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A Surprisingly Simple Technique to Improve Learning and Memory

A Surprisingly Simple Technique to Improve Learning and Memory

by | 2023 Jul 27 | Learning Brains, Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

memory brain

“Imagine you are a master thief doing a heist at an art museum,”. These were the instructions, that may sound strange, at the start of a scientific experiment. All harmless of course and something we can relate to with many an entertaining film about master thieves.

This was all part of setting the scene in a computer game to measure memory in a clever experiment conducted by Alyssa Sinclair and colleagues at Duke University. But, and this is crucial, the instructions given differed slightly and this is what led to different learning and recall outcomes.

The potential master thieves, study participants, 420 adults in all, were told that they were in the moment of the heist itself or, alternatively, that they were scouting out the museum for a future heist. The virtual museum was exactly the same with four coloured doors leading to four rooms with different collections of art with some picture and collections being more valuable than others.

And these two mindsets labeled a high-pressure mindset, needing to perform in the moment, and a curious mindset gave noticeably different outcomes when measured the following day.

The following day participants logged back in and were queried on their recall of the paintings and their values. They were presented with a whopping 175 pictures, 100 from the game and 75 additional ones, and asked to identify them and place the respective values to them.

Those who were in the scouting, curiosity, mode, the curiosity mindset were much better at identifying the correct pictures and assigning the correct values to them.

It seems that this lower-stress state allows for better mapping of the world and therefore better memory and recall. However, it’s not all bad for the high-pressure mindset. Though recall was lower, they were able to more effectively identify the highest value pieces and subsequently “won” on collecting the most stash.

This highlights what other research has pointed to, namely that high-pressure is good for value-based judgements in the moment. This is the proverbial scenario of escaping from the threatening bear – if you are faced with a bear, scouting the environment and remembering this, is not the best strategy and immediate value-based i.e. save my neck, judgement is needed.

It also does show that curiosity is effective for learning and needs to be in lower pressure situations. This in our adult lives can, however, be challenging, as it can be for many businesses. We are often moving constantly from one high-pressure situation to another and this can therefore impede learning and recall (not to mention leave us in a constant state of stress).

So the big outcome of this is that for learning and recall, curiosity is the best mindset – and this is something that is free and accessible to all of us.

Curious to learn more? I reported previously that curiosity could be an inborn trait and the newly discovered brain networks that drive curiosity.

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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References

Alyssa H. Sinclair, Yuxi C. Wang, R. Alison Adcock.
Instructed motivational states bias reinforcement learning and memory formation.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023; 120 (31)
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304881120

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Espresso Combats Alzheimer’s

Espresso Combats Alzheimer’s

by | 2023 Jul 26 | Healthy Brains, Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

espresso coffee brain alzheimer

Yay, more good news for us coffee drinkers!

I am always interested in the research that is coming out with regard to coffee as a coffee drinker. Yes, so I am biased. Coffee had been considered unhealthy for many years but research over the years has shown multiple health benefits (including living longer) – I first discovered this after encountering a coffee expert who told me of all the antioxidants and natural ingredients in coffee beans – I was converted.

This research just out, though, is even more fascinating – it showed that espresso can reduce clumping of proteins in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s – wow!

In this fascinating research by Roberto Tira and colleagues of the University of Verona in Italy – no surprise in the location there – they incubated various coffee compounds found in freshly extracted coffee and also a complete espresso compound next to tau proteins.

Tau proteins are natural occurring in the human brain but it is precisely these that end up becoming dysfunctional and clumping up to form blobs of protein that the brain can no longer clean out. This is also a key indicator of Alzheimer’s.

When these molecules from coffee were incubated alongside the proteins the fibres they formed were shorter and didn’t form into sheets suggesting that they would be less likely to form clumps. What’s more the most effective at reducing this was the full espresso compound rather than individual molecules extracted from the espresso compound.

This could be for many reasons such as having multiple molecules that are beneficial.

Obviously this was a lab test and in the human body your espresso doesn’t go directly to your brain – alas. But, nevertheless, another piece in the increasing large collection of research showing that coffee has multiple potential benefits.

Another shot of espresso for me then●

Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Roberto Tira, Giovanna Viola, Carlo Giorgio Barracchia, Francesca Parolini, Francesca Munari, Stefano Capaldi, Michael Assfalg, Mariapina D’Onofrio.
Espresso Coffee Mitigates the Aggregation and Condensation of Alzheimer′s Associated Tau Protein.
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2023; DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.3c01072

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New Brain Signature of Empathy Discovered

New Brain Signature of Empathy Discovered

by | 2022 Dec 6 | Public, Quick Hits

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

There have been numerous brain areas associated with empathy and feeling for others – some of which I have written about in other places. However, researchers at the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea have now discovered a new signature and underlying neural mechanisms to empathy.

Empathy is a critical aspect of human sociality giving us the capacity to sense, feel, and share the emotions of others. But the biological mechanisms are also shared with other animal – including rodents. This study focused on “observational fear”, commonly used in scientific research as a basic form of emotional contagion and affective empathy.

In this experimental protocol, one mouse is given a small electrical shock, poor mouse. Another can see this through a transparent screen. The observer mouse will also immediately exhibit a fear response and freeze. What the researchers were able to do is to see that this empathetic fear response is different to the first-hand experienced fear response and is coordinated by brain waves that are synchronised between different brain regions. Specifically, two areas, one called the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) which helps with attention, and a part of the Amygdala (BLA) which is involved in fear and threat detection.

In the observer mice there was a pattern of increased slow waves, 5-7Hz (theta brain waves), between these two regions. In the mice that experienced the shock, and therefore a fear response, slow waves were only seen in the Amygdala. This suggests two different patterns. The researchers then tested the causality to see if this does indeed trigger this behaviour. What they found is that if they inhibited the rhythms in the ACC-BLA circuit then it significantly impacted the observational fear freezing.

Furthermore, this seems to be controlled by another regions in the brain known as the hippocampus which is generally responsible for memory and navigation. Hippocampus theta rhythms seem to coordinate these regions – similarly by disrupting the hippocampal theta rhythms observational fear freezing was inhibited or increased.

So, this gives us some clear evidence that empathy is also driven by coordination between different brain regions and coordinated by the hippocampus. Whether this is for all types of emotions is another question but intriguing it is.

For us human beings there is no obvious way to synchronize theta brain waves – so no help on the horizon for those lacking empathy – or to turn it down either!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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References

Seong-Wook Kim, Minsoo Kim, Jinhee Baek, Charles-Francois Latchoumane, Gireesh Gangadharan, Yongwoo Yoon, Duk-Soo Kim, Jin Hyung Lee, Hee-Sup Shin. 
Hemispherically lateralized rhythmic oscillations in the cingulate-amygdala circuit drive affective empathy in mice. 
Neuron, 2022
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.11.001

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How Your Silent Synapses Boost Brain Power

How Your Silent Synapses Boost Brain Power

by | 2022 Dec 2 | Public, Quick Hits

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Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

brain motivation

There are different types of dark matter in the brain. Matter that is often little researched or unknown to different population groups. I have written previously about glial cells and their contribution to just about everything, something neuroscientists know a lot about, to electrical neurons, that have been vastly under researched.

But now some researchers have made some discoveries in another area, and that is that of silent synapses. Synapses are the connections between your brain cells. The current understanding is that as you learn, develop new skills, synapses connect, and strengthen and build the networks in your brain – this is how your brain is continually growing and changing. However, these would always be part of a network. Silent, inactive synapses have been seen in the brains of developing mice so it was thought they played a key role in the developing brain but not in adults.

However, in an unexpected discovery MIT researchers have found silent synapses at levels 10 times higher than expected. The researchers were not actually looking for silent synapses but trying to measure neurotransmitter receptors on the branches of neurons. Some of these branches and connections, known as filopodia, are extremely fine and small and are difficult, or impossible, to see with standard imaging techniques.

On discovering these in such high quantities they then proceeded to investigate whether they were indeed silent synapses by attempting to stimulate these with a combination of a neurotransmitter and an electrical stimulus. They found that indeed these were silent but could grow into active synapses much quicker than by altering mature synapses.

That’s good news and this explains how we can learn things quicker – having silent synapses allows rapid learning and being able to build new memories without building whole new synapses.

Whether this is different between different people is another question – but I am hoping I have a bunch of silent synapses waiting to spring into action when I engage with new material – such as writing this article – go silent synapses, go!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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References

Vardalaki, D., Chung, K. & Harnett, M.T. 
Filopodia are a structural substrate for silent synapses in adult neocortex. 
Nature, 2022
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05483-6

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Scientists Say They Know the Secret to Waking Up Alert

Scientists Say They Know the Secret to Waking Up Alert

by | 2022 Nov 30 | Public, Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

sleep tired activity

The headline caught my eye also. I’ve written multiple times, as many of you who follow my writing will know, on sleep, but also chronotypes: having a different daily wake and sleep rhythms. I am a bit of an owl – I tend to go to bed later and feel better when I get up later. I have however, been able to retrain myself and get up consistently early and keep my rhythm almost every day. I’m not a bad get-out-of-bedder but I also don’t bounce out of bed with a spring in my step either. So, when scientists say they know how to wake up alert, well, it makes me alert!

So, who are these scientists and what did they do?

This was a group of researchers from the Centre of Sleep Science at Berkely University who conducted a detailed analysis of 833 participants over a two-week period, with different sleep times and different types of breakfast. Their sleep was tracked with smart watches, they also had glucose measurements. Of note is that twins, both identical and fraternal, were in the study to help disentangle genetic effects.

The surprise, which kind of contradicts other studies on chronotypes, is that genetics only accounted for 25% of the variance in alertness in the morning. So, you will be itching to know what else contributed to this alertness.

There were four factors:

  1. Sleeping longer and later than you usually do. Seems like a no-brainer. But this was the most predictive aspect. It could be then that we just aren’t getting enough sleep in the first place. This might not be helpful for those who need to get up early for work (go to bed earlier, sweetie).
  2. The next one was that of exercising the day before which the researchers noticed contributed to better sleep and enhanced mood.
  3. A really important aspect was that of breakfast – the researchers noted that a breakfast high in simple sugars dramatically (negatively) impacted alertness and subsequent sleepiness. In contrast a breakfast with modest protein and complex carbohydrates was linked to revving up alertness.
  4. The final factor was the glucose response – this could arguably be a genetic component: this can also be very individualised. But this is strongly influenced by the afore-mentioned breakfast.

So, sadly, nothing dramatic there. But then again it does show, with a good body of evidence, that there are ways to boost alertness and wakefulness in the morning and most of these are under our control.

I had high hopes for the article – but as is often the case, I do most of these already – I am a masters athlete so train most days, I have a healthy fibre rich breakfast, and walk straight after breakfast to energise myself and get some daylight (when it’s light that is). However, I could do with some help getting to bed earlier, I tend to postpose my bedtime – being a bit of an owl…then again, I’m not bad at getting up – just it would be nice to be a bit more sprightly in the morning!

It must also be noted that the societal cost of sleepiness and drowsiness are significant, in fact it is deadly, the number of accidents not to mention major catastrophes that have been influenced by sleepiness is not to be underestimated: the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania and an even worse nuclear accident in Chernobyl.

So, it is good and important to know that a lot of this is under our control – and the “I’m not a morning person” might not be as true as you may believe!

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Andy Habermacher

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

twitter / LinkedIn

References

Raphael Vallat, Sarah E. Berry, Neli Tsereteli, Joan Capdevila, Haya Al Khatib, Ana M. Valdes, Linda M. Delahanty, David A. Drew, Andrew T. Chan, Jonathan Wolf, Paul W. Franks, Tim D. Spector, Matthew P. Walker.
How people wake up is associated with previous night’s sleep together with physical activity and food intake.
Nature Communications, 2022; 13 (1)
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34503-2

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