Bilinguals Have Healthier Brains

According to neuroscientist Ellen Bialystok, people who are fluent in two languages have healthier brains.

Ellen Bialystok, an eminent research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, says speaking 2 or more languages regularly from an early age has a positive impact on the brain.

Apart from enhancing cognitive abilities, bilingualism could also delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

It appears that something as simple as being able to communicate in 2 or more languages tends to reconfigure the brain network in such a way as to positively affect certain things the brain does.

The Canadian study conducted at the Baycrest Geriatric Centre,Toronto, identified 200 patients with Alzheimer’s disease & examined their backgrounds to find out whether they were monolingual or bilingual.

The researchers looked at the age of the patients when their family first detected something was wrong & when they were officially diagnosed. In both the cases, bilingual patients were much older, by about 4 years.

Bialystok believes that bilingualism protects the brain & people don’t develop Alzheimer’s disease earlier. Besides, bilinguals coped with Alzheimer’s better.

Learning another language late in life is probably beneficial, because it helps stimulate mental activity & it’s a great way to exercise the brain. For that matter, any kind of intellectually engaged activity that requires intense involvement would keep the brain healthy.

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A Cool ‘Nightcap’ For Insomniacs

A cool head could be just the thing for a good night’s sleep.

Doctors have developed a cap containing tubes of cooled water that soothes over-active minds, letting the wearer to disconnect and get some quality shut eye.

US researchers have discovered that insomniacs fell asleep quickly & had a restful night after wearing a special night cap containing chilled water.

They believe that if the brain’s temperature is lowered, it slows its activity & thereby aids rest.

The metabolism in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, located just below one’s forehead, slows down while people fall asleep. But in insomniacs, the process speeds up.

In a study undertaken by University of Pittsburgh researchers to treat insomniacs by inducing “cerebral hypothermia”, sleepless patients who were fitted with the cool cap slept as soundly as those without a sleeping problem.

Researchers say the cool cap could provide insomnia sufferers a safe alternative to sleeping pills.

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Blind Use Echolocation To Navigate

It’s a ray of hope for the visually challenged – a new study has shown that the blind can develop “sonar”, i.e., learning to ‘see’ their way like bats by identifying objects from sounds echoing off them.

It a known fact that bats make use of echolocation – the ability to identify objects using sounds alone – to navigate their way around at nighttime.

That the blind could also do it was suspected but never proven.

Canadian researchers have now shown that they too can echolocate. Intriguingly, they do so by using the part of their brain usually used to process visual images.

They are able to ‘see’ different objects like a flag pole, a tree and a car by producing a clicking noise and then detecting their echoes.

The blind use echolocation to produce an image of the environment. By making clicking sounds with their tongue & picking up the echo, they can perceive where things are around them.

Sound is similar to light in that they both are waves of energy. These sound waves bounce off objects in the environment, and on their return they actually bring with them an impression of what they have encountered.

Their brain then interprets the information contained in the returning echoes and uses it to create images.

When the visually challenged use sound to locate things, their visual brain area lights up.

The findings suggest that the visually challenged may be capable of using echolocation to mountain bike, play basketball, or navigate unfamiliar terrain.

It’s clear that echolocation helps the blind to do quite a lot of things that are otherwise believed to be next to impossible without sight, and in this manner it can provide vision-impaired and blind people with a greater degree of independence in their everyday lives. 

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“Brain Speller” that Transforms Thoughts into Words

“Brain Speller” – a technological marvel developed by Canberra University students capable of reading people’s thoughts & transforming them into words using a computer screen.

The product will help many Australians who require assistance in communicating or face trouble doing so because of some disease or disability.

Paul Du, the Team leader, hopes that this system is used to assist dementia sufferers & people with serious physical disabilities in improving communication between patients & their families.

Via electrodes attached to a person’s scalp, the “Brain Speller” headset tunes into signals emitted from the brain. Once it detects the signals, a program changes them into words.

One can read the signals using a portable computer connected with the headset.

In this way sufferers of brain damage, dementia or paralysis can communicate effectively.

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Left-Handed People Far More Afraid

Left-handers are more afraid than right-handers, according to psychologists.

Left-handed test volunteers who watched a small clip of the scary movie The Silence of the Lambs displayed greater symptoms related to post traumatic stress disorder compared to right-handed people.

When told to recall the film details, the left-handed subjects gave more rambling and repetitive accounts, a common symptom of PTSD.

Earlier studies have also found them more inclined to be angry & given to negative emotions.

It is evident that the 2 sides of the human brain have varying roles in PTSD & the right side of the brain appears to be involved in fear.

The right-side of the brain of left-handed people is more dominant, and perhaps this may have a role to play in that.

Famous lefties of the present times include Barack Obama, David Cameron and Tom Cruise.

Scientists believe their findings could throw new light on how people develop PTSD & the way the brain tackles fear.

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