Memory-related Activities Research Articles

A Case Study of the Ritual Space Construction of the Chinese Festival Series Program

TV festival gala is one important form of ritual communication of traditional Chinese festivals. The Chinese Festival Series Program innovate the ritual construction path of the program while maintaining the sense of ritual of the traditional festival galas, making the Chinese Festival Series Program a representative work of Chinese festival galas in recent years. This study aims to explore the ritual space construction of the Chinese Festival Series Program. It adopted the case study approach by taking Chinese Festival Series Program as the research object, and analyzed the text of the programs mainly from the physical space, media space, narrative space and the associated space of history and reality. The analysis results demonstrated that breaking the single physical space and building diverse scenes can make the narrative more hierarchical, and allow the audiences to experience a more realistic program space. The addition of new technology also brings richness to the narrative space. The convenient interactivity of the new media platform creates an exclusive media interaction space for the audiences. Through the ritual space construction, the Chinese Festival Series Program associate the past space with the present space, allowing the audiences to develop memory-related activities in the ritual space.

Evolution of teaching in short-term courses: A systematic review

Short-term courses are a useful tool for continuous training to update and deepen knowledge in various fields. In this article, we analyse the evolution of the teaching methods used in short-term courses through a systematic review conducted using the PRISMA methodology. The inclusion criteria for selecting articles were those that described the methodological structure of the teaching methods used in designing short-term courses. The exclusion criteria were courses longer than 90 days and unfinished documents. The search was conducted on April 9, 2022, using the SCOPUS database. The list of papers was reviewed and analysed three times by different researchers to ensure that they met the criteria. Articles approved by at least two researchers were selected. The results were systematically analysed based on criteria that allowed us to understand the learning methods used, such as the educational modality, content presentation, teaching methodology for teamwork and individual work, technological resources, and assessment methods. We selected 42 articles, and the results are presented in four parts: the learning experience, teaching methodology, technological resources, and assessment methods. One of the main findings is that short-term courses are primarily designed for experiential learning, and memory-related activities commonly used in traditional training are not typically included in short-term courses.

Yoga Training Impacts Physical Function 12 Months Post Intervention for Care Partners of those with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Physical exercise has been demonstrated to help maintain cognition in people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (pwMCI). We previously demonstrated yoga’s benefit in maintenance of memory related activities of daily living in pwMCI. Our research also has shown yoga helps sustain positive psychological well-being of care partners at 12 months. In this analysis, we sought to examine the impact of yoga training on physical performance in pwMCI and their care partners. In this multisite, randomized clinical trial, we enrolled 272 patients meeting National Institute on Aging–Alzheimer’s Association criteria for MCI and a care partner. The intervention program was modeled on the Mayo Clinic HABIT Healthy Action to Benefit Independence and Thinking® program. Of 5 possible interventions (memory compensation training, computerized cognitive training, yoga, support group, and wellness education), 1 of 5 interventions was randomly selected to be withheld for each intervention group. This randomization allowed for the examination of the impact of receiving yoga or no yoga on physical functioning [as measured by the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB)] up to 1 year post intervention, as well as the comparative effectiveness on physical functioning of the various interventions. There was a general pattern of physical decline on the SPPB over the year in pwMCI, regardless of yoga training (yoga vs. no yoga d=0.06, p=0.79). Among care partners, those who received yoga had better physical function at 12 months compared to those who did not (d=0.39 points, p=0.041). While not reaching statistical significance, yoga training tended to have a greater effect on SPPB than computerized cognitive training (d = 0.46 points, p = .063) or wellness education (d = 0.42 points, p =.088). Participation in yoga had a positive impact on physical performance outcomes at 12 month follow-up for care partners, but did not counteract general physical decline in pwMCI.

Medial prefrontal cortex oxytocin-opioid receptors interaction in spatial memory processing in rats

Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a forebrain structure, is involved in many brain functions such as learning and memory. In the present study, the effect of intra-mPFC microinjection of oxytocin, atosiban, morphine and naloxone was investigated on memory processing. Two guide cannulas were implanted into the right and left sides of the mPFC in ketamine and xylazine-anesthetized rats. To assess spatial memory function MWM test was performed by four training sessions of four trials. On day 5, a probe test was conducted after drugs microinjection. Significant differences were observed in learning activities during training days before microinjection of drugs. Intra-mPFC microinjections of oxytocin (5 and 10 ng/site) significantly increased memory related activities. This effect of oxytocin was inhibited by prior microinjection of atosiban (20 ng/site). On the other hand, morphine microinjection at doses of 5 and 10 μg/site into the mPFC significantly decreased memory related activities that were prevented by prior administration of naloxone (5 μg/site) and oxytocin (5 and 10 ng/site). In addition, intra-mPFC combined microinjections of low doses of oxytocin (2.5 ng/site) and naloxone (1 μg/site) improved memory function. By increasing the doses of oxytocin (5 ng/site) and naloxone (5 μg/site), a more documented improving effect was observed. These results showed that memory performance was impaired by activation of mPFC opioid receptors in rats. In addition, oxytocin in the mPFC improved memory function and prevented memory impairment-induced by morphine. Moreover, an interaction between oxytocin and opioid systems was also appeared in the present study.

Comparative Effectiveness of Behavioral Interventions on Quality of Life for Older Adults With Mild Cognitive Impairment

Recommendations to engage in behavioral strategies to combat clinically significant cognitive and behavioral symptoms are routinely given to persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The comparative effectiveness of these behavioral interventions is not well understood. To compare the incremental effects of combinations of 5 behavioral interventions on outcomes of highest importance to patients with MCI. In this multisite, cluster randomized, multicomponent comparative effectiveness trial, 272 patients from 4 academic medical outpatient centers (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota; Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, Arizona; Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida; and University of Washington, Seattle) were recruited from September 1, 2014, to August 31, 2016, with last follow-up March 31, 2019. All participants met the National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer's Association criteria for MCI. The intervention program was modeled on the Mayo Clinic Healthy Action to Benefit Independence and Thinking (HABIT) program, a 50-hour group intervention conducted during 2 weeks, including memory compensation training, computerized cognitive training, yoga, patient and partner support groups, and wellness education. In our study, 1 of 5 interventions was randomly selected to be withheld for each intervention group. Participants and their partners had 1-day booster sessions at 6 and 12 months after intervention. Quality-of-life measurement of participants with MCI at 12 months was the primary outcome, selected based on the preference rankings of previous program participants. Mood, self-efficacy, and memory-based activities of daily living were also highly ranked. A total of 272 participants (mean [SD] age, 75 [8] years; 160 [58.8%] male and 112 [41.2%] female) were enrolled in this study, with 56 randomized to the no yoga group, 54 to no computerized cognitive training, 52 to no wellness, 53 to no support, and 57 to no memory support system. The greatest effect size for quality of life was between the no computerized cognitive training and no wellness education groups at 0.34 (95% CI, 0.05-0.64). In secondary analyses, wellness education had a greater effect on mood than computerized cognitive training (effect size, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.21-0.86), and yoga had a greater effect on memory-related activities of daily living than support groups (effect size, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.13-0.72). These results provide further support for behavioral interventions for persons with MCI. Different outcomes were optimized by different combinations of interventions. These findings provide an initial exploration of the effect of behavioral interventions on patient-advocated outcomes in persons with MCI. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02265757.

Memory Improvement Tool for Dementia Alzheimer’s Patients

The Alzheimer’s disease is one of the top ten causes of death among the elderly. Studies show that there is a significant increase in deaths reported after early 1990s due to the lack of a cure in preventing the disease in modern medicine. Hence, there are numerous attempts made towards managing the progression of the disease which results in improving the wellbeing of the patient. One of the recommended methods of managing it long-term is through providing many memory related activities to the patients. With the limited amount of resources and investments, Sri Lanka is finding it difficult to manage the significant number of patients. Furthermore, not all patients get the opportunity to visit the Alzheimer’s Foundation and receive treatments. This research is a small step towards creating a computer-aided platform for Alzheimer’s patients to improve their livelihood thorough activities focusing on 4As of Alzheimer’s (long-term memory, short-term memory, language and communication skills and fine motor skills) disease under the guidance of clinical Psychiatrists (1). The application is tested with over 75 Alzheimer’s patients under the guidance of their physicians. The comprehensive record keeping for patient condition analysis, gamification-based environment for patients and assistive tool for memory management are among the benefits of this application.

Sophisticated sleep improves our brains: Our advanced cognitive and social skills might derive from the evolution of improved sleep quality; today, sleep therapy could help with mental health issues and learning.

In the past decades, sleep researchers have been quietly accumulating knowledge about the physiology of sleep. Without any real health application for this knowledge, however, the public and the press have slept blissfully through most of their breakthroughs. Yet, recent findings about the evolution of sleep in humans and the effects of sleep disruption on human health seem to have finally woken the public up. A recent paper from David Samson and Charles Nunn, evolutionary anthropologists from Duke University in the USA, puts forward the hypothesis that humans have evolved more efficient sleep patterns than other primates and that this is because “[e]arly humans experienced selective pressure to fulfill sleep needs in the shortest time possible” [1]. This efficient slumber, the authors argue, might have contributed to setting our ancestors on the evolutionary path toward human civilization. The New York Times , among other newspapers, covered the publication, which follows in the wake of research indicating that human sleep patterns have stayed largely stable during the course of human evolution, from hunter‐gatherers to modern city dwellers [2]. Both of these insights provide evolutionary context for the health impact of too little sleep, with both epidemiological and clinical research showing that sleep disruption has a negative effect on health and well‐being. More recently, however, there is evidence that sleep has distinctly positive therapeutic potential to treat a variety of phobias and other psychotic conditions. The evolutionary study that attracted media attention raises interesting questions about the co‐evolution of sleep and human cognitive faculties. Samson and Nunn suggest that sleep became subject to strong selective pressures—“including increased predation risk […] threats from intergroup conflict, and benefits arising from increased social interaction” [1]—when our ancestors moved down from the trees and onto the savannah. As a result, …

Changes in Effective Connectivity According to Working Memory Load: An fMRI Study of Face and Location Working Memory Tasks

ObjectiveThe functional strategic mechanisms in the brain during performing visuospatial working memory tasks, especially tasks with heavy load, are controversial. We conducted the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while sixteen subjects were performing face- and location-matching n-back tasks to examine causal relations within the frontoparietal networks.MethodsWe applied a sophisticated method, the structural equation modeling (SEM), to the fMRI data. The imaging data were analyzed by extracting the task-related eigenseries using the principal component analysis (PCA) and then by applying a form of data-driven model called the automated search method.ResultsThe SEM analyses revealed a functional shift of network connectivity from the right to the left hemisphere with increasing load in the face-matching n-back tasks while the location-matching tasks required bilateral activation. In the locating matching n-back tasks, a pattern of parallel processing was observed in the left phonological loop and the right inferior parietal regions. Furthermore, object working memory-related activities in the left hemisphere reliably contributed to performance of both the face- and location-matching 2-back tasks.ConclusionOur results are consistent with previous reports in terms of demonstrating parallel and distributed information processing during performing working memory tasks with heavy loads. Our results additionally suggest a dynamic shift between the fast imagery circuit (right hemisphere) and the stable verbal circuit (left hemisphere), depending on task load.

Functional, But Not Anatomical, Separation of “What” and “When” in Prefrontal Cortex

How does the brain store information over a short period of time? Typically, the short-term memory of items or values is thought to be stored in the persistent activity of neurons in higher cortical areas. However, the activity of these neurons often varies strongly in time, even if time is unimportant for whether or not rewards are received. To elucidate this interaction of time and memory, we reexamined the activity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex of monkeys performing a working memory task. As often observed in higher cortical areas, different neurons have highly heterogeneous patterns of activity, making interpretation of the data difficult. To overcome these problems, we developed a method that finds a new representation of the data in which heterogeneity is much reduced, and time- and memory-related activities became separate and easily interpretable. This new representation consists of a few fundamental activity components that capture 95% of the firing rate variance of >800 neurons. Surprisingly, the memory-related activity components account for <20% of this firing rate variance. The observed heterogeneity of neural responses results from random combinations of these fundamental components. Based on these components, we constructed a generative linear model of the network activity. The model suggests that the representations of time and memory are maintained by separate mechanisms, even while sharing a common anatomical substrate. Testable predictions of this hypothesis are proposed. We suggest that our method may be applied to data from other tasks in which neural responses are highly heterogeneous across neurons, and dependent on more than one variable.

Unconscious contextual memory affects early responses in the anterior temporal lobe

Memory and perception are two tightly interrelated cognitive processes, but the neural level of their interaction remains a matter of debate. Proponents of a late interaction emphasize feedback memory effects on visual processing, whereas others suggest that feed forward processing is affected by memory. In the visual domain, unconscious memory for stable relations among objects is known to influence visually-guided behavior. Recent evidence suggest an early interaction between this form of unconscious memory and visually-driven neural activity: the brain dissociates stable and unstable spatial relations at surprisingly early latencies, within the first 100 ms of sensory processing. The anatomical localization of this early effect however was still uncertain. In this study, we estimated the sources of the early effect in magnetoencephalographic (MEG) recordings, and analyzed intracranial electroencephalographic (iEEG) signal from seven epileptic patients in the modified version of the contextual cueing paradigm we recently developed. In spite of a lack of behavioral effect in the patient population, the striking agreement between the two electrophysiological datasets suggests that memory for spatial relations leads to differential responses in the anterior temporal lobe before 100 ms. The intracranial data further revealed orbitofrontal and more posterior temporal memory related activities around 100 ms. Altogether, the data point toward an early interaction between contextual memories and perceptual processing. The anterior temporal cortex, in particular appears to play a critical role in merging sensory processing with unconscious memory as soon as it gets activated.

Subjective memory complaints and concurrent memory performance in older patients of primary care providers

Subjective memory complaints (SMCs) are known to be inconsistently related to current memory impairment in older adults but this association has not been well investigated in primary care provider (PCP) settings. To characterize the complexity of the relationship between SMCs and objective memory in older outpatients of PCPs, we collected neuropsychological, subjective memory, depression and medical chart data from outpatients aged 65 and older, without documented dementia diagnoses, in eleven PCP offices in and around the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Results indicated that self-estimates of current memory ability were most strongly associated with objective memory performance; in contrast, perception of worsening memory over the past year showed no association; and specific memory-related activities were only weakly associated. Women were more likely than men to show inconsistency between SMCs and objective memory performance. Only two of the 11 most significantly memory-impaired participants endorsed SMCs and only four had PCP chart documentation of memory problems. Eliciting SMCs in non-demented older adults can be of clinical value in a PCP setting, but significant limitations of patient self-report in more memory-impaired patients underscore the need to develop brief, objective indicators of memory impairment for PCP office use when there is suspicion of decline.

Different time course for the memory facilitating effect of bicuculline in hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex of rats

Several lines of evidence indicate that γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) type A (GABA A) receptors regulate memory consolidation. Here we studied the effect on consolidation of the selective antagonist of GABA A receptors, bicuculline, given into several regions of the cortex at different times after one-trial step-down inhibitory avoidance (0.5 mA, 2-s footshock). Rats were bilaterally implanted with cannulae aimed at the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus, entorhinal cortex or posterior parietal cortex, three areas known to be involved in the memory consolidation of this task. At different times after training, bicuculline (0.5 μg/side) was infused into the above mentioned structures. Bicuculline increased memory retention when administered either immediately or 1.5 h after training into CA1, and both immediately and 3 h after training in the entorhinal or parietal cortex. Thus, in agreement with previous findings using other drugs, the response was biphasic in these latter structures. This suggests that GABAergic mechanisms normally downregulate, memory processing by inhibiting on-going activities necessary for consolidation at the times in which bicuculline was effective in each structure. Based on previous findings, in the hippocampus, such activity involves a number of receptors and signaling pathways in the first 1.5 h after training. In the entorhinal and parietal cortex memory-related activities include the participation of protein kinase A and extracellularly regulated kinase (ERK) twice, right after training and then again 3 h later.