A scientific explanation to why people perform better after receiving a compliment

A team of Japanese scientists have found scientific proof that people doing exercises appear to perform better when another person compliments them. The research was carried out by a group lead by National Institute for Physiological Sciences Professor Norihiro Sadato, Graduate University for Advanced Studies graduate student Sho Sugawara, Nagoya Institute of Technology Tenure-Track Associate Professor Satoshi Tanaka, and in collaboration with Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology Associate Professor Katsumi Watanabe. The team had previously discovered that the same area of the brain, the striatum, is activated when a person is rewarded a compliment or cash. Their latest research could suggest that when the striatum is activated, it seems to encourage the person to perform better during exercises. The paper is published online in PLOS ONE

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According to Professor Sadato, “To the brain, receiving a compliment is as much a social reward as being rewarded money. We’ve been able to find scientific proof that a person performs better when they receive a social reward after completing an exercise.  There seems to be scientific validity behind the message ‘praise to encourage improvement’. Complimenting someone could become an easy and effective strategy to use in the classroom and during rehabilitation.”

Feel-good hormone helps to jog the memory

The feel-good hormone dopamine improves long-term memory. This is the finding of a team lead by Emrah Düzel, neuroscientist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the University of Magdeburg. The researchers investigated test subjects ranging in age from 65 to 75 years, who were given a precursor of dopamine. Treated subjects performed better in a memory test than a comparison group, who had taken a placebo. The study provides new insights into the formation of long lasting memories and also has implications for understanding why memories fade more rapidly following the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The results appear in the Journal of Neuroscience.

When people worry about math, the brain feels the pain

Mathematics anxiety can prompt a response in the brain similar to when a person experiences physical pain, according to new research at the University of Chicago.

Using brain scans, scholars determined that the brain areas active when highly math-anxious people prepare to do math overlap with the same brain areas that register the threat of bodily harm—and in some cases, physical pain.

“For someone who has math anxiety, the anticipation of doing math prompts a similar brain reaction as when they experience pain—say, burning one’s hand on a hot stove,” said Sian Beilock, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and a leading expert on math anxiety.

Surprisingly, the researchers found it was the anticipation of having to do math, and not actually doing math itself, that looked like pain in the brain. “The brain activation does not happen during math performance, suggesting that it is not the math itself that hurts; rather the anticipation of math is painful,” added Ian Lyons, a 2012 PhD graduate in psychology from UChicago and a postdoctoral scholar at Western University in Ontario, Canada.

The two report their findings in a paper, “When Math Hurts: Math Anxiety Predicts Pain Network Activation in Anticipation of Doing Math,” in the current issue of PLOS One.

Smoking and hyperactivity (ADHD) share common genetic risk factor

A variation of a particular gene may link the behaviours typical of childhood attention hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD for short, and those associated with smoking, suggests research published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood (1, 2)

Childhood ADHD and subsequent smoking in adulthood frequently go hand in hand, say the authors, with people who have been diagnosed with ADHD more likely to start smoking early and to smoke twice as much as those without the condition.

The researchers focused on five variations in DNA sequences (single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs) in different genes that are strongly associated with different aspects of smoking behaviour, such as the number of cigarettes smoked every day, and taking up and quitting smoking.

Omega-3 Intake Heightens Working Memory in Healthy Young Adults

While Omega-3 essential fatty acids—found in foods like wild fish and grass-fed livestock—are necessary for human body functioning, their effects on the working memory of healthy young adults have not been studied until now.

In the first study of its kind, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have determined that healthy young adults ages 18-25 can improve their working memory even further by increasing their Omega-3 fatty acid intake. Their findings have been published online in PLOS One. 

“Before seeing this data, I would have said it was impossible to move young healthy individuals above their cognitive best,” said Bita Moghaddam, project investigator and professor of neuroscience. “We found that members of this population can enhance their working memory performance even further, despite their already being at the top of their cognitive game.”

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(Image credit: Matt Allworth/Courtesy Flickr)

A little science goes a long way: Engaging kids improves math, language scores

A Washington State University researcher has found that engaging elementary school students in science for as little as 10 hours a year can lead to improved test scores in math and language arts.

Samantha Gizerian, a clinical assistant professor in WSU’s Department of Veterinary and Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology, saw improved test scores among fourth-grade students in South Los Angeles after students from the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science gave 10 one-hour presentations on science.

"A lot of students say things like, ‘I didn’t know science was fun,’” says Gizerian, who helped with the classes while on the Drew faculty. "And because they think it’s fun, all of a sudden it’s not work anymore. It’s not homework. It’s not something extra that they have to do.”

Japanese Study Shows Cute Pics Of Puppies May Improve Concentration

Cogmed Working Memory Training: Does it Actually Work? The Debate Continues…

A target article in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition concludes that evidence does not support the claims of Cogmed Working Memory Training. Additional experts weigh in with commentary papers in response.

Helping children achieve their full potential in school is of great concern to everyone, and a number of commercial products have been developed to try and achieve this goal. The Cogmed Working Memory Training program is such an example and is marketed to schools and parents of children with attention problems caused by poor working memory. But, does the program actually work? The target article in the September issue of Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (JARMAC) calls into question Cogmed’s claims of improving working memory and addressing underachievement due to working memory constraints.

The target article authors Zach Shipstead, Kenny L. Hicks, Randall W. Engle, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology, review the research that is used to back up the claims of Cogmed. They argue that many of the problem-solving or training tasks are not related to working memory, many of the attention tasks are unrelated to problems such as ADHD, and that there is limited transfer to real-life manifestations of inattentive behavior. They conclude succinctly: “The only unequivocal statement that can be made is that Cogmed will improve performance on tasks that resemble Cogmed training.”

Research at Sandia National Laboratories has shown that it’s possible to predict how well people will remember information by monitoring their brain activity while they study. 

A team under Laura Matzen of Sandia’s cognitive systems group was the first to demonstrate predictions based on the results of monitoring test volunteers with electroencephalography (EEG) sensors. 

For example, “if you had someone learning new material and you were recording the EEG, you might be able to tell them, ‘You’re going to forget this, you should study this again,’ or tell them, ‘OK, you got it and go on to the next thing,’” Matzen said.

The study, funded under Sandia’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program (LDRD), had two parts: predicting how well someone will remember what’s studied and predicting who will benefit most from memory training.

Supplementation with the omega-3 fatty acid DHA may help improve reading skills and behavior in kids who need help most — those whose test scores place them in the bottom 20% of their elementary school class — according to a new controlled trial.

Researchers at Oxford University’s Center for Evidence-Based Intervention studied 362 7- to 9-year-old children who had placed in the bottom third of their class in reading scores. For 16 weeks, the children were given either a placebo or 600 mg of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). The DHA was extracted from algae, which are the original source of the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish.

Over the 16-week trial, the children receiving placebos progressed in their reading skills as expected. But those students who received DHA and had scored in the bottom 20% of readers at the start of the study advanced by nearly an extra month, while those in the bottom 10% gained nearly two extra months of progress. Students whose reading skills were less impaired — those whose scores had placed them at the highest end of the bottom third — did not see extra improvements with DHA.

Parents of the kids who received DHA also rated their children as more attentive and less restless, as compared with those who got placebo. However, teachers did not report improvement in the children’s behavior.