Aging, Author Interviews, Memory / 11.10.2013

Prof. Timothy Salthouse Brown-Forman Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Timothy Salthouse Brown-Forman Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400 MedicalResearch.com: What prompted this work? Prof. Salthouse: I think it is noteworthy that the research originated as an undergraduate project by Arielle Mandell. Ms. Mandell was supported by a University of Virginia Harrison Undergraduate Research Award while she was doing the research, and a report of the research served as her Distinguished Major Thesis. The research was prompted by the observation that according to self-reports, tip-of-the-tongue experiences occur more and more frequently with increased age, and often seem to be associated with concerns about memory decline and possibly impending dementia. We wondered
  1. 1) whether these self-reports are valid, and
  2. 2) if they are valid, do they truly indicate age-related failures of the type of memory used in the diagnosis of dementia.
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Addiction, Author Interviews, Memory, Methamphetamine, Scripps / 11.09.2013

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Ph.D., Neurobiology & Behavior and Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory (2005), University of California, Irvine, CaliforniaCourtney A. Miller, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Metabolism & Aging Department of Neuroscience The Scripps Research Institute Jupiter, FL 33458 MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Miller: The relapse rate for drug abusers, smokers and alcoholics is high because abstinence is so difficult. A major factor is the craving that drug associations can trigger. These range from seeing the neighborhood where someone used to buy, in the case of illicit drugs, to social drinking for a smoker. We’ve found a way to disrupt these drug-associated memories without affecting other, more benign memories. (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory, Mental Health Research / 04.06.2013

Dr Sunjeev Kamboj Lecturer in Clinical Psychology Co-ordinator for International DClinPsy Trainees http://www.ucl.ac.uk/clinical-psychology/index.htm MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Kamboj: Using a fairly standard approach for this type of research, we measured the frequency of intrusive memories in normal, healthy women after they watched a series of video clips containing distressing scenes. We also measured baseline levels of progesterone and estrogen. We tested three groups of women who, while similar in all respects such age, education level, as well as how they responded to the film, differed in terms of the stage of the menstrual cycle they were in. Our key finding was that women in the 'early luteal phase' - which occurs in the third week of the cycle - had three times as many intrusive memories about the video than women in the first two weeks or fourth week of the cycle. (more…)
Author Interviews, Memory, Mental Health Research, PNAS / 02.04.2013

Karl K. Szpunar PhD Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138MedicalResearch.com Interview with Karl K. Szpunar PhD Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 MedicalResearch.com:   What are the main findings of the study? Dr. Szpunar: The results of our experiments demonstrate that students can have difficulty paying attention to online lectures, and that including brief quizzes during lectures can help to alleviate this problem. Specifically, we found that students who were tested throughout a 21-minute long Statistics lecture were half as likely to mind wander during the lecture, three times as likely to take additional notes, and much better able to retain the contents of the lecture at a later time. (more…)