Memory News Digest

========================================

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

June 2006

<http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/issue_84.htm>

========================================
THIS MONTH ON MEMORY-KEY.COM:

NEWS
Alzheimer's pathology related to episodic memory loss in those without dementia
Brain function not impaired by tight diabetes control and hypoglycemia
Why are uniforms uniform? Because color helps us track objects
Talking on a cellphone while driving as bad as drinking
People remember prices more easily if they have fewer syllables
Increasing consumer preferences by manipulating memory
Language affects how math is done?
Language center executive organizer of action plans
Fat hormone linked to learning and memory
Face Blindness Is A Common Hereditary Disorder
Prevalence of combat-related PTSD
Skills related to early language learning
How does the bilingual brain distinguish between languages?
Asymmetrical brains let fish multitask
Primates take weather into account when searching for fruits
Connections between neurons act as information filters in the brain

PODCAST

BLOG

========================================
Find out more about my e-book on "Remembering intentions" at:
http://www.memory-key.com/shop/intention_ebook.htm

========================================
Find out about my new YA novel at:
http://www.fmmcpherson.com/

========================================
NEWS
<http://www.memory-key.com/MemoryGuide/news.htm>

June 2006
<http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm>

Alzheimer's pathology related to episodic memory loss in those without dementia
Data from 2 longitudinal studies provide further support for the idea that a ‘cognitive reserve’ can allow people to tolerate a significant amount of Alzheimer's pathology without manifesting obvious dementia. The study found more than a third of the apparently normal participants met criteria for a post-mortem diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. This group also scored significantly lower on tests for episodic memory, such as recalling stories and word lists. The results raise the question whether we should accept any minor episodic memory loss in older adults as 'normal'.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#episodic

Brain function not impaired by tight diabetes control and hypoglycemia
Fears that episodes of severe hypoglycemia might lead to a long-term loss of cognitive ability have been allayed by a study finding no link between multiple severe hypoglycemic reactions and impaired cognitive function in people with type 1 diabetes.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#diabetes

Why are uniforms uniform? Because color helps us track objects
We can pay attention to only 3 objects at a time, so how do we follow a soccer match? It turns out we can focus on more than three items at a time if those items share a common color. But, logically enough, no more than 3 color sets.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#color

Talking on a cellphone while driving as bad as drinking
Yet another study has come out rubbing it in that multitasking comes with a cost, and most particularly, that you shouldn’t do anything else while driving. This study demonstrates — shockingly — that drivers are actually worse off when using a cell phone than when legally drunk.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#driving

People remember prices more easily if they have fewer syllables
The phonological loop — an important component of working memory —can only hold 1.5 to 2 seconds of spoken information. For that reason, faster speakers have an advantage over slower speakers. Now a consumer study reveals that every extra syllable in a product's price decreases its chances of being remembered by 20%.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#syllables

Increasing consumer preferences by manipulating memory
In two experiments, people who had to solve an anagram before seeing a target brand, they were more likely to claim to have seen the brand before, and to prefer it over competing brands.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#preferences

Language affects how math is done?
A comparison of activity in the brains of Chinese and English participants doing simple arithmetic using Arabic numbers has found that, although both groups utilised the inferior parietal cortex (an area connected to quantity representation and reading), English speakers displayed more activity in the language processing area of the brain, while Chinese speakers used the area of the brain that deals with processing visual information.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#math

Language center executive organizer of action plans
Broca's area (traditionally known as the ‘language center’) and its counterpart in the right hemisphere, becomes active when people are asked to organize plans of action — an activity that we must now distinguish from a simple action sequence, which didn’t require these regions. This general executive function may explain Broca’s key role in language production.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#plans

Fat hormone linked to learning and memory
A new study reveals why obese patients who have diabetes also may have problems with their long-term memory. The research suggests that leptin — the so-called ‘fat’ hormone — plays a role in learning and memory. Moreover, mice with elevated levels of amyloid-beta plaques (characteristic of Alzheimer's) were particularly sensitive to leptin.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#Fat

Face blindness is a common hereditary disorder
A German study has found 17 cases (2.5%) of the supposedly rare disorder prosopagnosia (face blindness) among 689 subjects recruited from local secondary schools and a medical school. Of the 14 subjects who consented to further interfamilial testing, all of them had at least one first degree relative who also had it.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#Face

Prevalence of combat-related PTSD
A reanalysis has explained the large discrepancy in the findings of two large independent studies on the prevalence of PTSD in US veterans. When a narrow and specific set of criteria were used, prevalence estimates for combat-related PTSD were 2.5% and 2.9% for the two data sets, respectively, while prevalence estimates 12.2% and 15.8% were found when broader and more sensitive criteria were used.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#PTSD

Skills related to early language learning
A study of more than 120 children aged 21 months — a peak time for language learning — has found a link between language learning and several motor and cognitive skills.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#language

How does the bilingual brain distinguish between languages?
Studies of bilingual people have found that the same brain regions are similarly activated by both languages. A new imaging study reveals that control of which language is used comes from the left caudate.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#bilingual

Asymmetrical brains let fish multitask
A fish study provides support for a theory that lateralized brains allow animals to better handle multiple activities, explaining why vertebrate brains evolved to function asymmetrically.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#fish

Primates take weather into account when searching for fruits
In recent times, a popular hypothesis for why primates, and especially humans, have more strongly developed cognitive skills than other mammals, is that they result from the need for complex social skills. There is quite a lot of support for this argument. But it is not the only possibility and a recent study has provided support for an alternative: that it evolved to deal with ecological problems, such as foraging for food.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#weather

Connections between neurons act as information filters in the brain
Synapses — the connections between brain cells — have long been known to be important in information-processing, but the exact nature of their role has not been clear. Are they a crucial part of the processing itself, or simply part of the transport system? A new study provides the long-awaited experimental confirmation, that synapses act to filter the “noise” and makes the information processing reliable.
http://www.memory-key.com/news/2006/news_2006Jun.htm#filters

========================================
PODCAST

This month I discuss several news items that didn't make it into this
months news digest.

This link will take you to a schedule for the program:
http://www.memory-key.com/podcasts/podnews706.htm

There is also a transcript available.

My apologies for putting in the wrong link last month. It should have
been:
http://www.memory-key.com/podcasts/podcast706.htm

========================================
BLOG
www.memory-key.com/blogger.html

Latest posts:

* happiness
* Foreign Accent Syndrome
* ‘sleep efficiency'

* mental immaturity – the good and the bad
* empathy in mice
* Images of eyes keep people honest
* no particular advantage in a single-sex education
* fatherhood alters the brain
* stuttering and emotional arousal and control

Note that the blog is indexed chronologically at
http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index.htm

And by subject, at http://www.memory-key.com/indices/blog_index2.htm

You can also access my blog with an RSS feed. The URL is
http://memory-key.com/ftp.memory-key.com/atom.xml, or just click the
Bloglines button on the sidebar of my blog.

========================================

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

========================================

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

========================================

This issue may be FREELY distributed as long as the
entire issue is included.

Subscribers can easily change their email address at:
http://www.memory-key.com/newsletters/address.htm

If you are not already subscribed and you wish to receive it free
by Email each week, transmit "subscribe" as the subject header of
an Email message to: <mailto:newsletter@memory-key.com>

To unsubscribe, transmit "unsubscribe" as the subject header.

Related topics