Crystals And Catalysts

This is the Arabic translation of the blog post: Nootropics aka Smart Drugs - Do they really work هل سمعت عن منشطات الذهن قبل قراءة هذه المدونة؟ أو "العقاقير الذكية" أو "معززات الدماغ" كما يطلق عليها؟ هذه الأدوية التي تدعي أنها من المفترض أن تحولك إلى عبقري و "تحسن من قدراتك الإدراكية" وتستهدف كل شخص يشعر بأنه يريد تعزيز قدرات عقولهم خاصة عند الدراسة أو في العمل.

Eating sweet foods causes the brain to form a memory of a meal, according to researchers at Georgia State University, Georgia Regents University and Charlie Norwood VA Medical Centre. The research published in the journal Hippocampus found that neurons in the dorsal hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that is critical for episodic memory (the memory of autobiographical events experienced at a particular time and place), are activated by consuming sweets. The experiment consisted of feeding a meal including a sweetened solution, either sucrose or saccharin to rats. They found that this significantly increased the expression of the synaptic plasticity marker called activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (Arc) in their dorsal hippocampal neurons. Synaptic plasticity is a process that is necessary for making memories. Forming memories are essential for a healthy diet. Researchers have found that people with amnesia will repeatedly eat if presented with food, even if...

There’s actually no difference between the male and female minds.  A new research study, published in the journal Neuroimage , is disproving the myth that states that the hippocampus (a crucial part of the brain that consolidates new memories and helps connect emotions to the senses) is larger in females than in males. Leading a team of students at the Rosalind Franklin Medical School, Lise Elliot, Ph.D., conducted a meta-analysis of structural MRI volumes that found no significant difference in hippocampal size between men and women. A meta-analysis is a statistical technique that allows researchers to combine the findings from many independent studies into a comprehensive review. The team examined findings from 76 published papers, involving more than 6,000 healthy individuals. Hippocampi are located on both sides of the brain, under the cerebral cortex. The team's findings test the familiar argument that a disproportionately larger hippocampus explains females' tendenc...

How many times have you found yourself recollecting a bad memory? It doesn't even have to be a very bad memory,  it could be a sad moment, a moment which angered you or even an embarrassing moment. B ut it is definitely prominent in your mind. All of these things could have happened years ago and you don't want to remember them but they still come back and haunt you from time to time. But the question is why do we remember these bad memories more than good ones?  Time to think out of the box By Frits Ahlefeldt Bad outweighs the good It turns out that negative memories are more likely to be remembered over positive ones in the brain because negative events pose a chance of "danger".  This makes the body more alert to negative thoughts because they are treated as a lesson to the person to help them prevent harm. Therefore we become extremely focused on the negative thoughts and it becomes much more difficult to recall the positive thoughts/memorie...

Exam season is always a stressful time for students and every time it comes around everyone prepares in their own to make sure they can perform their best, even if it means taking performance enhancing drugs. There’s a prescription drug called Modafinil that can enhance your concentration. Personally I've never heard of anything like this till yesterday, the only drug I heard of at exam season is caffeine pills. Loads of students would take caffeine pills at exam season to try and stay up and revise or pull an all-nighter the day before the exam to cram in as much information as possible.  But sometimes that didn’t end up well because some students would end up taking too much caffeine pills and faint during the exam and subsequently need to be hospitalised for overdose.