with mechanisms that enable them to persuade networks of other neurons into imitating their vibrations - setting off 'Mexican waves' (referring to the popular fan event that came to international fame during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City) in the brain. Scientists believe these collective, oscillating vibrations play a role in…

A new study finds that people of 1914 may have had worse memory than people of 1814. The reason is partially hydrogenated oil - trans fats - that became a cheaper, healthier replacement for the saturated fats in butter. Crystallized cottonseed oil - Crisco - came onto the marketplace in 1911 and it revolutionized pie crusts but now the government says they should be banned and they now have a new reason why. The reason is epidemiology and a new presentation at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014. The authors found that 1,000 healthy men who said they consumed the most…

A single gram of turmeric at breakfast could help improve the memory of people who are in the very early stages of diabetes and potentially at greater risk of cognitive impairment. Turmeric is widely used in Asian cooking. Its characteristic yellow color is due to curcumin, which accounts for 3 to 6 per cent of turmeric and has been found in some studies to reduce the risk of dementia. The finding has particular significance given that the world's aging population and higher risk of dementia. Monash University Professor Wahlqvist recently led a study in Taiwan that tested the working memory…

Some people have great memories - almost like they are looking at a photograph. What is the secret? Will it be possible to change the amount of information the brain can store? Maybe. Researchers have identified a molecule that puts the brakes on brain processing. When the brake is removed, brain function and memory recall is improved.   Credit:McGill FXR1P: a controller of certain forms of memory "Previous research has shown that production of new molecules is necessary for storing memories in the brain; if you block the production of these molecules, new memory formation does…

Here's a diet tip that is certain to work: Eat nothing and drink nothing except water from 6 PM until you wake up the next day. With no dieting at all, you are certain to lose weight unless you go out of your way to eat three Big Macs at dinner. The reason is because your other organs and your brain start communicating - and many of them get a break from constantly processing food.  Studies have found that mice who accumulated the most glycogen in the liver did not gain weight in spite of having access to an appetizing diet. In addition to observing that those animals ate less,…

Frightening experiences stick with us but a new study finds that the bonding hormone oxytocin inhibits the fear center in the brain and allows fear stimuli to subside more easily.  Significant fear becomes deeply entrenched in memory. Following a car accident, for example, some people are afraid to drive and even screeching tires can invoke significant anxiety. In such "conditioning", certain images or noises are very closely intertwined with the experience of pain or fear. Gradually, people re-learn that not every screeching tire means danger, a process of overwriting in the memory is…

Whether playing video games has negative effects is something that has been debated for 30 years, in much the same way that rock and roll, television, and even the novel faced much the same criticisms in their time. Purported negative effects such as addiction, increased aggression, and various health consequences such as obesity and repetitive strain injuries tend to get far more media coverage than the positives. I know from my own research examining both sides that my papers on video game addiction receive far more publicity than my research into the social benefits of, for example,…