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Music may help you get in the mood for learning or intellectual work, but background music is likely to diminish your performance.

While studies have demonstrated that listening to music before doing a task can improve performance on that task, chiefly through its effect on mood, there has been little research into the effects of background music while doing the task.

A comprehensive review of the recent research into the benefits of music training on learning and the brain concludes music training in schools should be strongly supported.

A review of the many recent studies into the effects of music training on the nervous system strongly suggests that the neural connections made during musical training also prime the brain for other aspects of human communication, including learning.

A month's training in sound discrimination reversed normal age-related cognitive decline in the auditory cortex in old rats.

A rat study demonstrates how specialized brain training can reverse many aspects of normal age-related cognitive decline in targeted areas. The month-long study involved daily hour-long sessions of intense auditory training targeted at the primary auditory cortex.

Another study shows that older adults with low levels of vitamin D have higher levels of cognitive decline, particularly in executive function (but not attention).

Another study has come out showing that older adults with low levels of vitamin D are more likely to have cognitive problems. The six-year study followed 858 adults who were age 65 or older at the beginning of the study.

New evidence suggests that Down syndrome, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, all share a common disease mechanism.

It’s been suggested before that Down syndrome and Alzheimer's are connected. Similarly, there has been evidence for connections between diabetes and Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s. Now new evidence shows that all of these share a common disease mechanism.

  • A large study has found that women with high blood pressure had significantly higher amounts of white matter lesions (a risk factor for dementia) 8 years later.

Part of the Women's Health Initiative study looking at the effect of hormone therapy on thinking and memory in postmenopausal women, involving over 1400 women, has found those who had high blood pressure at the start of the study (eight years earlier) had significantly higher amounts of

  • People with MCI who later developed Alzheimer's disease showed 10-30% greater brain atrophy in two specific regions.

A three-year study involving 169 people with mild cognitive impairment has found that those who later developed Alzheimer's disease showed 10-30% greater atrophy in two specific locations within the

A study has found that mental fluctuations were very rare in those without Alzheimer's, but occurred in nearly 12% of those with very mild or mild Alzheimer’s.

A study involving 511 older adults (average age 78) has found that 11.6% of those with very mild or mild Alzheimer’s (43% of the participants) had mental lapses, compared to only 2 of the 295 without Alzheimer’s. Those with mental lapses also tended to have more severe Alzheimer’s.

Previous research suggesting loss of smell function may serve as an early marker of Alzheimer's disease has now been supported by evidence from genetically engineered mice.

Previous research suggesting loss of smell function may serve as an early marker of Alzheimer's disease has now been supported by a finding that in

A study using two training programs to help dementia patients regain eating skills, found spaced retrieval training was particularly effective.

Loss of memory and problems with judgment in dementia patients can cause difficulties in relation to eating and nutrition; these problems in turn can lead to poor quality of life, pressure ulcers and infections.

  • A clinical trial has found improvement in verbal (but not general) memory in patients with mild Alzheimer's who drank a nutritional cocktail for 12 weeks.

A European trial involving 225 patients with mild Alzheimer's has found that those who drank Souvenaid (a cocktail of uridine, choline and the omega-3 fatty acid DHA, plus B vitamins, phosopholipids and antioxidants) for 12 weeks were more likely to improve their performance in a delayed verbal

Healthy older adults reporting subjective cognitive impairment are dramatically more likely to progress to MCI or dementia, and decline significantly faster.

Subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), marked by situations such as when a person recognizes they can't remember a name like they used to or where they recently placed important objects the way they used to, is experienced by between one-quarter and one-half of the population over the age of 65.

Two large studies have found moderate exercise was associated with a lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment. A small study suggests women may benefit more than men.

A German study involving nearly 4000 older adults (55+) has found that physical activity significantly reduced the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment over a two-year period.

A new study suggests that all the great benefits of BDNF for learning and memory are in fact due to calpain.

Last month I reported on a finding that estrogen acts through calpain, a protein crucial to learning and memory, that acts as a

  • The existence of specialized neurons involved in spatial memory has now been found in humans, and appear to also help with object location and autobiographical memory.

Rodent studies have demonstrated the existence of specialized neurons involved in spatial memory.

New evidence suggests that for that those with HIV, the disease, medications, or both, are accelerating what is a normal age-related process.

Although HIV doesn't directly infect neurons, it appears that once it has crossed the blood-brain barrier, it affects supporting cells that can release immune factors that harm neurons.

A comparison of Ugandan and Senegalese children has found differences in which working memory system is dominant. This may be a product of literacy training.

‘Working memory’ is thought to consist of three components: one concerned with auditory-verbal processing, one with visual-spatial processing, and a central executive that controls both. It has been hypothesized that the relationships between the components changes as children develop.

Providing support for a modular concept of the brain, a twin study has found that face recognition is heritable, and that it is inherited separately from IQ.

No surprise to me (I’m hopeless at faces), but a twin study has found that face recognition is heritable, and that it is inherited separately from IQ.

Telling students to strive for excellence may not always be the best strategy.

You may think that telling students to strive for excellence is always a good strategy, but it turns out that it is not quite as simple as that.

As well as during sleep, it now appears that restful periods while you are awake are also times when consolidation can occur.

It is now well established that memories are consolidated during sleep.

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