Tero Toivanen's List: neuropsykologia ja kognitiivinen psykologia

• The major finding was that increased working memory capacity following training was associated with changes in brain biochemistry. Specifically, the researchers found changes in the density and binding potential of cortical D1 dopamine receptors in brain regions that are activated during working memory tasks.

• If you give girls and boys language tasks, most girls will process the information in the same way (in a specialized language area)
• help them with word storage and retrieval
• But for boys, sensitivity to the modality of how words are presented means that an extra steps need to be taken to match words that are picked up by listening and words that are read on the printed page. No wonder dyslexia is much more common in boys - the separate system means that the sight and sound of words are learned as distinct processes.
• As a result, verbal competence may be strong in one domain (oral speech for instance), but be weak in another (reading).
• because boys require two areas and a matching of visual-auditory inputs, impairment in one system may cause the whole language coordination process to fail.
• The visual-auditory gap may also be why some boys may need to read word-for-word outloud or to themselves (i.e. not silently read) in order to fully comprehend or remember the story.
• Some careful consideration needs to made of instructional implications for boys given some of these new discoveries. Learning by listening and learning by reading are not synonymous; route-congruent factors(listening - oral presentation, reading - written response) may need to be considered when a learning gap or frank underachievement is seen, and an insistence on the availability of auditory-visual supports (reading along with books-on-tape, detailed handouts for lecture courses) should be a requirement of every classroom.

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• New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.
• Young children with sensory processing disorders are especially susceptible to behavioral and attention problems if they are not allowed to move and exercise throughout their day.

• Marc G. Berman and colleagues at the University of Michigan wanted to test the effect of a walk’s scenery on cognitive function (Berman, Jonides & Kaplan, 2008; PDF).
• In the first of two studies participants were given a 35 minute task involving repeating loads of random numbers back to the experimenter, but in reverse order.
• The results showed that people’s performance on the test improved by almost 20% after wandering amongst the trees. By comparison those subjected to a busy street did not reliably improve on the test.
• In the second study participants weren’t even allowed to leave the lab but instead some stared at pictures of natural scenes while others looked at urban environments. The improvements weren’t quite as impressive as the first study, but, once again, the trees and fields beat the roads and lampposts.
• These results replicated a previous study by Berto (2005) who found that just viewing pictures of natural scenes had a restorative effect on cognitive function.
• So just as we might have predicted nature is a kind of natural cognitive enhancer, helping our brain let off steam so it can cruise back up to full functioning.
• When our minds need refreshing and if natural scenery is accessible, we should take the opportunity. If not then just looking at pictures of nature is a reasonable second best.

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• Apples

  Quercetin is the flavonoid that enables  apples to keep the doctor away. Quercetin has been shown to reduce  cancer risk, prevent heart attacks, stave off cataracts, control asthma,  prevent recurrent gout attacks, and speed healing from acid  reflux.

   

  
  

   Green Tea

  Green tea contains, among others, the  cancer-fighting flavonoid epigallocatechin gallate (ECGC). ECGC is unique  in that it seems to battle cancer at all stages, from thwarting chemical  carcinogens, to suppressing the spread of tumors. ECGC is as much as 100  times more powerful an antioxidant as vitamin C, and 25 times more  powerful than vitamin E. ECGC also may account for the antibacterial  properties of green tea.

   

  
  

   Chocolate

  Chocolate contains many of the same  flavonoids found in tea. The darker the chocolate, the more flavonoids  present. Cocoa powder is the richest source by weight, and to maximize  your benefits, make your hot chocolate from scratch. Homemade hot  chocolate will provide you with more flavonoids than a store-bought  mix.

   

  
  

   Red Wine

  Flavonoids are the source of the  well-known "French Paradox"—the ability of the French to consume lots of  fat-laden cheese without dropping like flies from heart attacks. The red  wine they enjoy is flavonoid-rich, which lowers their risk of  heart disease. And if you're not a drinker, you can get almost all the  same benefits from purple grape juice.

• Now referred to as long-term potentiation (LTP), this mechanism has since become the most intensively studied in modern neuroscience,and is widely believed to be the cellular basis of learning and memory, although this is yet to be proven unequivocally.
• In the new study, Santiago Canals of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen and his colleagues used the same protocol to induce LTP. But while the vast majority of researchers have investigated LTP in slices of hippocampal tissue, this study involved observing LTP in live animals.
• This new research provides the first evidence that the local modifications in synaptic connections induced by LTP lead to long-lasting changes in the activity of a diffuse network of brain regions, and even to facilitated communication between the two hemispheres. The fMRI data showed that hippocampal LTP recruits higher order association areas, as well as regions involved in emotions and others subserving different sensory modalities, all of which are known to be involved in memory formation.

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• Las arterias calcificadas, sin embargo, se encontraron en el 27   por ciento de aquellos que dormían menos de cinco horas diarias por   noche y el porcentaje era de un 11 por ciento en quienes dormían   entre cinco y siete horas diarias por noche, y de tan sólo un seis   por ciento en quienes dormían más de siete horas por noche.

• Increasing evidence has shown that, in animal stroke models, administering melatonin significantly reduces infarct volume, edema, and oxidative damage and improves electrophysiological and behavioral performance.
• Given that melatonin shows almost no toxicity to humans and possesses multifaceted protective capacity against cerebral ischemia, it is valuable to consider using melatonin in clinical trials on patients suffering from stroke.