http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Researchers from Rice University and Georgia Institute of Technology have found support for the theory that the brain has three concentric layers of working memory where it stores readily available items. Memory researchers have long debated whether there are two or three layers and what the capacity and function of each layer is. http://phys.org/news218905745.html Medicine & Health Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:09:26 EST news218905745 A new University of Colorado Boulder study indicates an ancient form of complementary medicine may be effective in helping to treat people with mild traumatic brain injury, a finding that may have implications for some U.S. war veterans returning home. http://phys.org/news218119272.html Medicine & Health Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:00:03 EST news218119272 Older people with larger waistlines, high blood pressure and other risk factors that make up metabolic syndrome may be at a higher risk for memory loss, according to a study published in the February 2, 2011, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. http://phys.org/news215890427.html Medicine & Health Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:34:02 EST news215890427 (PhysOrg.com) -- Children in low-income families lag behind their higher-income counterparts on virtually all measures of achievement, and this gap tends to increase over time. There are many reasons why, but a Cornell environmental psychologist and his colleagues add a new culprit to the list: chronic stress from adverse neighborhood and family conditions. http://phys.org/news215721411.html Medicine & Health Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:00:01 EST news215721411 The growing numbers of new cases of substance abuse disorders are perplexing. After all, the course of drug addiction so often ends badly. The negative consequences of drug abuse appear regularly on TV, from stories of celebrities behaving in socially inappropriate and self-destructive ways while intoxicated to dramatization of the rigors of drug withdrawal on "Intervention" and other reality shows. http://phys.org/news215346265.html Medicine & Health Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:50:01 EST news215346265 One of the first studies published from the University of Missouri Brain Imaging Center (BIC) gives researchers insight into the brain and memory and may provide researchers clues to treating a variety of debilitating disorders. http://phys.org/news215189190.html Medicine & Health Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:47:27 EST news215189190 Adults who take one of the world's most commonly prescribed sleep medications are significantly more at risk for nighttime falls and potential injury, according to a new study by the University of Colorado at Boulder. http://phys.org/news214137945.html Medicine & Health Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:47:40 EST news214137945 Smoking is a common problem for patients with schizophrenia. The increased tendency of patients diagnosed with this disorder is to not only smoke, but to do so more heavily than the general public. This raises the possibility that nicotine may be acting as a treatment for some symptoms of schizophrenia. http://phys.org/news213963253.html Medicine & Health Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:14:29 EST news213963253 In developing countries where iron deficiency is prevalent, prenatal iron-folic acid supplementation increased offspring intellectual and motor functioning during school age, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. They examined the intellectual and motor functioning of children whose mothers received micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy and found that aspects of intellectual functioning including working memory, inhibitory control, and fine motor functioning were positively associated with prenatal iron and folic acid supplementation. The results are published in the December 22/29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. http://phys.org/news212170402.html Medicine & Health Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:13:31 EST news212170402 An intensive, five-week working memory training program shows promise in relieving some of the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children, a new study suggests. http://phys.org/news211118744.html Medicine & Health Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:05:55 EST news211118744 Exhaustion syndrome, also called burnout and exhaustion depression, leaves objectively measurable changes in the brain – including reduced activity in the frontal lobes and altered regulation of the stress hormone cortisol. This is shown in a new dissertation from Umea University in Sweden. http://phys.org/news209298346.html Medicine & Health Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:25:55 EST news209298346 (PhysOrg.com) -- Brain research over the past 30 years has shown that if a part of the brain controlling movement or sensation or language is lost because of a stroke or injury, other parts of the brain can take over the lost function – often as well as the region that was lost. http://phys.org/news208007355.html Medicine & Health Wed, 03 Nov 2010 12:49:45 EST news208007355 Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, led by Larry R. Squire, PhD, professor of psychiatry, psychology and neurosciences at UC San Diego and a scientist at the VA San Diego Healthcare System, report that working memory of relational information – where an object is located, for example – remains intact even if key brain structures like the hippocampus are damaged. http://phys.org/news206124313.html Medicine & Health Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:20:06 EST news206124313 Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago are the first to use brain imaging to examine the effects of emotion on working memory function in children with pediatric bipolar disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. http://phys.org/news206115228.html Medicine & Health Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:14:03 EST news206115228 (PhysOrg.com) -- A star golfer misses a critical putt; a brilliant student fails to ace a test; a savvy salesperson blows a key presentation. Each of these people has suffered the same bump in mental processing: They have just choked under pressure. http://phys.org/news204302718.html Medicine & Health Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:45:53 EST news204302718 Barriers to children's achievement in the areas of science, math, and engineering have become a particular concern as policymakers focus on America's economic competitiveness. A gender difference in girls' spatial abilities emerges very early in development, and researchers have suggested that this difference may be a source of gaps in achievement in math and science for girls. A new study just published in Child Development describes an intervention that is effective in eliminating the gender gap in spatial abilities. While the research doesn't yet show that the intervention leads to better achievement in science, math, and engineering for girls, this is a promising direction for supporting girls' achievement and eventual contributions in these areas. http://phys.org/news203744243.html Other Sciences Wed, 15 Sep 2010 05:10:04 EST news203744243 Simply teaching people the facts about how to protect themselves from HIV may not be enough to prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa, a new study suggests. http://phys.org/news203165984.html Medicine & Health Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:00:25 EST news203165984 (PhysOrg.com) -- The academic performance of adolescents will suffer in at least one of four key subjects -- English, math, science, history -- if their DNA contains one or more of three specific dopamine gene variations, according to a study led by renowned biosocial criminologist Kevin M. Beaver of The Florida State University. http://phys.org/news202651994.html Medicine & Health Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:13:41 EST news202651994 Where you grow up can have a big impact on the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and even how your brain works. In a report in a special section on Culture and Psychology in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychological scientists Denise C. Park from the University of Texas at Dallas and Chih-Mao Huang from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign discuss ways in which brain structure and function may be influenced by culture. http://phys.org/news200062422.html Medicine & Health Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:30:02 EST news200062422 Verbal distractions are a primary cause of poor memory, according to scientific tests, which prove that the key to preventing ourselves from forgetting is to rehearse and ‘refresh’ our thoughts. http://phys.org/news198838338.html Medicine & Health Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:30:01 EST news198838338 (PhysOrg.com) -- Imagine if your brain lost its working memory -- the ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind's eye. That's the plight faced by millions of people with neurofibromatosis type 1, or NF1. The genetic condition affects one in 3,500 people and is the most common cause of learning disabilities. http://phys.org/news198496231.html Medicine & Health Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:50:53 EST news198496231 A commercial brain fitness program has been shown to improve memory in older adults, at least in the period soon after training. The findings are the first to show that practicing simple visual tasks can improve the accuracy of short-term, or "working" visual memory. The research, led by scientists at UCSF, is also one of the first to measure both mental performance and changes in neural activity caused by a cognitive training program. http://phys.org/news198349101.html Medicine & Health Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:58:34 EST news198349101 but it's not going to turn you into Liberace. A new study looks at the role that working memory capacity plays in piano players' ability to sight read a new piece of music, an important and complex skill for musicians. http://phys.org/news197807240.html Medicine & Health Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:20:03 EST news197807240 Learning and memory impairments are important contributors to the disability associated with schizophrenia. These functional impairments emerge long before the onset of other symptoms associated with schizophrenia, suggesting that they are a consequence of a disturbance in brain development. http://phys.org/news197628718.html Medicine & Health Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:10:03 EST news197628718 Conventional wisdom holds that adolescents are susceptible to drug use and other risk-taking behavior. However, a one-size-fits-all approach to curbing these behaviors likely will be unsuccessful, according to research to be presented Monday, May 3 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. http://phys.org/news192082374.html Medicine & Health Mon, 03 May 2010 05:14:46 EST news192082374 A research project of the Neuroscience Center of the University of Helsinki sheds light on the neuronal mechanisms sustaining memory traces of visual stimuli in the human brain. The results show that the maintenance of working memory is associated with synchronisation of neurons, which facilitates communication between different parts of the brain. On the basis of interaction between the brain areas, it was even possible to predict the subject's individual working memory capacity. The results were published last week in the online version of the renowned journal PNAS. http://phys.org/news190373523.html Medicine & Health Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:50:01 EST news190373523 In what may provide the most compelling evidence to date, researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have illuminated how a genetic variant may lead to schizophrenia by causing a disruption in communication between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex regions of the brain, areas believed to be responsible for carrying out working memory. Findings are published in the current online edition of Nature. http://phys.org/news189258166.html Medicine & Health Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:00:05 EST news189258166 We are not all blessed with the brains, beauty, luck, and capital that we associate with highly successful business people or entrepreneurs. Although most new business ventures fail, a few prosper and grow rapidly. A new article from the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal demystifies this game of success, and shows that exceptional performance is not necessarily the direct result of special talent, experience, or sheer luck. http://phys.org/news189084085.html Other Sciences Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:00:01 EST news189084085 Mice trained to improve their working memory become more intelligent, suggesting that similar improvements in working memory might help human beings enhance their brain power, according to research published today in Current Biology by researchers at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. http://phys.org/news188739131.html Biology Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:32:25 EST news188739131 One of the most common complaints among healthy older adults relates to a decline in memory performance. This decline has been linked to an inability to ignore irrelevant information when forming memories. In order to ignore distracting information, the brain should act to suppress its responses to distractions, but it has been shown that in older adults there is in fact an increase in brain activity at those times. In a new study published in the April 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex researchers at the University of California San Francisco have shown that even prior knowledge of an impending distraction does not help to improve the working memory performance of older adults. http://phys.org/news188730125.html Medicine & Health Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:20:01 EST news188730125