Furthermore, in their study, playing  computer games was almost twice as effective at improving memory as performing similar exercises with a pen and paper
They claim just 15 minutes a day spent on brain training exercises promotes the growth of new brain cells and could help those with memory problems lead more independent lives.

One group of volunteers were given handheld electronic devices and asked to play a brain training game which tested short-term memory for just 15 minutes.

The others carried out traditional word recall exercises using pen and paper.

The researchers then tested all the participants on a traditional memory recall task, and found a significant improvement in both groups. But for those who had practised on computer games, recall had improved by 60 per cent, compared with 37 per cent for those who practised on paper.

Daily Mail April 17 2010

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People who jog a couple of days every week help to stimulate their brain to grow hundreds of thousands of new brain cells, research suggests.

Neuroscientists found that the new cells appeared in a region of the brain linked to memory formation and recall.

They said the findings meant that running could improve the ability to recall memories clearly, a skill that is crucial for learning new tasks.

The study, conducted on mice and carried out by Cambridge University and the US National Institute of Ageing in Maryland, could lead to new ways of slowing down the mental deterioration many people experience as they age.

“We know exercise can be good for healthy brain function, but this work provides us with a mechanism for the effect,” said Timothy Bussey, a behavioural neuroscientist at Cambridge and the study’s senior author.

Experts are not sure why exercise stimulates the growth of cells in the brain.

They say it may be linked to higher levels of hormones released while exercising, increased blood flow or reduced levels of stress. Cortisol, a hormone linked to stress, inhibits the growth of new brain cells.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, followed two groups of mice, one of which had unlimited access to a running wheel throughout. The mice with the wheel clocked up an average of 15 miles (24km) a day, whilst those in the other group had no such opportunity to exercise.

In memory tests, the running mice scored nearly twice as high as the other group.

By Andrew Hough, the Daily Telegraph.

Image courtesy of mikebaird

But this new research suggests that even a short rest or break while conscious could help it sort and retain information.
 The findings by New York University, which appear in the latest issue of the journal Neuron, expand our understanding of how memories are boosted.

It is also could help explain why we remember some knowledge in exquisite detail but forget others almost immediately.

“Taking a coffee break after class can actually help you retain that information you just learned,” said Dr Lila Davachi, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science.

To determine if memory consolidation occurred during periods of conscious rest while awake, the researchers imaged parts of the brain known to play a significant role in memory, the hippocampus and cortical regions.

Titled “Your brain wants you to tune out other tasks so you can tune in to what you just learned,” the experiment tested subjects’ associative memory by showing them pairs of images containing a human face and an object, such as a beach ball, or a human face and a scene, such as a beach, followed by periods of “awake rest”.

Subjects were not informed their memory for these images would later be tested, but, rather, were instructed to rest and simply think about anything that they wanted, but to remain awake during the resting periods.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to gauge brain activity during the task and during the ensuing rest period.

The researchers found that during rest, the areas of the brain were just as active as they were when they were learning the task – especially if the task was particularly memorable.

Also, the greater the correlation between rest and learning the greater the chance of remembering the task in later tests.

“Your brain is working for you when you’re resting, so rest is important for memory and cognitive function,” Dr Davachi said. “

This is something we don’t appreciate much, especially when today’s information technologies keep us working round-the-clock.”

Researchers have discovered that the mind keeps most memories for just a day but then at night acts like a film editor sifting through the “video clips” before transferring the best bits to long term storage in our own movie archive.

xperiments in humans and mice show that memories are first stored in the hippocampus, a sea horse shaped part of the central brain, before being “replayed” and then being filed in the outer neocortex, otherwise known as grey matter.

 By Richard Alleyne, Daily Telegraph, Thursday 28th January

Photo courtesy of Chaval Brasil

Research suggests that an increase in magnesium in the brain improves learning and memory. The study, published in Neuron, said that increasing magnesium intake may starve off the effects of ageing.

By Richard Alleyne, The Daily Telegraph, Thursday 28th January.

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