memory
PositiveTip for
Physical Activity Improves Attention and Memory in Children
Posted by Galen Bosley on
Physical activity improves attention and memory in children.
Healthy, but less physically fit pre-adolescent children appear to have more difficulty in executive control and relational memory processes. These functions include the ability to selectively focus attention or change focus when needed and to remember facts or objects that have been recently shown.
PositiveTip: Exercise is good for all ages, and is especially critical for school-age children and adolescents.
PositiveTip for
Brain Benefits of Exercise Keep Rolling In
Posted by Fred Hardinge on
Endurance exercise prevented premature death in mice bred for premature aging.
Five months of forced endurance exercise for 45 minutes three times a week, in mice that were bred for accelerated aging, resulted in fewer biomarkers of aging compared to both normal mice and sedentary mice that had the same mutation. Exercise prevented premature death.
PostiveTip: Physical activity decreases the biomarkers for dementia and increases gray-matter volume in the brain.
PositiveTip for
Physical Activity Can Reverse Brain Loss in Elderly
Posted by Fred Hardinge on
Physical activity can preserve memory in the brains of the elderly.
A group of 120 older adults were randomly assigned between two groups: the first group had three moderate aerobic workouts a week, and the second group only stretched for the same amount of time. MRI imaging and memory tests were done at the beginning, after 6 months and after 1 year. Those who only stretched showed a 1.4% decline in brain volume (the hippocampus), while the brain volume of those who moderately exercised actually increased more than 2%. Both groups had memory improvement, but the group doing aerobic exercise showed more.
PositiveTip: Moderate aerobic exercise is a pretty cheap and easy-to-implement intervention to preserve brain function.
Children’s Media Use and Sleep Problems
Posted by Gary Hopkins on
The following information comes from the Kaiser Family Foundation website in a report called Children’s Media Use and Sleep Problems: Issues and Unanswered Questions.
Research shows that poor sleep causes a wide variety of problems among children. Many of the issues faced by parents and pediatricians -- from obesity to aggression to hyperactivity -- are caused or increased by inadequate sleep.
A lot of people don't know that while the body rests, the brain does not. The first system to suffer from poor sleep is the brain's ability to organize activities and pay attention. These are referred to as executive functions.
Mind Exercises
Posted by Elvin Adams on
"Brain training" is a multi-million dollar industry. These activities are intensive computerized training exercises designed to improve your cognitive ability — to grow your brain.
In a recent issue of Nature, researchers recruited more than 11,000 participants and divided them into different study groups. These groups had "brain training" several times each week on tasks that were supposed to improve reasoning, memory, planning, eye-hand coordination and attention span. Each participant was tested on basic mental function before and after the six weeks of training.
PositiveTip for
Use of Illegal Drugs and Cognitive Performance
Posted by Fred Hardinge on
Moderate canabis and ecstasy use reduce memory and attention in young adults.
The regular use of some illegal drugs may cause cognitive impairments. Two of these substances are "ecstasy" and "canabis". Recent research has focussed on attention and memory in a community-based sample of young adults derived from a large-scale epidemiological study. Subjects were sampled with varying degrees of lifetime drug use.
A dose-response relationship was found for poorer episodic memory function when ecstasy and cannabis were used. There was also a stronger tendency for attention to lapse with the higher use of these drugs.
PositiveTip: For maximum memory and alertness stay away from all illegal drugs.