Tag: memory

Researchers find out why some stress is good for you

April 16, 2013:

Chronic stress is known to cause major health problems, yet acute stress is thought to improve people’s performance and health. A new study by UC Berkeley professor Daniela Kaufer shows why that is. Stress generates new nerve cells in the brain that, two weeks later, help people learn better.

Berkeley psychologists get into the heads of schoolchildren

March 8, 2012:

UC Berkeley psychology professors Silvia Bunge and Stephen Hinshaw are scanning the brains of kids to learn how they learn. The findings may help educators and revolutionize classrooms.

New neurons help us to remember fear

June 14, 2011:

UC Berkeley’s Daniela Kaufer and colleagues have discovered one way by which emotions such as fear affect memory. The brain’s emotional center, the amygdala, induces the hippocampus, a relay hub for memory, to generate new neurons. In a fearful situation, these newborn neurons are activated by the amygdala, providing a “blank slate” for the new fearful memory.

Geoffrey Keppel, scholar of human memory, dies at 75

January 10, 2011:

Geoffrey Keppel, a professor emeritus of psychology at UC Berkeley whose research expanded our understanding of what causes humans to forget, died Dec. 31, 2010, after a long struggle with chronic lymphatic leukemia. He was 75.

Jet lagged and forgetful? It’s no coincidence

November 24, 2010:

Holiday travel can leave people cranky and tired, in part because of jet lag, the result of your body’s internal clock being out of synch with your current time zone. For chronic travelers, it’s more than a passing annoyance, however. A new study shows that chronic jet lag can cause long-term brain changes that lead to memory and learning problems for at least a month after return to a normal schedule

Phantom images stored in flexible network throughout brain

November 3, 2010:

The ability to store phantom images in our brain in order to make visual comparisons is impaired by damage to the prefrontal cortex, but intact regions of the prefrontal cortex pick up the slack in less than a second. Damage to the basal ganglia, however, causes more widespread impairment of visual working memory. New studies by UC Berkeley neuroscientists show how the prefrontal cortex flexibly picks up new functions while retaining old.