What Was I Looking For?

Have you ever gone into another room to get something and couldn't remember what it was you wanted? Turns out that when the brain moves through a doorway it sort of readjusts itself to begin paying attention to what is in the new room--and sometimes neglects to recall the reason you went there in the first place. When you return to where you started, the brain usually recalls what you were thinking at the time in that room. Solution? As you go through the doorway, say aloud what you want to get in the next room to help fix that thought in working memory.

Fat Intake and Your Brain

Do you think you can eat fatty foods and just compensate with physical exercise? Think again! Studies in rats and humans at Cambridge University in Britain have shown that high-fat foods appear to have an almost immediate negative impact on both short-term memory and exercise performance. The short-term decline in cognitive function may be because a high-fat diet can trigger insulin resistance, which means the body becomes less efficient at using the glucose, which is so important to brain function. A short-term negative effect on exercise performance may be because the body reacts to high fat content in the blood by releasing specific proteins that essentially make the metabolism less efficient (e.g., muscles are less efficient at using oxygen and fuel to make the energy needed to exercise). Ouch!

Half-a-Brain Plasticity

Do you fully appreciate the brain’s amazing plasticity? Researchers at the University of Glasgow studied the brain of a ten-year-old girl who had been born with the entire right hemisphere missing. The fMRI studies (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) showed that her brain had rewired its retinal nerve fibers in order to process information from the right and left visual fields in spite of her not having a whole brain. Lead researcher Dr Lars Muckli of the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in the Department of Psychology, said: “The brain has amazing plasticity but we were quite astonished to see just how well the single hemisphere of the brain in this girl has adapted to compensate for the missing half." (http://www.physorg.com/news167324813.html)

REM Sleep and Learning Retention

Are you getting sufficient REM sleep every night? If not, it could impact your learning retention. According to Pierce Howard, director of research at the Center for Applied Cognitive Studies in Charlotte, N.C., without sufficient rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, you can lose what you learned the day preceding sleep. More and more information is pointing toward the importance of getting sufficient sleep for your brain, every day. Employees who are learning new information on the job can further maximize learning retention by getting enough rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. (Fox, Adrienne. HR Magazine (03/08) Vol. 53, No. 3, P. 37)

Music and the Corpus Callosum

Did you know that it’s possible to strengthen the Corpus Callosum, one of several bridges connecting the brain’s right and left hemispheres? Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Boston College found that taking music lessons can do this. In children who practiced music at least 2.5 hours a week, a portion of the corpus callosum that connects movement-planning regions grew about 25% relative to the size of the brain. Have you ever taken music lessons? Keep practicing. No? Then start now!

You See What?

Did you know that your visual system focuses on only one or very few objects at a time? Because far more information lands on your eyes than you can possibly analyze, your brain screens visual stimuli using bottom-up attentiveness or top-down attentiveness. Bottom-up (e.g., wildly waving hand) can get your attention because it sticks out. Top-down attentiveness occurs when you consciously direct your attention toward something specific (e.g., finding your suitcase on an airline baggage carousel).

Do You Know What Your Brain Is Doing?

Did you know that your consciousness is only aware of some of the things your brain is doing? Using fMRI brain scans, researchers were able to predict people's decisions (e.g., using right or left hand to push a button) seven seconds before the test subjects were aware of making the decision. During those seven seconds, subconscious brain activity was evident in their frontopolar cortex and then in the parietal region.