Problems

Smoking

Several large, long-running studies have found that smoking significantly increases your risk of Alzheimer's, as does high exposure to secondhand smoke. Smoking, both in old age and in adolescence, is also associated with lower IQs and lower cognitive performance. It appears, however, that this is largely recoverable if you give up smoking.

Smoking has a particularly negative effect in conjunction with alcohol (and unfortunately they are often found in tandem). While moderate drinking can in some circumstances have positive effects on the brain, this is probably not the case for those who smoke. Moreover, smoking makes it much harder for the brain to recover from the effects of alcohol abuse and the damage done to the brain by heavy alcohol consumption is likely to be much worse if the individual is a smoker.

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Second-hand smoke linked to cognitive impairment

Smoking is known to be a risk factor for cognitive impairment and dementia. Now a large study of some 4800 non-smoking adults over the age of 50 has revealed that exposure to second-hand smoke (measured by levels of a nicotine by-product in their saliva) is associated with an increased chance of developing cognitive impairment, including dementia.

[641] Llewellyn, D. J., Lang I. A., Langa K. M., Naughton F., & Matthews F. E.
(2009).  Exposure to secondhand smoke and cognitive impairment in non-smokers: national cross sectional study with cotinine measurement.
BMJ. 338(feb12_2), b462 - b462.

The open-access article is available here.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uoc-ssl021209.php

Midlife smokers may have worse memory than non-smokers

Data from the very large Whitehall II study has found that those who smoked were more likely to be in the lowest 20% for cognitive performance compared with those who had never smoked. Those who reported being ex-smokers at the beginning of the study were 30% less likely than smokers to have poor vocabulary and low verbal frequency scores, showing that recovery is likely if smoking is stopped. The study also found a higher risk of death as well as non-participation in cognitive tests among smokers, suggesting the association between smoking and cognition may have been under-estimated.

[476] Sabia, S., Marmot M., Dufouil C., & Singh-Manoux A.
(2008).  Smoking History and Cognitive Function in Middle Age From the Whitehall II Study.
Arch Intern Med. 168(11), 1165 - 1173.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/jaaj-msm060508.php

Smokers are more likely to develop dementia

A seven-year study of some 7,000 people age 55 and older found that those who were current smokers at the time of the study were 50% more likely to develop dementia than people who had never smoked or past smokers. Smoking did not increase the risk for those with the Alzheimer’s gene apolipoprotein E4. Current smokers without the gene were nearly 70% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than nonsmokers or past smokers without the gene.

[2381] Reitz, C., den Heijer T., van Duijn C., Hofman A., & Breteler M. M. B.
(2007).  Relation between smoking and risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease.
Neurology. 69(10), 998 - 1005.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/aaon-sam082807.php

Secondhand smoke increases risk of dementia

Preliminary findings from the Cardiovascular Health Study indicates that elderly people with high lifetime exposure to secondhand smoke (more than 30 years) were approximately 30% more likely to develop dementia than those with no lifetime secondhand smoke exposure. People with abnormalities of their carotid arteries and high lifetime exposure to secondhand smoke were nearly two-and-a-half times as likely to develop dementia as those with no secondhand smoke exposure and no indications of carotid artery disease.

Haight presented the findings at the American Academy of Neurology’s 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 – May 5, 2007.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/aaon-ssi041007.php

Smoking now found detrimental for Alzheimer’s

Previous animal studies had suggested that nicotine reduces the number of amyloid plaques; a new study, however, has found that chronic nicotine exposure increases neurofibrillary tangles.

[2380] Oddo, S., Caccamo A., Green K. N., Liang K., Tran L., Chen Y., et al.
(2005).  Chronic nicotine administration exacerbates tau pathology in a transgenic model of Alzheimer's disease.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 102(8), 3046 - 3051.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uoc--ctp020805.php

Smoking associated with working memory impairment in adolescents

A study of 41 adolescent daily smokers and 32 nonsmokers has revealed that adolescent smokers had impairments in accuracy of working memory performance. Male adolescents as a group begin smoking at an earlier age than female smokers and were significantly more impaired during tests of selective and divided attention. All of the adolescent smokers also showed further disruption of working memory when they stopped smoking.

[1252] Jacobsen, L. K., Krystal J. H., Mencl E. W., Westerveld M., Frost S. J., & Pugh K. R.
(2005).  Effects of smoking and smoking abstinence on cognition in adolescent tobacco smokers.
Biological Psychiatry. 57(1), 56 - 66.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/yu-scc020105.php

Smoking is bad for the brain

465 participants in the Scottish Mental Survey (11 year olds tested in 1947), approximately half of whom were smokers, were tested again when they were 64. Smokers performed significantly worse in five different cognitive tests than did both former smokers and those who had never smoked. This drop in cognitive function held when factors such as education, occupation and alcohol consumption were taken into account. A link between impaired lung function and cognitive ageing has long been suspected, though the mechanism is unclear.

[2382] Whalley, L. J., Fox H. C., Deary I. J., & Starr J. M.
(2005).  Childhood IQ, smoking, and cognitive change from age 11 to 64 years.
Addictive Behaviors. 30(1), 77 - 88.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996765

Smoking and alcohol

Smoking may counteract benefit of moderate drinking on stroke risk

A 12-year study following the drinking and smoking habits of 22,524 people aged 39-79 has found that in non-smokers, people who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol were 37% less likely to develop stroke than non-drinkers. This association was not found among smokers. The finding may explain the inconsistency in previous studies into the relationship between light to moderate drinking and stroke.

The findings were presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto, April 10 - 17, 2010.

www.physorg.com/news190375547.html

Smoking interferes with recovery from alcohol-related brain damage

Another study has come out with more evidence that smoking makes it a lot harder for the brain to recover from the effects of long-term heavy drinking. The study looked specifically at changes in blood flow in the brain — blood flow is affected by alcohol use disorders. The study found that after 5 weeks of abstinence, alcohol-dependent individuals who didn’t smoke showed significantly improved blood flow, but those who smoked showed essentially no change. Moreover, the number of cigarettes smoked daily was correlated with how poorly the blood was flowing in the frontal lobe.

[1045] Mon, A., Durazzo T. C., Gazdzinski S., & Meyerhoff D. J.
(2009).  The impact of chronic cigarette smoking on recovery from cortical gray matter perfusion deficits in alcohol dependence: longitudinal arterial spin labeling MRI.
Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research. 33(8), 1314 - 1321.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/ace-siw050509.php

Alzheimer's starts earlier for heavy drinkers, smokers

A study of nearly 1000 people diagnosed with possible or probable Alzheimer’s disease has found that those who were heavy drinkers developed Alzheimer’s 4.8 years earlier than those who were not, while heavy smokers developed the disease 2.3 years sooner than people who were not heavy smokers. Those with the APOE å4 gene developed the disease three years sooner than those without the gene variant. The risk factors are additive — those with all three risk factors developed the disease 8.5 years earlier than those with none of the risk factors.

The research was presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12 – April 19.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/aaon-ase040208.php

Nicotine may enhance attention and working memory in recovering alcoholics

New findings show that nicotine patches may enhance cognitive functioning among newly recovering alcoholics with a history of smoking. Nicotine (but not tobacco) has been shown to have a cognitive benefit, particularly on attention processes. The study also found that alcoholics who smoked were more sensitive to the drug dose of nicotine than were community controls who also smoked.

[1006] Nixon, S J., Lawton-Craddock A., Tivis R., & Ceballos N.
(2007).  Nicotine's Effects on Attentional Efficiency in Alcoholics.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 31(12), 2083 - 2091.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/ace-nme111907.php

Smoking interferes with brain's recovery from alcoholism

In another study indicating smoking worsens the effect of alcoholism on the brain, smoking was found to apparently interfere with the brain's ability to recover from the effects of chronic alcohol abuse.

[2371] Durazzo, T. C., Gazdzinski S., Rothlind J. C., Banys P., & Meyerhoff D. J.
(2006).  Brain Metabolite Concentrations and Neurocognition During Short‐term Recovery from Alcohol Dependence: Preliminary Evidence of the Effects of Concurrent Chronic Cigarette Smoking.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 30(3), 539 - 551.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/uoc--siw031506.php

Long-term smoking associated with dulled thinking and lower IQ

A long-term study involving 172 alcoholic and non-alcoholic men has found that long-term smoking impaired memory and reasoning skills and reduced IQ. The effect was most pronounced among those who had smoked for years. The effects of smoking were found among the non-alcoholics as well as the alcoholics, and among the alcoholics, the cognitive impact of long-term heavy smoking appeared to be greater than the impact of drinking.

[1116] Glass, J. M., Adams K. M., Nigg J. T., Wong M. M., Puttler L. I., Buu A., et al.
(2006).  Smoking is associated with neurocognitive deficits in alcoholism.
Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 82(2), 119 - 126.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-10/uomh-dsc101005.php

Smoking seems to increase brain damage in alcoholics

Another study has come out indicating that alcoholics who smoke are at greater risk of brain damage. The imaging study compared brain volume in recovered alcoholics and light drinkers. The study found no difference between smokers and non-smokers among the light drinkers, but among the alcoholics, the more severe the tobacco habit, the more brain volume had been lost.

[1049] Gazdzinski, S., Durazzo T. C., Studholme C., Song E., Banys P., & Meyerhoff D. J.
(2005).  Quantitative Brain MRI in Alcohol Dependence: Preliminary Evidence for Effects of Concurrent Chronic Cigarette Smoking on Regional Brain Volumes.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 29(8), 1484 - 1495.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-09/uoc--sst092805.php

Cigarette smoking exacerbates alcohol-induced brain damage

Heavy alcohol consumption is known to cause brain damage. A new imaging study has compared 24, one-week-abstinent alcoholics (14 smokers, 10 nonsmokers) in treatment with 26 light-drinking "controls" (7 smokers, 19 nonsmokers), and found that cigarette smoking can both exacerbate alcohol-induced damage as well as independently cause brain damage. The damage is most prominent in the frontal lobes (important in planning, decision-making, and multi-tasking among other functions). Independent of alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking also had adverse effects on brain regions involved in fine and gross motor functions and balance and coordination. Roughly 80% of alcohol-dependent individuals report smoking regularly.

[2370] Durazzo, T. C., Gazdzinski S., Banys P., & Meyerhoff D. J.
(2004).  Cigarette Smoking Exacerbates Chronic Alcohol‐Induced Brain Damage: A Preliminary Metabolite Imaging Study.
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 28(12), 1849 - 1860.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-12/ace-cse120504.php

Benefits of nicotine

Nicotine patch may alleviate 'senior moments'

A small preliminary clinical trial has found that four weeks of nicotine skin patches helped decision-making and attention in people with age-associated memory impairment (the mildest form of cognitive impairment in seniors). Given the health risks of smoking, and health risks associated with nicotine patches, it is too early to recommend the use of nicotine to improve memory, however. Nicotine mimics the brain chemical acetylcholine, a nerve signal that plays a role in learning and memory.

[2383] White, H. K., & Levin E. D.
(2004).  Chronic transdermal nicotine patch treatment effects on cognitive performance in age-associated memory impairment.
Psychopharmacology. 171(4), 465 - 471.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-12/dumc-npm120303.php

tags lifestyle: 

tags problems: 

Sleep deprivation eliminates fear generalization

January, 2011

In a small study, a sleepless night after trauma prevents the development of PTSD symptoms.

Given all the research showing the importance of sleep for consolidating memories, it should come as no great surprise that the reverse is also true: depriving yourself of sleep could help you forget experiences you would prefer not to remember.

In the study, 28 student volunteers were shown 14 short video clips, half of which showed safe driving down a city street, and half showed the car being involved in a nasty crash. Half of the volunteers were then deprived of sleep while the other half received a normal night's sleep. The next day, they were shown pictures and asked to indicate whether they had appeared in the clips they had seen. They were also asked to rate the fear evoked by the image, and their physiological responses measured. They were tested again 3 and 10 days later.

While there was no difference between the two groups in picture recognition, the control group rated the images from the crash videos as fearful, and these responses generalized over time to the other images. However, those who were sleep deprived showed such reactions only on the first day.

The finding suggests a possible therapy for PTSD or other anxiety disorders.

Reference: 

Source: 

Topics: 

tags: 

tags memworks: 

tags problems: 

Drug prevents post-traumatic stress syndrome

January, 2011

A new drug is successful in preventing PTSD in mice if delivered within 5 hours of the trauma.

A mouse study has revealed the brain becomes overly stimulated after a traumatic event causes an ongoing, frenzied interaction between two brain proteins long after they should have disengaged. However, the injection of newly developed drugs into the hippocampus within a five hour window calmed this process, and prevented the development of a post-traumatic fear response.

The new research shows the potential for PTSD occurs when a stressful event causes a flood of glutamate, which then interacts with a second protein (Homer1a). This protein continues to stimulate metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 [mGluR5] after the glutamate has dissipated. The new drugs bind mGluR5 and reverse its activity.

Reference: 

Source: 

Topics: 

tags: 

tags memworks: 

tags problems: 

Tetris can reduce PTSD flashbacks

January, 2011

Playing Tetris shortly after a traumatic event reduced flashbacks, but playing a word-based quiz increased the number of flashbacks.

Following a study showing that playing Tetris after traumatic events could reduce memory flashbacks in healthy volunteers, two experiments have found playing Tetris after viewing traumatic images significantly reduced flashbacks while playing Pub Quiz Machine 2008 (a word-based quiz game) increased the frequency of flashbacks. In the experiments, volunteers were shown a film that included traumatic images of injury.

In the first experiment, after waiting for 30 minutes, 20 volunteers played Tetris for 10 minutes, 20 played Pub Quiz for 10 minutes and 20 did nothing. In the second experiment, this wait was extended to four hours, with 25 volunteers in each group.

In both experiments, those who played Tetris had significantly fewer flashbacks that the other two groups, and all groups were equally able to recall specific details of the film. Flashbacks were monitored for a week.

It is thought that with traumatic information, perceptual information is emphasized over conceptual information, meaning we are less likely to remember the experience of being in a high-speed road traffic collision as a coherent story, and more likely to remember it by the flash of headlights and noise of a crash. This perceptual information then pops up repeatedly in the victim's mind in the form of flashbacks to the trauma causing great emotional distress, as little conceptual meaning has been attached to them. If you experience other events that involve similar information, during the time window in which the traumatic memories are being processed, that information will interfere with that processing.

Thus, the spatial tasks of Tetris (which involves moving and rotating shapes) are thought to compete with the images of trauma, while answering general knowledge questions in the Pub Quiz game competes with remembering the contextual meaning of the trauma, so the visual memories are reinforced and the flashbacks are increased.

Reference: 

Source: 

Topics: 

tags memworks: 

tags problems: 

When estrogen helps memory, and when it doesn’t

November, 2010

Recent rodent studies confirm attention and learning is more difficult for women when estrogen is high, but estrogen therapy can help menopausal women — if given during a critical window.

Recent rodent studies add to our understanding of how estrogen affects learning and memory. A study found that adult female rats took significantly longer to learn a new association when they were in periods of their estrus cycle with high levels of estrogen, compared to their ability to learn when their estrogen level was low. The effect was not found among pre-pubertal rats. The study follows on from an earlier study using rats with their ovaries removed, whose learning was similarly affected when given high levels of estradiol.

Human females have high estrogen levels while they are ovulating. These high levels have also been shown to interfere with women's ability to pay attention.

On the other hand, it needs to be remembered that estrogen therapy has been found to help menopausal and post-menopausal women. It has also been found to be detrimental. Recent research has suggested that timing is important, and it’s been proposed that a critical period exists during which hormone therapy must be administered if it is to improve cognitive function.

This finds some support in another recent rodent study, which found that estrogen replacement increased long-term potentiation (a neural event that underlies memory formation) in young adult rats with their ovaries removed, through its effects on NMDA receptors and dendritic spine density — but only if given within 15 months of the ovariectomy. By 19 months, the same therapy couldn’t induce the changes.

Reference: 

Source: 

Topics: 

tags: 

tags development: 

tags lifestyle: 

tags memworks: 

tags problems: 

Face-blindness an example of inability to generalize

October, 2010

It seems that prosopagnosia can be, along with perfect pitch and eidetic memory, an example of what happens when your brain can’t abstract the core concept.

‘Face-blindness’ — prosopagnosia — is a condition I find fascinating, perhaps because I myself have a touch of it (it’s now recognized that this condition represents the end of a continuum rather than being an either/or proposition). The intriguing thing about this inability to recognize faces is that, in its extreme form, it can nevertheless exist side-by-side with quite normal recognition of other objects.

Prosopagnosia that is not the result of brain damage often runs in families, and a study of three family members with this condition has revealed that in some cases at least, the inability to remember faces has to do with failing to form a mental representation that abstracts the essence of the face, sans context. That is, despite being fully able to read facial expressions, attractiveness and gender from the face (indeed one of the family members is an artist who has no trouble portraying fully detailed faces), they couldn’t cope with changes in lighting conditions and viewing angles.

I’m reminded of the phenomenon of perfect pitch, which is characterized by an inability to generalize across acoustically similar tones, so an A in a different key is a completely different note. Interestingly, like prosopagnosia, perfect pitch is now thought to be more common than has been thought (recognition of it is of course limited by the fact that some musical expertise is generally needed to reveal it). This inability to abstract or generalize is also a phenomenon of eidetic memory, and I have spoken before of the perils of this.

(Note: A fascinating account of what it is like to be face-blind, from a person with the condition, can be found at: http://www.choisser.com/faceblind/)

Reference: 

Source: 

Topics: 

tags: 

tags memworks: 

Have I done it?

October, 2010

Watching another person do something can leave you with the memory of having done it yourself.

I’m not at all sure why the researcher says they were “stunned” by these findings, since it doesn’t surprise me in the least, but a series of experiments into the role of imagination in creating false memories has revealed that people who had watched a video of someone else doing a simple action often remembered doing the action themselves two weeks later. In fact in my book on remembering intentions, which includes a chapter on remembering whether you’ve done something, I mention the risk of imagining yourself doing something (that you then go on to believe you have actually done it), and given all the research on mirror neurons, it’s no big step to go from watching someone doing something to remembering that you did it. Nevertheless, it’s nice to get the confirmation.

The experiments involved participants performing several simple actions, such as shaking a bottle or shuffling a deck of cards. Then they watched videos of someone else doing simple actions—some of which they had performed themselves and some of which they hadn’t. Two weeks later, they were asked which actions they had done. They were much more likely to falsely remember doing an action if they had watched someone else do it — even when they had been warned about the effect.

It seems likely that this is an unfortunate side-effect of a very useful ability — namely our ability to learn motor skills by observing others (using the aforesaid mirror neurons) — and there’s probably not a great deal we can do to prevent it happening. It’s just a reminder of how easy it is to form false memories.

Reference: 

[1839] Lindner, I., Echterhoff G., Davidson P. S. R., & Brand M.
(2010).  Observation Inflation.
Psychological Science. 21(9), 1291 - 1299.

Source: 

Topics: 

tags memworks: 

tags problems: 

Adults recall negative events less accurately than children

August, 2010

A word experiment shows that unpleasant or traumatic events are likely to be inaccurately remembered, and this memory distortion increases with age. The findings have implications for eyewitness testimony.

Findings that children are less likely than adults to distort memories when negative emotions are evoked has significant implications for the criminal justice system. Experiments involving children aged seven and 11, and young adults (18-23) found that when they were shown lists of closely related emotional words (e.g. pain, cut, ouch, cry, injury), they would tend to mistakenly remember a related word (e.g. hurt) although it had not been present. Despite the prevailing theory that being involved in a very negative experience focuses your mind and helps you notice and remember details, words that had negative emotional content produced the highest levels of false memory. With arousal (such as would be evoked in a traumatic experience), memory was distorted more. These tendencies increased with age.

Reference: 

[1670] Brainerd, C. J., Holliday R. E., Reyna V. F., Yang Y., & Toglia M. P.
(2010).  Developmental reversals in false memory: Effects of emotional valence and arousal.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 107(2), 137 - 154.

Source: 

Topics: 

tags: 

tags development: 

tags memworks: 

1 in 40 of us really can multitask

March, 2010

A study assessing multitasking ability has found that a very few (5 out of 200) were unaffected by doing two complex tasks simultaneously (indeed their performance on the memory task improved!).

A study assessing the performance of 200 people on a simulated freeway driving task, with or without having a cell phone conversation that involved memorizing words and solving math problems, has found that, as expected, performance on both tasks was significantly impaired. However, for a very few, performance on these tasks was unaffected (indeed their performance on the memory task improved!). These few people — five of them (2.5%) — also performed substantially better on these tasks when performed alone.

Reference: 

Watson, J.M. & Strayer, D.L. 2010. Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. In Press.

Full text is available at http://www.psych.utah.edu/lab/appliedcognition/publications/supertaskers...

Source: 

Topics: 

tags memworks: 

tags problems: 

Interruptions associated with medication errors by nurses

April, 2010

A study of medication administrations in hospitals has found scarily high rates of procedural and clinical failures, of which 2.7% were considered to be major errors — which were much more likely to occur after interruptions, particularly repeated interruptions. Nurse experience provided no protection and indeed was associated with higher procedural failure rates (common with procedural failures — expertise renders you more vulnerable, not less).

As we all know, being interrupted during a task greatly increases the chance we’ll go off-kilter (I discuss the worst circumstances and how you can minimize the risk of mistakes in my book Planning to remember). Medication errors occur as often as once per patient per day in some settings, and around one-third of harmful medication errors are thought to occur during medication administration. Now an in-depth study involving 98 nurses at two Australian teaching hospitals over 505 hours has revealed that at least one procedural failure occurred in 74.4% of administrations and at least one clinical failure in 25%. Each interruption was associated with a 12.1% increase in procedural failures and a 12.7% increase in clinical errors. Procedural failures include such errors as failure to check patient's identification, record medication administration, use aseptic technique; clinical failures such errors as wrong drug, dose, or route. Interruptions occurred in over half of the 4000 drug administrations. While most errors were rated as clinically insignificant, 2.7% were considered to be major errors — and these were much more likely to occur after interruptions, particularly after repeated interruptions. The risk of major error was 2.3% when there was no interruption; this rose to 4.7% with four interruptions. Nurse experience provided no protection against making a clinical error and was associated with higher procedural failure rates (this is common with procedural failures — expertise renders you more vulnerable, not less).

Reference: 

Source: 

Topics: 

tags problems: 

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Problems
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.