According to nutrition experts and dieticians, consuming fresh seasonal fruits and vegetable salads and doing breathing exercises while studying can go a long way in helping students concentrate better during their marathon study sessions.

“Students usually study at a stretch of four to five hours. If they follow a healthy diet during the exam days it can boost their concentration levels and reduce stress,” said Deepika Aggarwal, head of dietetics at Apollo Hospital.

According to Aggarwal, foods like baby corn, oats, wholegrain bread and paneer, among others, have complex carbohydrates that release glucose very slowly and provide the body with energy over a sustained period.

“If you crave a midnight snack, grab some fresh veggies and make a sandwich. It will not only satiate your hunger but will also act as a fuel, helping you to carry on with your study session,” Aggarwal said.

According to Shashi Mathur, chief dietician at Sir Ganga Ram hospital, seasonal fruits – either eaten raw or in the form of juices – as well as dry fruits can work wonders for the body and the brain.

“Walnuts and almonds, soaked in water overnight, can be had in the morning while fruit juices can be had while studying,” Mathur said. These food products are rich in antioxidants and fatty acids like omega 6 and omega 3 which help vitalise the body by curbing stress.

In addition, chocolate milk and lassi are also helpful as they provide the body with the necessary calories.

However, the fact remains that hours of sitting and reading notes do take a toll on the body and, if not taken care of, can lead to muscle cramps.

Doctors advise light exercises and deep breathing methods in between the study sessions to keep the body fresh.

“Take a 15-minute break and go to the balcony or terrace. Take a short stroll and get some fresh air. It will freshen your mind and tackle fatigue,” Aggarwal said.

“Keep the windows of the room that you are studying in open for effective ventilation at all times,” she added.

Other effective options are yoga and deep breathing.

“Take short breaks and indulge in deep breathing at regular intervals. While doing so, you can always revise what you have learnt up till that point,” Mathur said.

All these measures are however of no use if the youngsters don’t give up junk food.

According to doctors, aerated drinks, fried chicken and potatoes, cheese and the likes wreak havoc on the body and should be avoided, especially during the exam season. The high sugar content affects concentration while the excess calories result in lethargy.

For Seema Jindal Jajodia, health food enthusiast and founder of Nourish Organics, a company that produces organic food products, processed or fast foods are a big no.

“Organic foods are known to carry 50 per cent more nutrients, minerals and vitamins when compared to food produced through intensive farming. The situation is worse when it comes to fast food,” she said.

“Fast food and processed foods should be avoided especially when students are preparing for their exams,” Jajodia added.

Source: IANS

These findings, based on PET scans of 555 participants in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, could open the way to more effective drugs for Alzheimer’s or slow, reverse or even prevent the disease, the journal Molecular Psychiatry reports.

Amyloid plaque deposits build up abnormally in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and are believed to play an important role in memory loss and other problems that plague patients. ‘The findings could recharge research efforts studying the molecular pathways contributing to amyloid deposits in the brain as Alzheimer’s disease develops and affects learning and memory,’ said Vijay K. Ramanan, study co-author and doctoral student from Indiana University School of Medicine.

The BCHE gene finding ‘brings together two of the major hypotheses about the development of Alzheimer’s disease,’ said Andrew J. Saykin, professor of radiology and imaging sciences at Indiana and principal investigator for the genetics core of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. ‘This study is connecting two of the biggest Alzheimer’s dots,’ said Saykin, director of the Indiana Alzheimer Disease Centre, according to an Indiana statement.

Source: IANS

Scientists found that a hormone – oxytocin – is released into the blood stream when you hold a friend close. This lowers blood pressure, reduces stress and anxiety and can even improve your memory, Daily Mail reported. According to a research from the University of Vienna, you have to be, however, selective over who you hug. Giving a polite embrace to someone we don’t know well can have the opposite effect.

Oxytocin is primarily known for increasing bonding, social behaviour and closeness between parents, children and couples. Increased oxytocin levels have been found, for example, in partners in functional relationships. In women, it is also produced during the childbirth process and during breastfeeding to increase the mother’s bond with the baby. Also, hugging can soften one’s personality. The researchers said someone who hugs loved ones often become more empathetic over time.

‘The positive effect only occurs, however, if the people trust each other, if the associated feelings are present mutually and if the corresponding signals are sent out,’ said Neurophysiologist Jürgen Sandkühler. ‘If people do not know each other, or if the hug is not desired by both parties, its effects are lost.’ When we receive unwanted hugs from strangers or even people we know, the hormone is not released instead the anxiety levels increase.

‘Hugging is good, but no matter how long or how often someone hugs, it is trust that’s more important,’ he added.

Source: IANS

Psychologists from the University of Iowa contend that infants create knowledge by looking at and learning about their surroundings. The activities should be viewed as intertwined, to fully appreciate how infants gain knowledge and integrate that with memory.

‘The link between looking and learning is much more intricate than what people have assumed,’ John Spencer, psychology professor at Iowa and study co-author, was quoted in the journal Cognitive Science.

The researchers created a math model that mimics, in real time and through months of child development, how infants use looking to understand their environment, according to a university statement. ‘The model can look, like infants, at a world that includes dynamic, stimulating events that influence where it looks. We contend (the model) provides a critical link to studying how social partners influence how infants distribute their looks, learn, and develop,’ the authors wrote.

The model examines the looking-learning behaviour of infants as young as six weeks through one year of age, through 4,800 simulations at various points in development involving multiple stimuli and tasks. As would be expected, most infants introduced to new objects tend to look at them to gather information about them; once they do, they are ‘biased’ to look away from them in search of something new. In other words, an infant will linger on something that’s being shown to it for the first time as it learns about it, and that the ‘total looking time’ will decrease as the infant becomes more familiar with it.

Source: IANS

For instance, 54 people who work in the same building were asked if they knew the location of the bright fire extinguisher nearest their office. Surprisingly only 13 or 24 percent of the group knew the location, the journal Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics reported. A few months after being asked the location of the nearest fire extinguisher, the participants were asked again if they knew where the closest one was. All of them knew, according to an UCLA statement.

Does this tell us about the importance of training, whether for emergencies or something as common as learning a new computer programme? Castel stresses that making errors during training is useful. 

“It’s good if errors happen during training and not during an event where you need the information,” he said.  ”That’s part of the learning process.” The researchers found no significant differences between men and women, or between older and younger adults. But with safety information, such as knowing where fire extinguishers are or what to do in an emergency, being prepared can, of course, be very useful.

Source: IANS

‘For example, a person with this type of dementia usually knows what a kettle does, but they may not know what to call it and may not recognize the word ‘kettle’ when they hear it,’ said Savage, according to a NeuRA statement. Researchers utilised a simple computer training-programme that paired images of household objects such as food, appliances, utensils, tools and clothing, with their names

Savage found that after just three weeks of training for 30-60 minutes each day, patients’ ability to recall the name of the items improved, even for patients with more advanced forms of the dementia. ‘Semantic dementia is a younger-onset dementia and because sufferers lose everyday words life can be very frustrating for them and their families.

‘By re-learning some of these everyday words, day-to-day conversations around the house may become less frustrating, improving patient well-being,’ Savage concluded.

Source: IANS

‘Before seeing this data, I would have said it was impossible to move young healthy individuals above their cognitive best,’ Bita Moghaddam, project investigator and professor of neuroscience at Pittsburgh, was quoted as saying by the journal Public Library of Science One. ‘We found that members of this population can enhance their working memory performance even further, despite their already being at the top of their cognitive game,’ added Moghaddam, according to a Pittsburgh statement.

Led by Rajesh Narendran, project principal investigator and associate professor of radiology, the Pitt research team sought healthy young men and women from all ethnicities to boost their Omega-3 intake with supplements for six months. Before they began taking the supplements, all participants underwent positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, and their blood samples were analyzed. They were then asked to perform a working memory test in which they were shown a series of letters and numbers. 

The young adults had to keep track of what appeared one, two, and three times prior, known as a simple ‘n-back test’. After six months of taking Lovaza – an Omega-3 supplement approved by the Federal Drug Administration – participants were asked to complete this series of outpatient procedures again. It was during this last stage, during the working memory test and blood sampling, that the improved working memory of this population was revealed.

‘It is really interesting that diets enriched with Omega-3 fatty acid can enhance cognition in highly functional young individuals,’ said Narendran. ‘Nevertheless, it was a bit disappointing that our imaging studies were unable to clarify the mechanisms, by which it enhances working memory,’ he added.

Source: IANS

Just two hours of missed slumber is enough to stop the brain from laying down and storing memories, research suggests — and simply cutting down from eight hours of sleep to six could make the difference, Daily Mail reported. What is more, any memories lost due to not getting enough shut-eye may be gone forever, the Society for Neuroscience’s annual conference heard.

Researcher Ted Abel said, ‘I think what it really means for modern life is that sleep is not a luxury. It is really critically important for the brain and for the brain to function and for you to be able to really remember and consolidate what’s happened to you over the day.’

Abel and his team from the University of Pennsylvania looked at how mice that were stopped from sleeping fared on a memory task. The creatures were kept awake for varying amounts of time, to pinpoint just how little sleep had to be lost for their recall to be damaged.

The professor told the New Orleans conference, ‘What we found is that when we deprived animals of sleep, it impaired storage of memories.’

Abel also said that any information lost due to lack of sleep is gone forever – meaning that sleeping longer the next night won’t bring it back.

Source: IANS

According to new studies, taking supplements has a beneficial effect on memory and may work by increasing the efficiency of brain cells. One study showed that after just four weeks there were measurable changes in electrical activity in the brain when carrying out memory tests.

The body needs 13 vitamins to function properly and maintain health. Vitamins A, C, D, E and K and the eight B vitamins each have specific job in the body. Vitamin C keeps cells healthy, D regulates calcium and E maintains cell structure, while the B vitamins, including folic acid, have a wide range of functions.

David Kennedy, of the Brain, Performance and Nutrition Research Centre at Northumbria University, said ‘The evidence is still limited but the studies hint at some possible beneficial effects. Optimal brain function depends on an adequate level of all of the vitamins.’

Source: IANS

The MoCA exam tests patients with memory and problem solving questions and gives them a score out of 30. Smokers had a median MoCA score two points lower than non-smokers — 22 out of 30 compared to 24 out of 30. Patients who had previously quit smoking achieved the same scores as lifetime non-smokers, said Gail MacKenzie, clinical nurse specialist at Hamilton General Hospital, Canada. 

“This research emphasizes the importance of smoking cessation for people with stroke or TIA,” said MacKenzie. 

TIA, or transient ischemic attack, is a mini stroke and often serves as a warning sign that a bigger stroke is imminent, according to a Hamilton statement. 

“Smoking is a risk factor for cognitive impairment for people who continue to smoke and this ability to problem-solve and make decisions has implications for patients’ health and self-management of care,” added Mackenzie.

Smoking contributes to the build up of plaque in the arteries, increases the risk of blood clots, reduces the oxygen in the blood, increases blood pressure and makes the heart work harder. 

“There needs to be more effort to help people stop smoking to protect their brain both from stroke and from mental decline after stroke,” said Mark Bayley, co-chairman of the Canadian Stroke Congress, where these findings were presented.

Source: IANS