Math and Brain Types

Some research suggests that different types of learning styles can affect how quickly and efficiently students learn math skills. This research suggests that left-brain dominant students can have an easier time grasping concepts and solving problems in math and science, while intuitive, artistic, right-brain dominant students take more time to absorb and retain these concepts.

On the other hand, right-brain dominant students tend to have an easier time with analyzing literature, writing essays, learning a foreign language, and designing or creating works of art.

Of course, there is a down side to brain dominance. Taking more time in one subject can lead to falling behind! Students who take longer to learn a concept will often get frustrated and give in. This means that right-brain dominant students' math scores suffer--not because other students are smarter or more capable, but because other students simply wired in a way that makes them faster.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. First, take the left-brain right brain quiz, and then share your thoughts with the comment link below. Do you feel that your brain type is related to your grades in math, art, or language arts?

Source: http://homeworktips.about.com/b/2009/07/26/math-scores-and-brain-types.htm

Memory Loss May Predict Alzheimer's Disease

A study being reported in the September 12, 2006, issue of Neurology, finds that adults over the age of 60 who complain of severe memory problems may actually be losing brain tissue. Despite scoring well on standard memory tests, the adults in the study who complained of significant memory loss were found to have loss of grey matter of about 3% on MRI brain scans. Patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (early Alzheimer's ) show about 4% loss of brain tissue in the same areas of the brain - the areas where memory is stored.

BRAIN: How Gamblers Think?

The brains of gamblers respond similarly to the brains of lab animals after being given euphoria-inducing drugs or when being tempted by good food, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Results of tests conducted by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and two other institutions suggest that the same mental circuitry is involved in the highs and lows of winning money, abusing drugs, or anticipating a tasty meal.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers mapped the neural responses of 12 male subjects while they played a simple game of chance in which they could either win or lose money. Each subject was give a $50 stake and told that they might lose some or all of the money, keep it (break even), or even increase it. The subjects then played a game similar to the "wheel-of-fortune" game found in most casinos. The trials were divided into two phases — expectancy and outcome. During the expectancy phase, the subjects were shown how much money they might win depending upon where the arrow stopped on a spinning disk. During the outcome phase, the arrow stopped on a designated monetary value, and the subjects found out whether they had won or lost money on that spin.

Data produced while the players watched the spinner showed:
•The incentive of money produced blood flow changes in the brain similar to those seen in response to other forms of rewards, such as euphoria-producing drugs;
•Blood flow in three areas of the brain rich in dopamine receptors, the NAc, SLEA, and hypothalamus, roughly paralleled findings in monkeys during anticipation and experience of reward;
•The right side of the brain responded predominantly to winning or the prospect of winning, while the left side of the brain responded to losing.
According to the researchers, the response patterns observed suggested that dysfunction of neural mechanisms and psychological processes crucial to decision-making and behavior may contribute to a broad range of impulse disorders such as drug abuse and compulsive gambling.

Super Charge Your Brain

Have you ever felt exasperated when you bumped into someone at the store but absolutely couldn't remember their name? Sure, it happens to all of us.

Despite being the strongest computer on the planet, our brains do lapse. It's hard to blame them really. As humans, we spend much of or existence stuffing our brains with stuff.

No matter how powerful our brains are, they need recuperation time to be kept in shape. Think of it as a tune up for your brain. Skipping brain maintenance is as silly as the person wandering the parking garage because they forgot where they parked. Is that you? Are you that person? If so, fear not; we are all that person at some point.

Now I am not a brain surgeon and I am not going to suggest you do anything surgical or dangerous. I am however an astute student of human behavior so I always look for simple ways to super charge my brain.

Here are some things you can begin doing as soon as today to begin the great brain tune up:

Eat Almonds
Almond is believed to improve memory. If a combination of almond oil and milk is taken together before going to bed or after getting up at morning, it strengthens our memory power. Almond milk is prepared by crushing the almonds without the outer cover and adding water and sugar to it.

Drink Apple Juice
Research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) indicates that apple juice increases the production of the essential neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain, resulting in an increased memory power.

Sleep well
Research indicates that the long-term memory is consolidated during sleep by replaying the images of the experiences of the day. These repeated playbacks program the subconscious mind to store these images and other related information.

Enjoy simple Pleasures
Stress drains our brainpower. A stress-ridden mind consumes much of our memory resources to leave us with a feeble mind. Make a habit to engage yourself in few simple pleasures everyday to dissolve stress from your mind. Some of these simple pleasures are good for your mind, body and soul.

Exercise your mind
Just as physical exercise is essential for a strong body, mental exercise is equally essential for a sharp and agile mind. Have you noticed that children have far superior brainpower than an adult does? Children have playful minds. A playful mind exhibits superior memory power. Engage in some of the activities that require your mind to remain active and playful.


Practice Yoga or Meditation
Yoga or Meditation relives stress. Stress is a known memory buster. With less stress, lower blood pressure, slower respiration, slower metabolism, and released muscle tension follows. All of these factors contribute significantly towards increases in our brainpower.

Reduce Sugar intake
Sugar is a non-food. It’s a form of carbohydrate that offers illusionary energy, only to cause a downhill slump once the initial burst has been worn off. Excess intake of sugar results in neurotic symptoms. Excess sugar is known to cause claustrophobia, memory loss and other neurotic disorders. Eat food without adding sugar. Stay away from sweet drinks or excess consumption of caffeine with sugar.

Eat whole wheat
The whole wheat germs contain lecithin. Lecithin helps ease the problem of the hardening of the arteries, which often impairs brain functioning.

Eat a light meal at night
A heavy meal at night causes tossing and turning and a prolonged emotional stress while at sleep. It’s wise to eat heavy meal during the day when our body is in motion to consume the heavy in-take. Eating a light meal with some fruits allows us to sleep well. A good night sleep strengthens our brainpower.

Develop imagination
Greeks mastered the principle of imagination and association to memorize everything. This technique requires one to develop a vivid and colorful imagination that can be linked to a known object. If you involve all your senses - touching, feeling, smelling, hearing and seeing in the imagination process, you can remember greater details of the event.

Control your temper
Bleached food, excess of starch or excess of white bread can lead to nerve grating effect. This results in a violent and some time depressive behavior. Eat fresh vegetables. Drink lots of water and meditate or practice yoga to relieve these toxic emotions of temper and stressful mood swings.

Take Vitamin B-complex
Vitamin B-complex strengthens memory power. Eat food and vegetables high in Vitamin B-complex. Stay away from the starch food or white bread, which depletes the Vitamin B-complex necessary for a healthy mind.

I don't believe these are that tough. If you find yourself increasing stumped, give a couple of these a try.

Hotdogs Can Cause Brain Tumor?

I have heard that if a child eats a certain number of hot dogs per week that the probability of a brain tumor is tremendous. Is this correct?

Answer: No, a child will not be at a greater risk of forming brain tumors if he eats too many hot dogs. However, moms-to-be may want to cut hot dogs and other processed meats such as bologna, sausage, pepperoni and other packaged luncheon meats out of their diets for that reason.

Your question probably stems from research that looked for a possible correlation between the consumption of processed meats by pregnant women and the occurrence of brain tumors in their children. Laboratory research performed on lab animals showed that substances formed from sodium nitrites would cause neurological tumors in the offspring of female animals that were fed the nitrates.

These findings spurred researches to study human populations and they found that women who ate more processed meats had children who were more likely to develop brain tumors. Later research also found that women who ate diets high in processed meats were also more likely to have babies who weighed less than they should.

While there is a correlation between mothers-to-be and childhood brain tumors, that same risk doesn't extend to the children when they eat hot dogs. Actually, while rates of childhood brain cancer went up in the 1970s through the 1990s, the amount of nitrites used in processed meats actually went down.

Hot dogs, franks, wieners or whatever you wish to call them are certainly not healthy foods for children or adults to eat even if they don't cause brain tumors in people who eat them. Like other processed meats, they are high in calories and saturated fats. Plus they contain those nitrites, which may combine with other substances to form N-Nitroso compounds in the body.

These compounds may be part of the reason why eating processed meats has been associated with a higher risk of cancer, not just brain cancer in children of women who eat processed meats, but also for colorectal cancer in adults.

Another reason why hot dogs are unhealthy may be due to the overall diet of a typical hot dog eater. People who eat high fat diets including red and processed meats are more likely to be overweight or obese, plus that hot dog may be taking the place of a much more nutritious fruit or vegetable. Hot dogs are also prone to carry the bacteria called listeria that causes foodborne illness.
Hot dogs, like all processed meats, should be eaten only rarely. While the occasional hot dog at a baseball game may not ruin your health, frequent consumption of hot dogs and other processed meats cannot be part of a healthy diet.

Brain Surgery -Right Frontal Craniotomy

On Tuesday May 29th at 3:00pm EDT, University Hospitals Case Medical Center Cleveland, Ohio, will host a live webcast to demonstrate the removal of brain tumor and epileptic focus from an awake patient using intra-operative MRI and brain mapping. See this on OR-Live.com


The patient was a middle-aged gentleman with new onset seizures. An MRI showed what appeared to be a low grade glioma near the motor strip on the right. Studies have shown that complete removal can cure the seizures, improve quality of life and survival, but this is difficult to do with conventional technology without harming the surrounding normal brain because its difficult to determine where tumor ends and normal brain begins.

Rock your Mind with Rabies

Rabies (Latin: rabies, "madness, rage, fury" also "hydrophobia") is a viral zoonotic neuroinvasive disease that causes acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) in mammals. In non-vaccinated humans, rabies is more or less invariably fatal after neurological symptoms have developed, but timely post-exposure vaccination may put off the virus from progressing. There are only six known cases of a person surviving symptomatic rabies, and only one known case of survival in which the patient received no rabies-specific treatment either before or after illness onset.