Canny Minds Blog » Female

Have a break to boost your memory power

Jenny — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:18:51 +0000

Scientists have always known that sleeping helps consolidate memory by allowing your mind to sift through recently gained knowledge and file it in the brain.

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

Brain Power: The Broccoli Boost

Jenny — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:58:58 +0000

Eating food rich in magnesium such as spinach and broccoli could boost memory and brain power, scientists claim.

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.

To buy Broccoli for the Brain from the Canny Minds shop click here.

Lovely Bones

Jenny — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:17:44 +0000

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer. This is Susie Salmon. Watching from heaven, Susie sees her happy, suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet …”The Lovely Bones” is a luminous and astonishing novel about life and death, forgiveness and vengeance, memory and forgetting – but, above all, about finding light in the darkest of places.

‘Spare, beautiful and brutal prose …”The Lovely Bones” is compulsive enough to read in a single sitting, brilliantly intelligent, elegantly constructed and ultimately intriguing.’ – “The Times”.

‘Moving and compelling …It will put an imperceptible but stealthily insistent hold on you. I sat down in the morning to read the first couple of pages; five hours later, I was still there, book in hand, transfixed.’ – Maggie O’Farrell, “Sunday Telegraph”.

Let us know what you thought by commenting below.

If you would like to buy ‘Lovely Bones’ click here.

Crosswords and Sudoku’s burn up to 90 calories per hour

Jenny — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:26:06 +0000

Brain training experts confirmed today that mental exercise such as crosswords and Sudokus can burn an average of 90 calories every hour. So you can now enjoy a chocolate biscuit and a puzzle while burning the equivalent calories.

Mental agility expert Tim Forrester from brain training website Cannyminds.com said: “Our brains require 0.1 calories every minute simply to survive. When we do something challenging such as a puzzle or a quiz we burn through 1.5 calories every minute.”

Snacks you can enjoy which have the same calories as an hour’s brain workout include:

A chocolate chip cookie = 56 calories
A jammy dodger = 85 calories
A custard cream = 57 calories
A chocolate hobnob = 79 calories

But if you carried on for two hours with a puzzle you could enjoy:

A pack of Hula Hoops = 175 calories
A bag of maltesers = 186 calories
A crème egg = 173 calories
A bag of jelly babies = 180 calories

If you take time out in the evening with a quiz or crossword, you can enjoy:

A pint of bitter = 182 calories
A 120ml glass of white wine = 89 calories
A Glass of champagne = 89 calories

The brain is made up of millions of neurons which communicate with other neurons and transmit messages to and from body tissues. Neurons produce chemicals called neurotransmitters to relay their signals. To produce neurotransmitters, neurons extract 75% of the sugar glucose, available calories and 20% of the oxygen from the blood. So undertaking activity such as difficult crosswords or challenging sudokus means your brain will need more glucose.

Eight-time World Memory Champion and Canny Minds Memory Expert Dominic O’Brien said: “Just as you need to continually exercise your body to stay fit and healthy you also need to exercise your brain and memory to remain mentally agile.”

www.Cannyminds.com is the UK’s leading online brain training portal with books, DVDs, audio books, games and puzzles for all ages. As well as an online shop it also offers independent articles and advice along with an interactive games room which includes puzzles and quizzes developed by Mensa puzzle editor Philip Carter.

Photo courtesy of PetitPlat by sk

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Understand and Improve your Memory

Jenny — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:44:34 +0000

In order to improve your memory, you first need to understand how it works. Your brain processes all the information gathered by your senses and experiences and creates memories. Most of these are discarded, but the important perceptions, facts and skills are stored; enabling you to think, learn and be more creative.

It’s easy to forget things if memories are not retained by linking them to what you already know or reviewing them several times. Memories are formed by electrical signals making connections between nerve cells so that they form a network. It’s possible to improve your memory using special techniques that strengthen this network, making it easier to recall things that would otherwise be difficult to remember.

Top tips to improve your memory:

Pay attention
Memory is made up of three sections – sensory, short-term and long-term. All the data gathered from your senses enters the sensory memory – from here any information that’s ignored is thrown out, whilst information that you pay attention to passes on into the short-term memory. You can’t remember something that you never even knew, so if you don’t pay attention, information will never enter your short-term memory. If you want to improve your memory and take in information, it is vital to concentrate and not allow yourself to be distracted.
Chunking
Some of the things you try to memorise mean nothing to you – they may be isolated facts or strings of numbers. Short-term memory has a limit of about five items, so dividing up long sequences of data into more easily remembered “chunks” helps you to remember them. This is the way that most people remember telephone numbers.
Make associations
Making links between objects – called association – can help improve your memory. You can make associations that match numbers to pictures, organise words into groups or link a person with an image so that you never forget a name – anything that makes it easier for you to remember. One way to memorise a list is to visualise a journey that you often take. Link each landmark on the journey with an item on your list – the stranger the result, the easier it is to remember! Then go through the journey in your head to remember the items.
Mnemonics
Another trick for remembering a set of words is to use their first letters to make up a sentence or mnemonic. For example, “map vipers eat many jungle snacks using nails” gives you the sequence of the planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. It’s a ridiculous sentence, but these are sometimes the most memorable.

For more tips on how to improve your memory, plus loads of other brain training techniques and insight, check out ‘Train your Brain to be a Genius’. Find out how your amazing brain works and explore the incredible potential of your mind. Put your grey matter to the test with puzzles, games and optical illusions to fine-tune your brainy bits.

The article was supplied by Dorling Kindersley, who are publishers of the new children’s book ‘Train your Brain to be a Genius’

To buy this product from the Canny Minds shop click here