the brain game.

Ok. Post 2. Let's learn something! I'll break down my articles by color, as that seems to be a popular way of doing things in this class. Shockingly enough, I genuinely enjoyed the reading from the book due Friday. I know, insane to think that something pertaining to school could be even the least bit interesting. I found the closing section on memory repression mind blowing. I'd heard of this phenomenon before, but the examples given seemed almost unreal. But, on to the task at hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueMJQ5OAS-4

"Estrogen May Help Sharpen Fuzzy Memory"

I was drawn to this article first because, of course, I'm an estrogen tank. My favorite feature of this new study was it's focus on implanting something foreign into something pre-existing, utilizing the presently function systems and heightening them rather than inserting something completely new. By working with rats, researches found that short memory lapses in older women may be due to low estrogen levels. Some rats required no new estrogen, simply a way of restarting their natural ways of producing it. In the hippocampus, the receptor of this estrogen can be directly targeted. Coming from personal experience, however, influxes of estrogen, like when one goes on birth control, can lead to serious emotional and even physical changes. The article notes the action of estrogen as a cancer growth agent, a discovery disheartening at best. However, one must remember that with the good sometimes comes the bad. Hopefully, as research continues, scientists will be able to manipulate just the afflicted area, creating a healthy balance. The goal of these studies, after all, is the breed the best results possible.

"How Big is Your Brain? It may protect you From Memory Loss"

Working at a nursing home, i see first hand the effects of dementia every time I enter the building. Who would have thought that the bigger someone's brain is, the better chance they'll have of avoiding Alzheimer's. I guess it makes sense really. It's like a dirty floor. If you sweep all the dirt on the floor into a little pile, it's all right in front of you, glaring. When it's packed together, it's harder to create the illusion that the floor isn't really all that dirty. But if you leave it spread out, the dirt and bits of gross have an easier time staying hidden. This is just like the plaque of the brain. In a more tightly confined space, there's really no way to avoid it in memory processing. But if it is spread out more expansively across the brain, the processes have an easier time avoiding the negative plaque. That makes sense, right? It may not be super scientific, but as with any chunking or mnemonic device, it's best to make connections in order to retain information. At least now we know. Size really does matter.

"Infant Memory Works From Very Early"

This article wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it would be some huge breakthrough on people having vivid memories from infantry. But I kind of already knew this information from the book. Sigh. It was certainly interesting, but I'm not sure if I was necessarily impressed. However, the continued section on the remembering of a particular mobile struck me quite differently. The fact that they had established a sense of long-term memory at such a young age wasn't the remarkable part, it was how quickly they had encoded the information. For someone fascinated by their own toes, this seems quite an accomplishment. The testing pool seems a bit small, though. I think to find more validity more tests are certainly necessary.

Woot! Blog 2 done. Success. I'm an official blogger=].