About memory

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 lower still in those who smoked more than a pack a day.

A study has found that those given alcohol equivalent to around 2 glasses of wine experienced more flashbacks from a video of serious road traffic accidents than those given twice as much alcohol, and those given none. The findings support the view that flashbacks reflect the reactivation of sensory memory in the absence of contextual memory.

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.

An imaging study has found differences in brain activity that explain why older adults are better at remembering positive events.

A study assessing multitasking ability has found that a very few (5 out of 200) were unaffected by doing two complex tasks simultaneously (indeed their performance on the memory task improved!).

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. Are they genetically protected, or reaping the benefits of a preventive lifestyle?

• An imaging study involving 79 volunteers aged 44 to 88 has found more brain atrophy and faster rates of decline in brain regions particularly affected by aging, among those ranked high in neuroticism traits.

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.

A mouse study has found working memory training improved their proficiency on a wide range of cognitive tests, and helped them 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, and that forewarning doesn't help.

Perhaps we should start thinking of language less as some specialized process and more as a particular approach to thought. A study involving native signers of American Sign Language adds to the increasing body of evidence that we process words in the same way as we do the concepts represented by the words; speaking (or reading) is, neutrally speaking, the same as doing.

Visual working memory, which can only hold three of four objects at a time, is thought to be based on synchronized brain activity across a network of brain regions. Now a new study has allowed us to get a better picture of how exactly that works.

An intriguing set of experiments has showed how you can improve vision by manipulating mindset.

A study involving severe amnesiacs has found that induced feelings of happiness or sadness persist long after the memory of the event. The findings challenge the idea that by minimizing a specific memory of past trauma, associated sadness will also decrease, and also point to the need for care in dealing with those with impaired memory — don’t assume that any induced emotion will vanish as quickly as the memory of it.

The role of the dopamine-regulating COMT gene in cognitive function has been the subject of debate. Now a large study of older adults has revealed that the Met variant of the COMT gene was linked to a greater decline in cognitive function. This effect was more pronounced for African-Americans.

• 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.
• A new study suggests that this gene variant is also associated with loss of brain tissue, in that, if you have this gene variant, your weight is associated with neuron loss, and if you don't, it isn’t.

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 — perhaps reflecting the brain's attempt to find useful associations.

A study involving healthy institutionalized infants from six Romanian orphanages has found that those randomly assigned to a foster care program showed rapid increases in height and weight, and that this was associated with better caregiving quality and significantly improved verbal IQ.