This is Your Brain on… Bacon?!?

I couldn’t resist sharing with you a piece from NPR’s health blog called “Why Bacon Is a Gateway Meat for Vegetarians.” And it involves the brain… so read on! According to Johan Lundstrom from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, bacon has a very fundamental appeal for humans. First, Lundstrom explains that the high fat and [...]

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Posted January 31, 2011 by Sharon Delman under Memory, Neuroscience, Research studies

Superior Autobiographical Memory and Memory Bumps

Recently we noticed a lot of traffic to our informative page about autobiographical memory. We quickly realized this was a consequence a recent episode of 60 Minutes–a fascinating program called  “Endless Memory”. The episode profiles six people, including Taxi actress Marilu Henner, who can remember literally everything about their lives. Their talent has been labeled [...]

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Posted December 21, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Brain plasticity, Memory, Neuroscience, Research studies

Centenarians Show Us What It Takes To Live Long (and Prosper)

Over the last 20 years, the number of people in the U.S. who are 100 years old or older has tripled–meaning that now, nearly 100,000 Americans have been alive for a century or more. I have really been enjoying an interactive feature from the New York Times called “Secrets of the Centenarians – Life Before, [...]

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Posted October 20, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Alzheimer's disease, Benefits of Brain Fitness, Memory, Research studies

Stephen Wiltshire’s Amazing Brain

I happened across this video of Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic man whose ability to remember incredible detail and draw it with near perfection is extraordinary. If he flies in a helicopter over a city just once, he can recreate the city perfectly in a drawing. The buildings have the right number of columns and windows. [...]

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Posted September 1, 2010 by Marghi Merzenich under Autism, Memory

Studying Sea Slugs?

Do you ever read about a study that’s received a million dollar grant and think, “Who would spend a million dollars to study THAT? And what kind of scientists would want to spend their time on it?” That’s what I first thought when I heard about research on sea slug brains. I couldn’t figure out [...]

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Posted August 17, 2010 by Marghi Merzenich under Evolution of the Brain, Memory, Neuroscience, Research studies