Dr Li-Huei Tsai, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that it is possible to improve one’s memory even if affected by neuro degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

“We do not lose our memory. It only becomes inaccessible by neural degeneration. ‘Lost’ memory can be recovered by exposing the person to an enriched environment,” says Dr. Tsai.

 Dr. Tsai and her team mates conducted their research on mice that had already lost large number of neurons. These mice were kept in an enriched environment of exercise treadmill and colorful toys. After a couple of weeks, Dr. Tsai found that these mice showed a marked recovery of memory when compared to mice that were kept in ordinary cages.

Dr. Tsai found no evidence of formation of new neurons in the mice that were kept in an enriched environment, but found anatomical and biochemical evidence for growth of new connections among neurons.

Its is a well known fact that communities such as the Chinese, the Japanese and the Thais that consume large amounts of soy, never become obese. What’s the secret in soy that helps you stay slim?

It has always been thought that peptides found in soy act similar to leptin, a hormone produced in our body. Leptin communicates with the receptors in our brain and tell us to stop eating. So it was believed that soy’s secret was in reducing food intake. But then why people who eat less don’t lose weight?

Prof. Elvira de Meija, a food scientist and nutritionist at the University of Illinios has now found that soy helps lose weight not only by reducing food intake but by boosting the metabolism as well.

Prof. Elvira found that the protein hydrolysates found in soy help break down lipids and reduce weight by altering the metabolism. She believes that soy contains anorectic peptides that boosts metabolism as well as signal satiety.

It is a well established fact that females make better doctors than males in certain specialties of the medical field such as Paediatrics, Gynaecology & Obstetrics, Geriatrics, etc.

Now new research by Dr. Neil Dewhurst from the University College of London found that female doctors are 1.69 times more likely to outperform than their male colleagues.

Female doctors are able to establish rapport with the patients more quickly than the male doctors. This edge helps them communicate better with the patients while examining them during clinical tests.

Most of us would have experienced a constant decline in our performance as daylight diminishes and darkness descends. The time of the day has an impact on the speed of cognitive processing.

Researcher Dr. Daniel Bratzke kept his subjects awake for a 24 hour period and performed various tasks involving cognitive processing every two hours. He found that there was a constant decline in their performance late in the evening which hit the bottom in the wee hours.

Sleep deprivation is not the only factor that affects our performance in the night. Dr.Bratzke found that after dusk, it takes a longer time to recognize visual stimuli, affecting the reaction time. He also found that after dusk, our central processor slows down affecting our decision-making. This explains the documented fact that most accidents happen in the wee hours.

It is a known scientific fact that when an activity is performed by the right hand; more neurons are fired in the left hemisphere of the brain and vice versa.

New research conducted by Dr. Lauren Sergio and Dr. Diana Gorbet of York University found this phenomenon only in males, whereas in females neurons are fired in both sides of the brain.