Lesley Ross, associate professor of human development and family studies, and colleagues found that a particular kind of computerized cognitive training program reduced the risk of dementia among older adults across a ten-year period.
The October Healthy Aging Lecture will focus on what happens to the brain as people age, and ways to support and enhance memory into old age. Hosted by Nancy Dennis, associate professor of psychology, the lecture is part of the Penn State Center for Healthy Aging Community Lecture Series.
People who take a picture of a sentimental good are more likely to donate that item. Researchers suggest that identity, memories and possessions are tightly tied together psychologically. The research could help those struggling to declutter their homes, as well as help nonprofits that rely on selling second-hand goods increase donations.
Many people don’t worry about remembering phone numbers, special birthdays or anniversaries anymore; after all, they’re just a cellphone away. This phenomenon has been coined “digital amnesia” — the experience of forgetting information you trust a digital device to store and remember for you.
A theory that links memory encoding to expectations of future relevance may better explain how human memory works, according to a team of Penn State psychologists.
In this video, Dr. Paul Eslinger, a neuropsychologist at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, discusses recent findings regarding the prevalence of Alzheimer's as well as risk factors for the disease – and some potentially promising treatments for the disease in its early stages.
"Everybody thinks: 'Memory declines with age,'" says cognitive neuroscientist Nancy Dennis. "And it does, to some degree. But it isn't that simple. Some types of memory fade as we age, but others are very stable." Dennis, an assistant professor of psychology at Penn State, studies the aging brain. Using functional MRI, which offers a look at brain activity in real-time, she identifies changes that occur as people get older, then tries to match this neural evidence with cognitive behavior.
The brain is the most beautifully complex organ in the human body. Three pounds of evolutionary genius, the brain provides both the hardware and software for controlling all behavior through an intricate system of synaptic messaging. But for all of its complexity, the brain is sustained by oxygen-rich arteries and blood vessels and can't survive without the free flow of blood to all of its lovely lobes and fissures, which is exactly what a stroke inhibits. When someone suffers a stroke, blood flow to that person's brain suddenly stops.
"Ithink we should cut our brains some slack," says Dawn Blasko, grinning. "Our brains do an enormous amount of processing. In fact, they work like very effective computers, so effective that we only notice the few things that we forget. We never give our brains credit for the vast amount of material that we do, in fact, remember."
That said, it's still frustrating when we lose track of the car keys for the umpteenth time, or forget the name of a favorite restaurant. So, what accounts for these run-of-the-mill lapses?
Rick Gilmore, associate professor of psychology, answers:
"Sometimes it seems like children remember things adults do not, but in fact, adults have better memory if by better memory we mean the ability to remember more information, more accurately, and for longer periods of time.
quoteA main theme of this book," write coeditors Randall Miller and William Pencak in the introduction to Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth, "is that history does not leave us. We carry it around in our minds and on our backs. Patterns established on colonial farms, in coal mines, in factories, and on city streets still shape the Pennsylvania in which its people live today. History is neither a bunch of facts nor a fixed, unchanging 'thing' to be memorized.
Today, for the first time, my son actually spoke to me on the phone. He's seventeen months old. Up to now it's been heavy breathing. This morning, suddenly, a torrent of syllables. And a lot of them were Dada.
I am tickled and a bit daunted when I think about all the ground we have to cover together. Leafing through Boyhood in America: An Encyclopedia helps me put things in perspective.
At a public lecture last fall, Mary Chisholm passed out samples of androsterone, a hormone in the testosterone family. "It's a rather interesting compound," she explains. "To some people it smells like musty camphor. To others it is entirely revolting. A third group smells nothing at all." Her audience that night, Chisholm remembers, ran happily true to form: "A third of them smelled camphor; a third were entirely revolted; and a third smelled nothing at all.
