RED WINE COMPOUND MAY BOOST MEMORY

A substance found in red wine and dark chocolate may improve memory, a new research has claimed. Researchers found that participants in a study of overweight adults who took resveratrol supplements for six months had better short-term recall than their counterparts who took a placebo. The participants who took the supplement also had more connections among brain areas involved in memory, and this parallelled improvements over the study period in their ability to break down sugar in the body, researchers found. The study is the first to show a link between the red wine compound and cognition in overweight adults, said Veronica Witte, a neuroscientist at the Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin in Germany. "From a clinical point of view, our findings suggest that regular, high-level intake of resveratrol in the elderly may convey protective effects on cognitive functions, a hypothesis that now needs to be evaluated in large-scale clinical trials," Witte told 'Live Science'. In the new study, Witte and her colleagues tested 46 participants who were overweight, but otherwise healthy. Half of the volunteers were randomly assigned to take 200 milligrammes of resveratrol daily for six months, while the other half received a placebo. Before and after the six-month period, the participants took a memory test, gave a blood sample and had their brains scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging, which measures changes in blood flow as a proxy for brain activity. Those who received resveratrol supplements remembered more words on a list that they had seen 30 minutes previously than those who received the placebo. Moreover, the brain scans showed more communication within the hippocampus, a memory-related brain region, and the blood tests showed reduced levels of a blood sugar marker, in the people who took resveratrol. The findings suggest that sugar metabolism may be linked to brain connectivity and memory, the researchers said. The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Alcohol-related terms increase aggression

Exposing people to alcohol-related words can influence aggressive behaviour in ways similar to actually drinking, a new study has found. However, this aggressive behaviour occurred when people were subjected to provocation in a way that was not a clear-cut insult, researchers found. Although it has been long known that drinking alcohol can increase aggression, a team of psychologists, including Dr Eduardo Vasquez of the University of Kent in the UK and others from two US universities, demonstrated in two experiments that participants exhibited aggression following exposure to alcohol-related words – known as alcohol priming. This effect was demonstrated in situations when they were provoked in a way that was ambiguous or not obvious. These findings will have implications for understanding the way people behave in situations where alcohol is present, including bars sporting events and parties. The study was conducted via two experiments involving US undergraduates. In the first, half of the students were exposed to alcohol primes – for example, the words 'wine', 'beer' and 'whisky' – while the other half were exposed to non-alcohol primes – for example, 'milk', 'water' and 'juice' – prior to receiving feedback on an essay they had written. Participants demonstrated increased aggressive retaliation when provoked by the essay feedback, but only when the provocation could not be clearly interpreted as an insult. An unambiguous or clear provocation produced highly aggressive responses, regardless of whether a person was primed with alcohol or not. The second experiment showed that the effects of alcohol priming are fairly short-lived – the effect begins to diminish after seven minutes and is gone after about fifteen minutes following exposure to alcohol words. It also showed that alcohol priming influenced aggression by making the ambiguous provocation appear more hostile. "These results provide another strong demonstration that exposing someone to alcohol-related words alone can influence social behaviour in ways that are consistent with the effects of alcohol consumption," said Vasquez. "Our research also examined the parameters within which alcohol priming is likely to affect aggression. These effects seem to occur primarily when the provocation is not clear-cut and obvious, and are thus more open to interpretation. "Under alcohol priming, the interpretation becomes more negative, and people become more aggressive. "We've shown that people attending events where alcohol is typically present do not have to drink to experience, or be subject to, the aggression-enhancing effects of alcohol, a fact that would seem to suggest caution in all such environments," Vasquez said. The study is published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.