learning

[hardy_practice]

In the orchestra I play violin in most weeks we play through a different work which is then followed by a re-playing.  The second reading always sees a significant improvement in accuracy - yet I've done nothing extra!  As a teacher I need to know what happened, bottle it and hand it out to my students.  Any answers?  Also perturbing.

[faulty_damper]

Technicalese: memory consolidation

Memory consolidation takes time, the research indicating from as little as 2 minutes up to 15.  The neuroscience is starting to see what's going on: proteins must be created and move to specific locations on the neurons that allows for the formation of memories.  This is the reason why learning requires repetition; the first time doesn't make enough of these proteins.  But upon repetition more will be created.  This is also the reason why the first exposure to a memory stimulus results in very poor recollection, because very little is remembered.  It's also the reason why taking certain antibiotics, that work by preventing protein synthesis, results in poor memory while it is being taken.

Learning = the process of memorization

[diomedes]

That's a well structured set of words.

It's also the reason why taking certain antibiotics, that work by preventing protein synthesis, results in poor memory while it is being taken.

And what does science say to promote greater memory?

[faulty_damper]

Some pharma companies want to develop memory pills.  Others want to use transcranial stimulation.  But if you don't want to spend the money or possible electrocution, then:

1. sleep well
2. nap frequently when tired
3. exercise aerobically and frequently
4a. eat foods low in sugar (excess sugar in the blood prevents memory formation)
4b. eat meat (protein is necessary to create new proteins) especially including certain fatty acids
4c. eat fruits and vegetables to acquire adequate key nutrients.
5. avoid drugs, incl. alcohol
6. avoid pollution, incl. perfumes and fragrances in products

[diomedes]

That's informative. Most of that i have in place and i have always believed exercise is extremely vital to an effective mind. I was supposed to do my exercise today but did not. Yet. Typically i only eat protein to maintain proper weight management (and the fact i don't really take interest in food), but it's interesting to see sugar is specifically counterproductive while protein is (in line with your first post) specifically productive for sited scientific reasons. As for the alcohol, hmmm.....

[outin]

I've learned that taking certain medicine drastically weakens my memory as do hormonal changes. But I am not sure whether it affects the formation of memories so much as the recall processes. After the effect wores down it seems like the memories have formed during those times even though recall wasn't possible. Still waiting for science to explain that because recall is just as important as is memory formation IMO.

[hardy_practice]

Thanks for that faulty - all very interesting but I'm sure there's something in this phenomenon I can take to my students.  Anybody spot it?

[outin]

Thanks for that faulty - all very interesting but I'm sure there's something in this phenomenon I can take to my students.  Anybody spot it?

Sleep is essential to learning and it seems quite frequent these days that people don't sleep enough. Kids too. How to make them understand that instead of watching a TV show they should go to bed and let their brain learn the latest piano lesson? I don't know really...

[brogers70]

  It's also the reason why taking certain antibiotics, that work by preventing protein synthesis, results in poor memory while it is being taken.

Huh?? Antiobiotics that work by blocking protein synthesis, for example tetracycline, chloramphenicol, clindamycin, etc. all do so by binding differentially to prokaryotic as opposed to eukaryotic robosomes. They don't inhibit protein synthesis in your cells, in particular your nerve cells, only in bacterial cells. And most of the ones you take orally don't even cross the blood-brain barrier, so they couldn't get at the ribosomes in your brain's neurons even if they DID inhibit eukaryotic protein synthesis. So I'm pretty skeptical that taking antibiotics will interfere with your memory. Being sick enough to need to take them, though, might certainly make it harder to concentrate.

[diomedes]

We have some doctors on the forum it appears. Somewhat intimidating.

If that's the case, what opinions exist with caffeine in the picture?

[outin]

We have some doctors on the forum it appears. Somewhat intimidating.

If that's the case, what opinions exist with caffeine in the picture?

Read this:
https://hub.jhu.edu/2014/01/12/caffeine-enhances-memory

[faulty_damper]

Huh?? Antiobiotics that work by blocking protein synthesis, for example tetracycline, chloramphenicol, clindamycin, etc. all do so by binding differentially to prokaryotic as opposed to eukaryotic robosomes. They don't inhibit protein synthesis in your cells, in particular your nerve cells, only in bacterial cells. And most of the ones you take orally don't even cross the blood-brain barrier, so they couldn't get at the ribosomes in your brain's neurons even if they DID inhibit eukaryotic protein synthesis. So I'm pretty skeptical that taking antibiotics will interfere with your memory. Being sick enough to need to take them, though, might certainly make it harder to concentrate.

Okay, sure, if you say so.  But that doesn't make your assertions correct.  Protein synthesis inhibitors can cause memory impairments during the time they are taken.  This is a known side effect.

[faulty_damper]

Read this:
https://hub.jhu.edu/2014/01/12/caffeine-enhances-memory

I question the implication that caffeine is directly responsible.  It's a correlation but it's not causative.

[brogers70]

Okay, sure, if you say so.  But that doesn't make your assertions correct.  Protein synthesis inhibitors can cause memory impairments during the time they are taken.  This is a known side effect.

Do you have a source for that? I mean for antibiotics causing memory impairment via protein synthesis inhibitors? There are experiments showing that protein synthesis is required for memory in animal models, but those use eukaryotic protein inhibitors, not the antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections. If it's a "known side effect" it does not seem to be well know in the medical literature.

[faulty_damper]

Do you have a source for that? I mean for antibiotics causing memory impairment via protein synthesis inhibitors? There are experiments showing that protein synthesis is required for memory in animal models, but those use eukaryotic protein inhibitors, not the antibiotics used to treat bacterial infections. If it's a "known side effect" it does not seem to be well know in the medical literature.

What medical literature are you referring to that doesn't include memory loss as a side effect?
Here are some PubMed search results:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?db=pubmed&cmd=link&linkname=pubmed_pubmed&uid=6018502

[brogers70]

What medical literature are you referring to that doesn't include memory loss as a side effect?
Here are some PubMed search results:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?db=pubmed&cmd=link&linkname=pubmed_pubmed&uid=6018502

Perhaps you didn't look at the articles that came up in your medline search. The antibiotics they are using in those experiments are not used to treat bacterial infections. They are eukaryotic protein synthesis inhibitors - they are excellent tools for studying the effects of protein synthesis inhibition in mammals, but they are not antibiotics that your doctor will give you for an infection.

"Antibiotics" is a very broad category, and includes a bunch of things used to treat fungal and parasitic infections (some of which are sensitive to eucaryotic protein synthesis inhibitors) and some not clinically used at all. Telling people that taking antibiotics will cause memory loss or interfere with memory consolidation is serious misinformation, especially since the antibiotics most likely to have such effects are not commonly used to treat infections in people.

[faulty_damper]

I didn't say all antibiotics.  Certain antibiotics and certain medications will cause memory problems.  I'm not giving medical advice and I am not a medical doctor.

[outin]

I question the implication that caffeine is directly responsible.  It's a correlation but it's not causative.

? I suggest you read the whole article if you can get access.

[faulty_damper]

? I suggest you read the whole article if you can get access.

Until now, caffeine's effects on long-term memory had not been examined in detail. Of the few studies done, the general consensus was that caffeine has little or no effect on long-term memory retention.

The research is different from prior experiments because the subjects took the caffeine tablets only after they had viewed and attempted to memorize the images.

"Almost all prior studies administered caffeine before the study session, so if there is an enhancement, it's not clear if it's due to caffeine's effects on attention, vigilance, focus, or other factors," Yassa said. "By administering caffeine after the experiment, we rule out all of these effects and make sure that if there is an enhancement, it's due to memory and nothing else."

This is the part of the article that I am disputing.  It's still a correlation, not directly causative. It doesn't show that caffeine does anything to the brain that improves retention.  Further:

"Corrected online 17 January 2014
In the version of this article initially published, in the first sentence in the Online Methods, the s.d. of the age of the subjects was missing and the number of female subjects was given as 280. The s.d. is 2 years and the number of female subjects is 80. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article."

The N of female subjects is only 80. That should mean treatment=40 and placebo=40.

Corrected online 30 October 2014
In the version of this article initially published, there were errors in the reporting of statistics. In the Figure 1b legend, the asterisked P value was given in the HTML version as *P = 0.05 and in the PDF version as *P < 0.05. It should read *P < 0.05, one-tailed. In the Figure 2a legend, the degrees of freedom for the immediate caffeine group were given as 42 and the P value as 0.05; the correct values are 71 and 0.049, respectively. In the Figure 2b legend and the fifth paragraph of the main text, the P value for the main effect of caffeine was given as 0.001; the correct value is 0.05. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

Regardless, until the sample size is large enough, this still doesn't provide enough evidence that caffeine does indeed have an effect.

[brogers70]

The N of female subjects is only 80. That should mean treatment=40 and placebo=40.

Corrected online 30 October 2014
In the version of this article initially published, there were errors in the reporting of statistics. In the Figure 1b legend, the asterisked P value was given in the HTML version as *P = 0.05 and in the PDF version as *P < 0.05. It should read *P < 0.05, one-tailed. In the Figure 2a legend, the degrees of freedom for the immediate caffeine group were given as 42 and the P value as 0.05; the correct values are 71 and 0.049, respectively. In the Figure 2b legend and the fifth paragraph of the main text, the P value for the main effect of caffeine was given as 0.001; the correct value is 0.05. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

This is a technical point. There is almost never a good reason to use a one-tailed test instead of a two-tailed test. One tailed tests give P values 50% lower than two-tailed tests, so some people have a tendency to slip them in, since it makes their result look "statistically significant." But it's really cheating. The only legitimate reason for using a one-tailed test is when the effect you are looking for can only possibly go in one direction for fundamental physical reasons, not because you are only interested in one direction. I'd be quite skeptical.

[diomedes]

When scientific evidence points in all possible directions, that's when the fun starts.

[outin]

When scientific evidence points in all possible directions, that's when the fun starts.

Especially in human sciences that is usually the case. The results are never fail safe. And research results in human sciences are practically always about correlation instead of causality, because it's mostly just statistical research and there are too many variables, even in controlled experiments, to prove direct causality. So if one wants to dispute the results it's always possible. If one wants to try to apply the results one has to accept the uncertainty and lack of complete explanations.

[brogers70]

Clearly this has gone a bit off topic, but if you are interested in the foibles of the medical literature, and the statistical foibles in particular, the following is a very clear explanation of why so many contradictory results from medical studies show up in the popular press. It does not mean that every research study is equally open to doubt, only that it's good to withhold judgement until there's lots of corroborating evidence. There's no doubt that smoking causes cancer, and little doubt that vaccines do NOT cause autism, but things like green tea preventing Alzheimer's need a bit more time to see.

In any case, this article explains why so many medical results that get touted in the press later turn out to be wrong. "Why most published research findings turn out to be false."

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124