Posts tagged cognition
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Music has big brain benefits compared to other leisure pursuits
Music rocks. Musical activity was found to preserve cognition, including memory, as you age, when comparing variability in cognitive outcomes of older adults active in musical instrumental and other leisure activities.
You won’t lose it if you don’t use it. A range of cognitive benefits including memory were sustained for musicians between the ages of 60-80 if they played for at least 10 years throughout their life, confirming the maintenance of advantages is not reliant on continued activity.
Start young. Timing of musical instrumental acquisition, before age nine, is important in optimizing cognitive benefits and was associated with enhanced verbal working memory functions.
It’s never too late, so keep at it. Sustained musical activity over the age of 60 was associated with other nonverbal cognitive benefits, and appeared to compensate for low educational attainment, which is possibly the greatest protection against age-related cognitive declines. This suggests that musical training should be considered an alternative form of education.
Are cardiac risk factors linked to less blood flow to the brain?
7/18/2012
Metabolic syndrome, a term used to describe a combination of risk factors that often lead to heart disease and type 2 diabetes, seems to be linked to lower blood flow to the brain, according to research by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Dr. Barbara Bendlin, researcher for the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and an assistant professor of medicine (geriatrics) at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, said study participants with multiple risk factors connected to metabolic syndrome, including abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol averaged 15 percent less blood flow to the brain than those in a control group, according to results of brain scans to measure cerebral blood flow.
"We thought the cerebral blood flow measurements of the metabolic syndrome group would be lower, but it was striking how much lower it was," said Bendlin.
Although lower blood flow could result in an eventual reduction in memory skills, Bendlin said it is not known if people with metabolic syndrome will get Alzheimer’s disease.
"Having metabolic syndrome at middle age does have an effect on the brain, and there is some suggestion that if you have lower blood flow, certain types of memory functions are reduced," she said. "The key will be to follow these people over time, because we want to know if lower blood flow will lead to a gradual loss of memory and cognitive skills. But it’s too early to say if these people will develop Alzheimer’s."
The study, presented today at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, involved 71 middle-aged people recruited from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP). Of this group, 29 met the criteria for metabolic syndrome and 42 did not.
Bendlin said the next steps will be to conduct additional brain scans on people with metabolic syndrome to get more specifics on why they have reduced cerebral blood flow.
"By comparing people with metabolic syndrome with those who don’t, we don’t know which of the risk factors are worst," she said. "Is having a high blood-glucose level worse than having high blood pressure or is it different than having abdominal obesity? All of these risk factors have been linked to increased risk for dementia, but they are clustered together. If we knew which ones were the worst, those would be the ones to target with specific treatments."
Source: Bio-Medicine
What was he thinking? Study turns to ape intellect
June 24, 2012 by SETH BORENSTEIN
(AP) — The more we study animals, the less special we seem.
In this Dec. 13, 2006 photo provided by the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University, a 5 1/2-year-old chimpanzee named Ayumu performs a memory test with randomly-placed consecutive Arabic numerals, which are later masked, accurately duplicating the lineup on a touch screen computer in Kyoto, Japan. The young chimpanzees in the study titled “Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees” by Sana Inoue and Tetsuro Matsuzawa could memorize the nine numerals much faster and more accurately than human adults. The evidence that animals are more intelligent and more social than we thought seems to grow each year, especially when it comes to primates. It’s an increasingly hot scientific field with the number of ape and monkey cognition studies doubling in recent years, often with better technology and neuroscience paving the way to unusual discoveries. (AP Photo/Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University) PART OF A SEVEN-PICTURE PACKAGE WITH “ANIMAL SCIENCES”
Baboons can distinguish between written words and gibberish. Monkeys seem to be able to do multiplication. Apes can delay instant gratification longer than a human child can. They plan ahead. They make war and peace. They show empathy. They share.
"It’s not a question of whether they think — it’s how they think," says Duke University scientist Brian Hare. Now scientists wonder if apes are capable of thinking about what other apes are thinking.
The evidence that animals are more intelligent and more social than we thought seems to grow each year, especially when it comes to primates. It’s an increasingly hot scientific field with the number of ape and monkey cognition studies doubling in recent years, often with better technology and neuroscience paving the way to unusual discoveries.
Role of Omega-3 in Preventing Cognitive Decline in Older People Questioned
ScienceDaily (June 13, 2012) — Older people who take omega-3 fish oil supplements are probably not reducing their chances of losing cognitive function, according to a new Cochrane systematic review. Based on the available data from studies lasting up to 3.5 years, the researchers concluded that the supplements offered no benefits for cognitive health over placebo capsules or margarines, but that longer term effects are worth investigating.
Omega-3 fatty acids are fats responsible for many important jobs in the body. We get these fats through our daily diets and the three major omega-3 fats are: alpha linolenic acid (ALA) from sources such as nuts and seeds and eicosapentoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) from sources including oily fish such as salmon and mackerel. A number of studies have hinted that omega-3 fatty acids and DHA in particular may be involved in keeping nerve cells in the brain healthy into old age. However, there is limited evidence for the role of these fats in preventing cognitive decline and dementia.
The researchers, led by Emma Sydenham at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), London, UK, gathered together evidence from three high quality trials comparing the effects of omega-3 fatty acids taken in capsules or margarine spread to those of sunflower oil, olive oil or regular margarine. A total of 3,536 people over the age of 60 took part in the trials, which lasted between six and 40 months. None of the participants had any signs of poor cognitive health or dementia at the start of the trials.
The researchers found no benefit of taking the omega-3 capsules or spread over placebo capsules or spread. Participants given omega-3 did not score better in standard mental state examinations or in memory and verbal fluency tests than those given placebo.
"From these studies, there doesn’t appear to be any benefit for cognitive health for older people of taking omega-3 supplements," said Alan Dangour, a nutritionist at LSHTM and co-author of the report. "However, these were relatively short-term studies, so we saw very little deterioration in cognitive function in either the intervention groups or the control groups. It may take much longer to see any effect of these supplements."
The researchers conclude that the longer term effects of omega-3 fatty acids on cognitive decline and dementia need to be explored in further studies, particularly in people with low intakes of omega-3 fatty acids in their diet. In the meantime, they stress other potential health benefits. “Fish is an important part of a healthy diet and we would still support the recommendation to eat two portions a week, including one portion of oily fish,” said Dangour.
Source: Science Daily
Scientists Tap the Cognitive Genius of Tots to Make Computers Smarter
ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2012) — People often wonder if computers make children smarter. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are asking the reverse question: Can children make computers smarter? And the answer appears to be ‘yes.’
Research indicates that babies and toddlers do most of their learning as they “play.” (Credit: © matka_Wariatka / Fotolia)
UC Berkeley researchers are tapping the cognitive smarts of babies, toddlers and preschoolers to program computers to think more like humans.
If replicated in machines, the computational models based on baby brainpower could give a major boost to artificial intelligence, which historically has had difficulty handling nuances and uncertainty, researchers said
"Children are the greatest learning machines in the universe. Imagine if computers could learn as much and as quickly as they do," said Alison Gopnik a developmental psychologist at UC Berkeley and author of "The Scientist in the Crib" and "The Philosophical Baby."
In a wide range of experiments involving lollipops, flashing and spinning toys, and music makers, among other props, UC Berkeley researchers are finding that children — at younger and younger ages — are testing hypotheses, detecting statistical patterns and drawing conclusions while constantly adapting to changes.
"Young children are capable of solving problems that still pose a challenge for computers, such as learning languages and figuring out causal relationships," said Tom Griffiths, director of UC Berkeley’s Computational Cognitive Science Lab. "We are hoping to make computers smarter by making them a little more like children."
For example, researchers said, computers programmed with kids’ cognitive smarts could interact more intelligently and responsively with humans in applications such as computer tutoring programs and phone-answering robots.
And that’s not all.