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T h e M e m o r y K e y
<http://www.memory-key.com>
Your resource for information about memory and memory
improvement
April 2009
<http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/issue_142.htm>
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THIS MONTH ON MEMORY-KEY.COM:
NEWS
Memory gets worse with age if you think about it
Mental exercise helps maintain cognitive function during aging
Individual differences in working memory capacity depend on two factors
Some short-term memories die suddenly, no fading
Meditation technique can temporarily improve visuospatial abilities
Sleep may help clear the brain for new learning
Adolescent binge drinking may compromise white matter
Stroke patients regain sight after intensive brain training
Bilingual babies get a head start on executive functioning
Visual expertise marked by left-side bias
Object recognition fast and early in processing
Research suggests words are seen as units and processed quickly
How the brain translates memory into action
Pictures better than words for memory-damaged patients
New tool can help predict Alzheimer's risks
Carriers of Alzheimer's gene show different brain activity as young adults
Eye tracking test detects mild cognitive impairment
Pain relievers don’t prevent Alzheimer's in the very elderly
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A revised print edition of
"The Memory Key" is now available as Perfect Memory Training
The original "The Memory Key" is still available as a
downloadable digital book.
Check it out at:
http://www.memory-key.com/shop/memkey_ebook.htm.
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Check out the e-book on "Effective notetaking" at:
http://www.memory-key.com/shop/notetaking_workbook.htm.
and the e-book on "Remembering intentions" at:
http://www.memory-key.com/shop/intention_ebook.htm
Note that you can use a credit card on Paypal; you don't
need
an account with them.
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Find out about my YA
novels at:
http://www.fmmcpherson.com/
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NEWS
<http://www.memory-key.com/InfoCenter/news.htm>
April 2009
<http://www.memory-key.com/news/2009/news_2009Apr.htm>
Memory gets worse with age if you think about it
Confirming research relating to gender and race,
a new study has shown that a senior's ability to remember something was heavily
influenced by the activation or inactivation of negative stereotypes.
Full report
Mental exercise helps maintain cognitive function during aging
A review concluded that cognitive
exercise training in healthy older individuals produced strong and long-lasting
protective effects on cognitive performance.
Full report
Individual differences in working memory capacity depend on two factors
A new computer model, backed up by brain imaging, supports the view that your working memory capacity is determined by
both storage capacity (in the posterior parietal cortex)
and prefrontal top-down control.
Full report
Some short-term memories die suddenly, no fading
A new study reveals that short-term visual memory doesn't fade away, but
retains its accuracy until it suddenly disappears.
Full report
Meditation technique can temporarily improve visuospatial abilities
And continuing on the subject of visual short-term memory,
a study finds that experienced practitioners of a form of meditation that
emphasises visual imagery (but not another type of meditation) display dramatic
improvement in mental rotation and visual memory immediately after meditating --
but otherwise their performance is no better than controls.
Full report
Sleep may help clear the brain for new learning
In a recent study, flies genetically altered
to make it easier to track individual synapses have revealed that during sleep
the number of new synapses formed during earlier learning decreased. It’s
theorised that this activity during sleep is a way of pruning the less relevant
and important synapses.
Full report
Adolescent binge drinking may compromise white matter
An imaging study of 28 teens has found that
those who had engaged in binge drinking episodes had lower coherence of
white
matter fibers in 18 different areas across the brain.
Full report
Stroke patients regain sight after intensive brain training
In a surprising and exciting finding, stroke victims left partially blind
have been trained to use undamaged parts of their brains to improve their
vision.
Full report
Bilingual babies get a head start on executive functioning
A new
study shows that bilingual babies quickly adapt to different learning cues at
seven months old compared with babies from single-language households, indicating that bilingualism gives an advantage above the purely
linguistic, in executive function.
Full report
Visual expertise marked by left-side bias
Facial recognition involves both
holistic processing and a left-side bias. A new study finds that Chinese characters are processed by non-Chinese readers more
holistically, and that native Chinese readers prefer characters that
are made of two left sides. These findings suggest that holistic processing is not used in general visual expertise,
but left-side bias is.
Full report
Object recognition fast and early in processing
A new study reveals that feedback from the
‘smart’ temporal lobe is less important in vision than we thought, that certain areas of the visual cortex selectively
respond to specific categories of objects.
Full report
Research suggests words are seen as units and processed quickly
What exactly is going on in our brain when we read? Two new
studies suggest the process is quicker and more direct than we thought, with one
brain region recognizing words as whole units rather than letter
by letter, and words being processed quickly, through direct connections between
visual and speech-processing systems.
Full report
How the brain translates memory into action
We know that the hippocampus is crucial for place learning,
especially for the rapid learning of temporary events (such as where we’ve
parked the car). Now a new study reveals the importance of a specific part of
the hippocampus that makes the connection between place and action.
Full report
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ALZHEIMER'S NEWS
<http://www.memory-key.com/Seniors/Alzheimers/Alzheimers_news.htm>
April 2009
<http://www.memory-key.com/Seniors/Alzheimers/Alzheimers_2009a.htm>
Pictures better than words for memory-damaged patients
We’ve long known that pictures are remembered better than
words. Now a study has found that this picture superiority still exists in those
with mild cognitive impairment and very mild
Alzheimer’s disease.
Full report
New tool can help predict Alzheimer's risks
A new 15-point scale of risk factors for Alzheimer's has been developed and
correctly classified 88% of the 3,375 older adults in the study. 56% of those
with scores of 8 or higher developed dementia within six years, compared to 23%
with moderate scores and just 4% with low scores.
Full report
Carriers of Alzheimer's gene show different brain activity as young adults
Possession of the
ApoE4 gene variant
associated with Alzheimer’s risk is found in about a quarter of the population,
and has been shown to be associated with differences in the
hippocampus in
middle-aged and elderly healthy carriers. Now a new study extends that to younger adults
(20-35).
Full report
Eye tracking test detects mild cognitive impairment
An infrared eye-tracking test has been shown to be effective in detecting mild cognitive impairment
in humans.
Full report
Pain relievers don’t prevent Alzheimer's in the very elderly
In contrast to a number of studies
indicating benefits of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in
preventing Alzheimer’s, a large, long-running study has revealed that the risk among the
very elderly was 66% higher
among heavy NSAID users.
Full report
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If you have missed any issue of the newsletter (those
people who use hotmail
in particular sometimes have their mail bounced back "overquota"),
you can
read back issues at:
http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/newsletters.htm
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The Memory Key website is named after my book "The
Memory Key", a
practical user-friendly handbook designed to help people
achieve
genuine, long-lasting memory improvement.
http://www.memory-key.com/AboutTheSite/about_book.htm
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1564144704/thememorykey-20
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Copyright © 2009 Capital Research Limited.
All Rights Reserved
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