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Lumosity is pleased to announce the debut of our newest game, Name Tag, designed to help you remember peoples' names. It exercises your ability to store and recall the names of people you've just met - an invaluable skill at work, at social events and (admit it) at family reunions. If you haven't played it yet, please find Name Tag under the Games tab on your Trainer page. Or, for a limited time only, play Name Tag free!
Brain Science 101 • New Series on the Brain
Understanding that brain science can quickly start to sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, Lumosity is starting a Brain Science 101 series. The intent is to break down some of the more complicated neuroscience related concepts into easily digestible pieces.
Here the 1st course is served (including some appetizing tidbits on how to sharpen your mind).
Long-term and Working Memory - You Are What You Remember
By Gregory Kellett, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at SFSU and UCSF and science writer for Lumos Labs.
Memories are vital to our ability to function on even the most basic of levels. Our respective “realities” are in fact a large part due to the constantly shifting kaleidoscope of our remembrances. Here we will touch briefly on the difference between short-term/working memory and long-term memory as well as how the two filter and add meaning to our worlds.
What if we could remember everything we experienced? As enticing asNutrition label it sounds, our finite brains would quickly find themselves overwhelmed with the random details of yesterday’s weather forecast alongside the nutritional information off of last month’s box of raisin bran.
Thankfully, the vast majority of our memories are fleeting mental wisps lasting only seconds to minutes. These temporary impressions make up what is called short-term or working memory.
Working memory can be thought of as a staging area where the mind takes meaning from such items as:
* Specific immediate memories of very recent sensory input (IE the sour smell of expired milk).
* The temporary recollection of details from long-term memories (IE what happened the last time you drank sour milk).
* Conclusions and ideas made in the past (Sour milk is bad).
Notice how working memory can temporarily pull details from long-term memory for short-term use. AlthoughGear Head constantly changing and ephemeral itself, working memory is vital to our ability to make decisions and take action over time (such as our pouring that sour milk down the drain). For a brilliant and more in-depth description of working memory read Elizabeth Buchen’s “Working Memory: What it is and how it works”.
When an experience or piece of information sticks and doesn’t evaporate with short-term memory, it is said to have entered into the realm of long-term memory. This journey is called consolidation and takes place after prolonged exposure to a piece of information or experience. The longer the exposure, the better the consolidation, the more robust the related memories will be.
Long-term memories can store much larger quantities of information than working memory and for much longer periods of time (often as much as a lifetime). These resilient long-term recollections are made up of both consciously learned facts, such as “Madrid is the capital of Spain” and subconsciously learned knowledge, such as the ability to balance and ride a bike.
We derive meaning and the ability to act via the synergistic relationship between long-term PeanutBttrTstand working memory. Working memory combines elements from our long-term stores with immediate sensory information in order to generate ideas and plans of action. For example, remembering that the taste of peanut butter is pleasant as we toast toast, might just have us use our memorized skill of unscrewing a jar in order to manifest the pleasurable experience of peanut butter on toast. Which is just one more potentially delicious result of a fit and active mind.
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This robot has feelings, too
A new robot on exhibit at a science museum can respond to stimulus much like a child. ITN's Damon Green reports.
emotional robots with feelings
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From: WashingtonPost.com:
Moms With Alzheimer's May Pass on Risk to Kids
WEDNESDAY, July 30 (HealthDay News) -- People whose mothers have had Alzheimer's disease may be predisposed to the mind-robbing condition, a new study finds.
The link may be a dysfunction in how the brain handles sugar -- something that's probably genetic and starts years before symptoms of Alzheimer's appear, researchers say.
"Overall, these findings show that their brains are not working properly to start with, and the metabolic impairment gets worse over time," explained lead researcher Lisa Mosconi, a research assistant professor of psychiatry at the Center for Brain Health at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.
There is evidence that having a parent affected with Alzheimer's disease increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease four- to tenfold, Mosconi said. "However, we don't know why or how this happens. Our study shows for the first time that individuals with an Alzheimer's disease [-affected] mother may be at increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease themselves because their brains are not utilizing glucose in an effective way," she said.
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The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer's Association's International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Chicago.
For the study, Mosconi's team used PET scans to look at glucose metabolism in the brains of 66 healthy individuals. Some of the participants had a family history of Alzheimer's disease, and some did not.
The researchers found that people with a mother with Alzheimer's had a much faster progressive reduction in the use of glucose in areas of the brain affected by the disease, compared with people who had a father with Alzheimer's or parents without the disease.
"At this point, we can only speculate that genes that are maternally inherited may alter brain metabolism," Mosconi said. "We need to follow subjects for longer time periods to ascertain whether the metabolic reductions are in fact forerunning cognitive deterioration."
Early diagnosis is extremely important, particularly while people are still symptom-free and treatments are most effective, Mosconi said. In addition, maintaining overall good health will help protect brain health, she said.
"This includes checking for blood pressure, cholesterol levels, glucose levels, arteriosclerosis and vascular damage in general, because improving cardiovascular health is particularly important to also promote brain health," Mosconi said. "If an individual finds out that they are at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease and are not taking much care of their health, that's already a good reason to start immediately."
Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer's Association's National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council, believes the findings could prove promising for drug research.
"One could collect the children of mothers with Alzheimer's disease, divide them into a placebo group and a drug-test group, and follow them with neuropsych tests and brain scans to see whether the group receiving the drug had delayed onset or prevention," Gandy said.
Greg M. Cole, associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, said the findings could help in diagnosis.
"Our best hope is to catch the disease early and treat early," Cole said. "One way of doing this is to identify people with significant genetic risk, but we only know one common risk factor, ApoE4 gene," he said.
Using imaging methods to follow the brain's regional energy use, doctors can detect signs of Alzheimer's in those at risk from ApoE4 many years before developing dementia, Cole said. This study shows similar results in people with a family history who don't have the ApoE4 risk factor, he added.
"This is significant because it broadens the utility of imaging as a tool for detecting the disease early -- not simply in those with a specific form of genetic risk," Cole said. "Now it needs to be paired with clinical trials for new approaches for prevention."
More information
For more on Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association.
SOURCES: Lisa Mosconi, Ph.D., research assistant professor, psychiatry, Center for Brain Health, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York City; Sam Gandy, M.D., chairman, Alzheimer's Association National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council; Greg M. Cole, Ph.D., neuroscientist, Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System, and associate director, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles; July 30, 2008, presentation, 2008 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, Chicago
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