I spent the past several days at the huge (~32,000 attendees this year) Society for Neuroscience Conference (SFN) in San Diego. This annual meeting of neuroscientists is an opportunity to learn about the latest brain-related research going on throughout the world, and for each scientist to show off their own findings.
The sheer volume of people and presentations at SFN can be overwhelming, but here are some interesting tidbits:
- Kirk Erickson from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that exercising rats were faster learners than sedentary rats. And more running is better: The animals that ran the most also became the best at learning and memory. (Abstract: search for “voluntary exercise enhances place learning”)
- Ken Nakayama presented data from over 22,000 people of various ages showing how the ability to learn faces changes over the lifespan. He found that our ability to learn faces peaks at about age 30, and that it’s about the same at age 65 as it is at 16. (Abstract: search for “human face learning”)
- I presented research from Lumos Labs showing that the internet can be a good tool for conducting cognitive neuroscience research. Our methods of leveraging the internet for basic research and cognitive training are being used by collaborators to figure out how under-performing students can do better in school, and how chemobrain patients might recover their cognitive abilities. (Abstract: search for “using the web for behavioral research”)
Post a Comment