Some years ago I wrote an article discussing the fact that the so-called Mozart effect has proved very hard to replicate since its ‘discovery’ in 1993, but now we have what is regarded as a definitive review, analyzing the entirety of the scientific record on the topic (including a number of unpublished academic theses), and the finding is very clear: there is little support for the view that listening to Mozart improves cognitive (specifically spatial) abilities. First of all, in those studies showing an effect, it was very small.

Another study showing the cognitive benefits of meditation has revealed benefits to perception and attention. The study involved 30 participants attending a three-month meditation retreat, during which they attended group sessions twice a day and engaging in individual practice for about six hours a day. The meditation practice involved sustained selective attention on a chosen stimulus (e.g., the participant’s breath).

A rat study has revealed that as the rats slowly learned a new rule, groups of neurons in the medial frontal cortex switched quite abruptly to a new pattern corresponding directly to the shift in behavior, rather than showing signs of gradual transition. Such sudden neural and behavioral transitions may correspond to so- called "a-ha" moments, and support the idea that rule learning is an evidence-based decision process, perhaps accompanied by moments of sudden insight.

A national Swedish study involving the 1.16 million children in a national birth cohort identified nearly 8000 on the country's Prescribed Drug Register as using a prescription for ADHD medication (and thus assumed to suffer from severe ADHD). These children were significantly more likely to come from a family on welfare benefits (135% more likely), to have a mother with only the most basic education (130% more likely than those with mothers with university degrees), and to come from a single parent family (54% more likely).

Data from the same long-running study (the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development), this time involving 1,364 youth (followed since birth), found that teens who had spent the most hours in non-relative child care in their first 4½ years reported a slightly greater tendency toward impulsiveness and risk-taking at 15 than did peers who spent less time in child care (21% were in care for more than 30 hours a week; 24% had had more than one year of care by 4 ½).

A study following nearly 1300 young children from birth through the first grade provides more evidence for the importance of self-regulation for academic achievement. The study found that children showing strong self-regulation in preschool and kindergarten did significantly better on math, reading and vocabulary at the end of first grade, independent of poverty, ethnic status, and maternal education (all of which had significant negative effects on reading, math, and vocabulary achievement in first grade).

A study comparing the brains 32 adult women with Anorexia Nervosa and 21 healthy women has revealed that when the women with anorexia were in a state of starvation they had less brain tissue (especially in grey matter) compared to the healthy women. Those who had the illness the longest had the greatest reductions in brain volume when underweight. Happily, these deficits began to reverse after several weeks of weight gain.

The first comparison of the brain sizes of social and non-social individuals of the same species provides more support for the social brain hypothesis (we evolved our big brains to deal with social groups). The tropical sweat bee species, Megalopta genalis, have two sorts of queen: solitary ones, who themselves go out from the nest to forage for food, or social ones — who stay at home and sends out her daughters.

A new study suggests that our memory for visual scenes may not depend on how much attention we’ve paid to it or what a scene contains, but when the scene is presented. In the study, participants performed an attention-demanding letter-identification task while also viewing a rapid sequence of full-field photographs of urban and natural scenes. They were then tested on their memory of the scenes.

Several reports have come out in recent years on how recent events replay in the

It is well known that the onset of puberty marks the end of the optimal period for learning language and certain spatial skills, such as computer/video game operation. A mouse study has now revealed that this is connected to an increase in a specific brain receptor (named Alpha4-Beta-Delta GABA-A). However, the learning deficit could be reversed by application of a stress steroid (THP). Although this natural hormone acts on adults like a tranquilizer, in adolescents it has a stimulation effect. The findings suggest that mild stress may be useful to improve learning in adolescents.

An implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) is a small electronic device that monitors and regulates heartbeat, and many have been implanted in patients — an estimated 114,000 in the U.S. in 2006. Part of the implantation process involves ventricular defibrillation testing, which temporarily disrupts brain activity by causing a drop in blood pressure and blood flow to the brain.

A rat study shows how Ritalin improves concentration and, it now appears, speed of learning. The study reveals that it does this by increasing the activity of

An imaging study has revealed that children (aged 5-15) whose mothers abused methamphetamine and alcohol during pregnancy had structural abnormalities in the brain that were more severe than those seen in children whose mothers abused alcohol alone. In particular, the striatal region was significantly smaller, and within the group, size of the caudate correlated negatively with IQ.

When a pregnant woman uses cocaine, it can interrupt the flow of nutrients and oxygen to the baby, putting such children at risk for premature birth, low birth weight and many other problems. However a new review of 32 major studies of school-age children reveals that the consequences for the brain are less sweeping than feared. Although many of the children did have low IQ and poor academic and language achievement, this seems to be related more to the home environment.

Like human faces, infants are predisposed to pay attention to words. Now a new study shows that they learn concepts from them from a very early age. In the study, in which 46 three-month-old infants were shown a series of pictures of fish that were paired either with words (e.g., "Look at the toma!") or beeps (carefully matched to the words for tone and duration), those who heard the words subsequently showed signs of having formed the category “fish”, while those who heard the tones did not.

Supporting the idea that repeated anaesthesia in children can lead to memory impairment, a rodent study has revealed that repeated anaesthesia wiped out a large portion of the stem cells in the

And in another pilot study, people deprived of speech following a stroke were taught to sing words instead of speaking them in a technique known as 'melodic intonation therapy'. Brain scans also showed functional and structural changes in the undamaged hemisphere after they had received the therapy. Doctors are now testing the therapy in 30 stroke patients to assess how many people who lose their speech after a stroke would benefit.

A pilot study suggests that video games for the Nintendo Wii could help stroke victims recover fine motor function (such as finger dexterity) and gross motor function (such as arm movements) two months after a stroke. The ten patients randomly assigned to playing these games for about six hours over the course of two weeks showed significantly better recovery, and none of the adverse effects (like nausea or dizziness) that were reported in the other group assigned to recreational games such as cards or the block-stacking game Jenga. A clinical trial is now underway.

A 12-year study following the drinking and smoking habits of 22,524 people aged 39-79 has found that in non-smokers, people who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol were 37% less likely to develop stroke than non-drinkers. This association was not found among smokers. The finding may explain the inconsistency in previous studies into the relationship between light to moderate drinking and stroke.

Data from more than 20,000 18-year-old Israeli men has revealed that IQ scores are lower in male adolescents who smoke compared to non-smokers, and in twin brothers who smoke compared to their non-smoking brothers. The average IQ for a non-smoker was about 101, while the smokers' average was about 94, with those who smoked more than a pack a day being lower still, at about 90. 28% of the sample smoked one or more cigarettes a day, 3% identified as ex-smokers, and 68% said they never smoked.

A study in which nearly 50 participants consumed either alcohol (.4 or .8 g/kg, around 2 or 4 glasses of wine) or a placebo drink, performed a memory task, then were shown a video of serious road traffic accidents, has found that those given the smaller amount of alcohol experienced more flashbacks during the next week than those given the larger amount of alcohol, and those given no alcohol.

It’s well established that we are better at recognizing faces of our own racial group, but a new study shows that this ability disappears when we’re mildly intoxicated. The study tested about 140 university students of Western European and east-Asian descent and found that recognition of different-race faces was unaffected by alcohol, yet both groups showed impaired recognition of own-race faces, bringing it down to about the same level of accuracy as for different-race faces. Those given a placebo drink were unaffected.

An imaging study reveals why older adults are better at remembering positive events. The study, involving young adults (ages 19-31) and older adults (ages 61-80) being shown a series of photographs with positive and negative themes, found that while there was no difference in brain activity patterns between the age groups for the negative photos, there were age differences for the positive photos.

A study assessing the performance of 200 people on a simulated freeway driving task, with or without having a cell phone conversation that involved memorizing words and solving math problems, has found that, as expected, performance on both tasks was significantly impaired. However, for a very few, performance on these tasks was unaffected (indeed their performance on the memory task improved!). These few people — five of them (2.5%) — also performed substantially better on these tasks when performed alone.

Examination of the brains from 9 “super-aged” — people over 80 whose memory performance was at the level of 50-year-olds — has found that some of them had almost no tau tangles. The accumulation of tau tangles has been thought to be a natural part of the aging process; an excess of them is linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The next step is to work out why some people are immune to tangle formation, while others appear immune to the effects. Perhaps the first group is genetically protected, while the others are reaping the benefits of a preventive lifestyle.

An imaging study involving 79 volunteers aged 44 to 88 has found lower volumes of gray matter and faster rates of decline in the frontal and medial temporal

Love this one! A series of experiments with college students has revealed that a glowing, bare light bulb can improve your changes of solving an insight problem. In one experiment, 79 students were given a spatial problem to solve. Before they started, the experimenter, remarking “It’s a little dark in here”, either turned on a lamp with an unshaded 25-watt bulb or an overhead fluorescent light. Twice as many of those exposed to the bare bulb solved the problem in the allotted three minutes (44% vs 22%).

A study in which 60 young adult mice were trained on a series of maze exercises designed to challenge and improve their working memory ability (in terms of retaining and using current spatial information), has found that the mice improved their proficiency on a wide range of cognitive tests, and moreover better retained their cognitive abilities into old age.

A new study provides more support for the idea that cognitive decline in older adults is a product of a growing inability to ignore distractions. Moreover, the study, involving 21 older adults (60-80) shown random sequences of pictures containing faces and scenes and asked to remember only the scene or the face, reveals that being given forewarning about which specific pictures would be relevant (say the second, or the fourth) did not help.

Perhaps we should start thinking of language less as some specialized process and more as one approach to thought. A study involving native signers of American Sign Language (which has the helpful characteristic that subject-object relationships can be expressed in either of the two ways languages usually use: word order or inflection) has revealed that there are distinct regions of the brain that are used to process the two types of sentences: those in which word order determined the relationships between the sentence elements, and those in which inflection was providing the information.

Visual

An intriguing set of experiments showing how you can improve perception by manipulating mindset found significantly improved vision when:

A study involving five patients with severe amnesia due to damage in the

The role of the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene in cognitive function has been the subject of some debate. The gene, which affects dopamine, comes in two flavors: Val and Met.

A variant of a gene called the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene causes people to gain weight and puts them at risk for obesity. The gene variant is found in nearly half of all people in the U.S. with European ancestry, around one-quarter of U.S. Hispanics, 15 percent of African Americans and 15 percent of Asian Americans. A new study involving 206 healthy elderly subjects from around the U.S. now suggests that this gene variant is also associated with loss of brain tissue. It’s not clear why, but the gene is highly expressed in the brain.

It’s now well established that sleep plays an important role in memory and learning. Now a new study suggests that dreams also play a part in consolidating memories. The study involved 99 subjects training for an hour on a computerized maze task, and then either taking a 90-minute nap or engaging in quiet activities. Intermittently, subjects were asked to describe what was going through their minds, or what they had been dreaming about. Five hours after training, the subjects were retested on the maze task.

A study involving 136 healthy institutionalized infants (average age 21 months) from six orphanages in Bucharest, Romania, has found that those randomly assigned to a foster care program showed rapid increases in height and weight (but not head circumference), so that by 12 months, all of them were in the normal range for height, 90% were in the normal range for weight, and 94% were in the normal range of weight for height. Caregiving quality (particularly sensitivity and positive regard for the child, including physical affection) positively correlated with catch-up.