It is widely believed in society that alcohol causes the death of neurons in the brain: there is a huge number of widely circulated statements in the style of "Three glasses of beer kill 10 thousand brain cells." However, researchers at the University of Washington in St. Louis have found that this is not the case: familiarize with their research, see The Journal of Neuroscience.
Scientists do not refute the opinion that ethyl alcohol contained in alcoholic beverages can kill living cells and microorganisms - however, this is a manifestation of the antiseptic effect of alcoholic beverages. But
the neurons of the brain from ethyl alcohol do not die even if the liquid acts on them directly.
The research team led by Kazuhiro Takuda found that alcoholic beverages affect how exactly the neurons in the brain interact with each other. Alcohol "triggers" special receptors to release steroids, which slow down the formation of memories. That is why people often do not remember what happened to them after the extra portion of alcohol that turned out to be. In addition, as a result of this, the "communication" of neurons with each other slows down, as a result of which they begin to provide worse information transfer. As a result, there is a lack of coordination of actions, confused speech and an inability to adequately respond to external stimuli.
However, cases of neuronal death under the influence of alcohol do occur - so, this is precisely what causes the occurrence of Korsakov's syndrome. Nevertheless, even in this case, alcoholic beverages are not the direct cause of the onset of the disease - it only leads to an acute lack of vitamin B1, which provokes the disease.
However, the use of alcoholic beverages is not the only way to have a destructive effect on the brain and memory. It turns out that a number of actions familiar to every person have a similar effect.
Hearty breakfast and fruits ruin memory
Scientists from the University of Montreal have found that fatty foods (for example, included in a classic English breakfast - fried bacon, scrambled eggs and toast with butter) affect the production of dopamine, a hormone that affects the brain's "reward system" and is responsible for learning and formation new skills. It is because of this
The habit of eating a heavy breakfast can slow down the brain's cognitive activity and response to external stimuli, as well as memory impairment.
Excessive consumption of fruits has the same effect on the brain - the sugar contained there (fructose) prevents the hormone insulin from extracting energy from sugar, which is necessary for the functioning of neurons. With the specialist research test, you can familiarize in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
Multitasking and the Internet Lower IQ
Professor Earl Miller of Massachusetts Institute of Technology approves: The human brain is not designed to perform several tasks at the same time. Even in the case when a person seems to be able to do three things at once, this does not mean that he is really capable of it: in fact
the brain simply frequently switches from one task to another, and this entails an increased expenditure of energy and a rapid depletion of the brain.
Prof Miller says that even constantly checking email while doing other work can lower your IQ by 10%. However, constant access to the Internet can damage our memory by itself: having the opportunity to "google" any necessary information, a person simply stops remembering new data. The brain gets used to paying attention not to what it should store in memory, but to where and on which site the necessary data can be found. Professor Miller's work can be found on his website. Cognitive Research Laboratories .
Reality shows get in the way
Psychologists have conducted research on how watching reality shows affects people's brains. Austrian scientist Markus Appel conducted an experiment in which 81 participants watched a reality show that showed the daily life of a teenage bully who is fond of football. After viewing the experience, the participants were asked to solve a test aimed at identifying their general level of knowledge (people performed a similar test before they got acquainted with the reality show). It turned out that the TV program really prevented people from thinking - the results of the second test were significantly lower. The author of the study connects this with the fact that
while watching a reality show, a person does not need to deeply analyze the information received or memorize it, as a result of which the brain goes into a "relaxed" mode of operation, and after the end of the broadcast, it was not so easy to return to normal mode.
More details familiarize the results of the research can be found in the journal Media Psychology.
The results of scientific research described above suggest that modern life itself already harms the work of our brain and memory: the Internet accompanies us every day, during the working day we have to do several things at once, and on television it is often difficult to find a program that would require more active brain activity than a reality show. Unfortunately, this is also confirmed by statistical data: if, since the 1930s, the average IQ level began to grow sharply due to the improving living conditions and the development of science and education, then over the past several decades the value of the average IQ coefficient, on the contrary, has been decreasing: so , now it is 1 point less than it was about half a century ago.
Read: 15705Viewing reality shows. The results of the erudition tests passed by the audience after the new series of reality shows turned out to be much worse than the results of people far from similar television entertainment.
Sugar. If you regularly eat sweets for a month and a half, it will lead to memory impairment and slower brain function.
Chewing gum. Constant chewing leads to a deterioration in short-term memory.
Excess weight. Obese people after stomach reduction surgery showed significantly improved memory performance after just three months. Change of time zones. Experiments on mice, which changed their sleep time every three days for a month, showed that the body began to function much worse than under normal conditions.
Passive smoking. People who are constantly near smokers have a significantly lower IQ level, especially in children.
Stress. As a result of constant nervous tension, the number of connections between neurons in the brain decreases, and the gray matter as a whole becomes less.
Anxiety medications. Many of them have side effects that are too serious, such as dementia, memory loss, and even suicidal thoughts.
Lack of iodine. The amount of iodine in the body of an adult who does not reach the norm leads to a decrease in his IQ level by 13 positions.
Soft drugs. All of them literally kill the brain, disrupting neuropsychological functions, which then cannot be restored.
Based on materials: ru.tsn.ua
- 4630Scientists have recorded a steady decline in IQ scores. Why is the world intellectually degrading?
Futurists at one time predicted: people will grow smarter and increase the volume of the brain. As a result, our descendants will become wise and big-headed. Perhaps someday this will begin to happen. But so far scientists are observing the opposite trend: namely, global stupidity. It is expressed in a drop from year to year in IQ indicators on a global scale.
The test results can be found in the archives and compare the results of past years with the present. This is what, for example, Richard Lynn, a psychologist at the University of Ulster, did. At his disposal were the intellectual indicators of Americans, Europeans and Australians.
Richard determined the average values - a kind of world levels of intelligence over the years. And I found that by 2014 IQ had dropped by almost 3 points from the 1950 level. And if the stupidity continues at the current pace, then by 2110 the IQ of humanity will fall below 84 points. This will mean that it will become mentally mediocre.
Intellect, as they say, is rolling downhill ...
Lynn's colleague Michael Woodley of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium recently pulled up the response rate data. And it turns out to be decreasing. A hundred years ago, people in experiments pressed a button when they saw a light signal on the screen, on average after 194 milliseconds. The latency is now 275 milliseconds. A delayed reaction indicates a decrease in the speed of transmission of nerve impulses.
The IQ data used for the analysis did not affect Russia, where intelligence tests have always been less popular than in the West. Therefore, one can only guess how things are with us. And hope that the process of global stupidity has not affected the Russians. And who knows, suddenly we have become smarter at all. At least on average.
The sages are long extinct
Naturally, scientists are trying to understand the causes of the phenomenon. And the most sane suppose: where they become stupid, something is wrong with education. But there are other ideas as well.
For example, Professor Jan te Nijenhuis of the University of Amsterdam believes that a person's intellectual level is limited by a certain genetic limit. And humanity has already reached it. And now it only degrades. This happens mainly because the smart ones do not reproduce as actively as the stupid ones.
Let's check the intelligence? The correct answer is under the picture
The professor found the guilty ones. These - women who have received a good education - give birth to fewer of their less intellectually developed sisters. Here "wise" genes are gradually disappearing.
At Stanford University, the reason for the decline in intelligence is seen in the fact that the law of natural selection, discovered by Darwin, has ceased to work. And people do not need to fight for survival as they did in ancient times. Scientific and technological progress has saved most of humanity from the need to strain the brain in order to get food and clothing, to find where to hide from animals and enemies. Similar thoughts that developed the brains of our ancestors have now left us.
The genes responsible for the development of intelligence began to develop rapidly due to mutations provoked by difficult conditions, says one of the authors of the study, Dr. Gerald Crabtree.
We reached our peak several thousand years ago and have been rolling downhill ever since, ”Crabtree is convinced.
The most original hypothesis came from German researchers from the University of Erlangen. They believe that people have begun to rest often. This is the reason for the decline in intelligence. After all, just two weeks spent lazily by the sea in idle bliss can reduce IQ by 20 points at once due to partial atrophy of cells in the frontal lobes of the brain. The situation is aggravated by numerous holidays, which the workers turn into additional vacations.
The loss of intelligence is, of course, restored over time. But not all of them fully.
BY THE WAY
Or maybe he is not such a fool?
Intelligence tests were invented by the British psychologist Hans Jurgen Eysenck. In tests, you need to solve logic puzzles, skillfully manipulate letters and solve abstract charades in a certain time. For correct answers, points are awarded, which in total give the intelligence quotient - IQ.
People with a mediocre intelligence score below 80 points, with an average - from 90 to 115. An IQ of 120 is considered high. But how true is this division of people into fools and geniuses?
In an experiment conducted by scientists at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Natural Science Museum in London, volunteers were tested while in a tomograph. They were observed by monitoring their brain activity. And we saw that during the solution of different tasks, different areas of the brain are activated.
Perhaps intelligence tests are useless
Human intelligence is not a single entity, but is formed from many components, - concluded the head of the study, Professor Adrian Owen. He - intelligence - is a set of independent and different types of thinking abilities. A person can be strong in one of these areas, but weak in others. Therefore, attempts to measure the level of intelligence as a single indicator is the deepest delusion.
So maybe the conclusion that the world is increasingly obsessed with stupidity is worth arguing?
Dullness is not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of intelligence. A person may have great knowledge in one area, but in other areas he will be blunt. And this is not due to a lack of knowledge, but to a lack of reason. So what is intelligence? Mind is sustained attention that allows you to embrace the whole and at the same time penetrate into the essence of what interests you. The gambler knows everything about the game, in this area he is an ace, but can he be called reasonable? The head of a large enterprise, successfully manages it, but at home, he is a despot. That is, in family relationships, he is dumb. In order not to be blunt, certain knowledge is not needed, it is enough just to love. The level of rationality among today's youth is declining. Why? Due to the pressure of fear and excessive enthusiasm for the virtual world, in which "everything is possible" and there are no restrictions on desires. It is easier, easier and more enjoyable to live in a virtual fairy tale than in the real world, in which, in order to realize your desires, you need to make a lot of effort and fight against fear. And so, suppressed fear, plunged into a fairy tale and there are no fears, no responsibility, no duties, and any desire can be satisfied without any effort. Is this good or bad? Is the suppression of fear fraught with danger? Let's try to figure it out. The smoker smokes a cigarette and suppresses the fear of the consequences of smoking in order to enjoy the pleasure of smoking alone. It is good for him, it is pleasant to live in sweet self-deception. By suppressing fear, he suppressed doubts, critical analysis, which forces us to view the consequences of their desires. It is fear that compels us to think first and then act. By suppressing it, we deprive ourselves of protection and allow negative irritations to penetrate into us unhindered and accumulate, which, ultimately, will lead to the formation of a serious illness. The fact that the smoker suppresses the fear of the possible consequences of smoking, the harm from this does not disappear, but only intensifies. For self-deception you have to pay with your health. Isn't it too high a price for the pleasure received, which will become less and less, and not pleasure, more and more? What does a normal person with a balanced psyche do when he wants to eat an apple? He is looking for an opportunity to purchase an apple, so that later he can get real pleasure by eating it. That is, he translates desire into action, and the action takes place in reality. To achieve what he wants, he does mental and physical work. The desire to realize desire, forces him to improve his mind. And if this does not harm the whole, then the mind. What does a virtual do to satisfy its desires? He elevates the desired to the absolute, and denies the "unpleasant" reality in which one has to work, so that it does not interfere with receiving pleasure with his negative. Fear shouts to him that this should not be done, that it is dangerous, but he suppressed it, and with it the critical analysis, which forced him to view the consequences of his desires. And since there is no critical analysis, then all the actions taken seem to be correct, which further exacerbates the situation. And going back, in order to comprehend your life, your behavior becomes scary, since you have to admit all the mistakes you have made and get sick with the truth, but it’s scary and painful, so it’s easier, easier and more painless to continue to move only forward and justify all your actions. The virtual world (looping on it) reduces the mental and creative abilities of a person, as it breaks the connection with reality. The brain fully functions and develops only in a balanced state, in which the connection with reality is carried out continuously and directly. The displacement on the virtual does not allow one to concentrate, which means, to make the perception of the world meaningful. People who overload themselves with work are also not able to completely switch themselves to reality, and therefore, they often have problems in the family. They are not so sensitive to their children, and therefore not everything goes well with their upbringing. A persistent shift in thinking impairs memory and health, since the amount of accumulated irritations outstrips their release. Many young people hang out for a long time on social networks, in computer games, on phones…. There they feel good, comfortable, there is no cruel reality that loads with its problems. If you use all this in moderation, then it's okay. If this is an escape from the "terrible" reality, then the number of fears will not decrease, but only increase, since the suppression of fear leads to its quantitative increase. By suppressing fear, you do not solve the problem that gave rise to fear, but drive it deep into the subconscious, where it will only grow. The longer you live in the virtual world, the harder it will be to return to reality. The shifted thinking does not have rationality, since it lacks critical analysis, doubts about the correctness of its actions. The shift does not allow you to quickly switch to other interests and comprehend reality. Well, how to cope with fears when they become more and more every day? We must not run away from fear, but look into its eyes. Only in this case, the connection with reality will not be discontinuous and it will become understandable for you, not traumatic and attractive. How not to be afraid when there are so many threats around that it is simply impossible to cope with? And you stop living in a virtual fantasy world that accumulates fears and redirect your attention from being fixated on it, into reality, into its vision, and not into the idea of it. When you stabilize your attention, your strong "I" is automatically activated, which will not allow fear to break through your defenses. At the same time, your self-esteem will begin to increase, your will, which is only strong with sustained attention, will strengthen its position. You will become more benevolent, as fear will cease to press on you, pride, self-esteem, self-esteem, nobility will be activated…. That is, all the feelings inherent in truly strong people. You will see that many fears were far-fetched, and real fears can be dealt with with the help of the mind, which will begin to actively develop and strengthen its position. And you will be able to receive not virtual, but real pleasures from life, which, in terms of quality, cannot be compared with virtual pleasures. And they do not destroy, but strengthen health, since the energy of desire is not suppressed, but receives a complete discharge. There is one more, perhaps the most important point. Don't overwork and get enough sleep. It is sleep that is a natural healer and psyche normalizer. Even if overwork, lack of sleep, psychotrauma, illness, or you are confused in something, allow yourself to sleep well and lie down and the brain will straighten everything itself. It is inherent in nature to strive for correctness, balance, harmony, it is only necessary not to interfere with his performance of this function. If you want to become strong, intelligent, human, relaxed, free and always remain yourself - get enough sleep and learn to be attentive. Nature has not yet come up with a simpler and more accessible method. 2.06.2014
Scientists have recorded a steady decline in IQ scores. Why is the world intellectually degrading?
Futurists at one time predicted: people will grow smarter and increase the volume of the brain. As a result, our descendants will become wise and big-headed. Perhaps someday this will begin to happen. But so far scientists are observing the opposite trend: namely, global stupidity. It is expressed in a drop from year to year in IQ indicators on a global scale.
The test results can be found in the archives and compare the results of past years with the present. This is what, for example, Richard Lynn, a psychologist at the University of Ulster, did. At his disposal were the intellectual indicators of Americans, Europeans and Australians.
Richard determined the average values - a kind of world levels of intelligence over the years. And I found that by 2014 IQ had dropped by almost 3 points from the 1950 level. And if the stupidity continues at the current pace, then by 2110 the IQ of humanity will fall below 84 points. This will mean that it will become mentally mediocre.
Lynn's colleague Michael Woodley of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium recently pulled up the response rate data. And it turns out to be decreasing. A hundred years ago, people in experiments pressed a button when they saw a light signal on the screen, on average after 194 milliseconds. The latency is now 275 milliseconds. A delayed reaction indicates a decrease in the speed of transmission of nerve impulses.
The IQ data used for the analysis did not affect Russia, where intelligence tests have always been less popular than in the West. Therefore, one can only guess how things are with us. And hope that the process of global stupidity has not affected the Russians. And who knows, suddenly we have become smarter at all. At least on average.
Naturally, scientists are trying to understand the causes of the phenomenon. And the most sane suppose: where they become stupid, something is wrong with education. But there are other ideas as well.
For example, Professor Jan te Nijenhuis of the University of Amsterdam believes that a person's intellectual level is limited by a certain genetic limit. And humanity has already reached it. And now it only degrades. This happens mainly because the smart ones do not reproduce as actively as the stupid ones.
The professor found the guilty ones. These - women who have received a good education - give birth to fewer of their less intellectually developed sisters. Here "wise" genes are gradually disappearing.
At Stanford University, the reason for the decline in intelligence is seen in the fact that the law of natural selection, discovered by Darwin, has ceased to work. And people do not need to fight for survival as they did in ancient times. Scientific and technological progress has saved most of humanity from the need to strain the brain in order to get food and clothing, to find where to hide from animals and enemies. Similar thoughts that developed the brains of our ancestors have now left us.
The genes responsible for the development of intelligence began to develop rapidly due to mutations provoked by difficult conditions, says one of the authors of the study, Dr. Gerald Crabtree.
We reached our peak several thousand years ago and have been rolling downhill ever since, ”Crabtree is convinced.
The most original hypothesis came from German researchers from the University of Erlangen. They believe that people have begun to rest often. This is the reason for the decline in intelligence. After all, just two weeks spent lazily by the sea in idle bliss can reduce IQ by 20 points at once due to partial atrophy of cells in the frontal lobes of the brain. The situation is aggravated by numerous holidays, which the workers turn into additional vacations.
The loss of intelligence is, of course, restored over time. But not all of them fully. Alas, this is a fact!
