False Memories

Welcome back. During my 20 years as a scientist with the federal government, I was fortunate to have many superb contractors supporting me. One was exceptional in every way, even as a storyteller. 

His mastery of that art was evidenced when, one morning, I told him about some particularly unusual something or other I had seen or encountered en route to the office. Later that day, I heard him telling other people my story, much better than I could ever have told it. But it was no longer me and my experience. In his telling, it was he and his experience. Had I implanted a false memory? A recent study showed how possible that could be.

Memory Implantation Study
Collaborators from Canada’s Windsor and Victoria universities, the UK’s Warwick and Portsmouth universities, and Kent State and Washington universities in the U.S. conducted a meta-analysis. They merged data from eight published false-memory implantation studies, involving 423 participants.

Memory implantation. Or were
they wiping his memory? (Arnold
Schwarzenegger in the 1990
movie, Total Recall)

In each of the studies, fictitious childhood events, such as trouble with a teacher, a hot air balloon ride and spilling a wedding punch bowl, had been suggested to the participants using various approaches (e.g., multiple interviews, mixing true and false information, school photos from relevant years, doctored photographs). The participant gender and age were not reported for every study; however, about 70% of the participants were female and, based on about two-thirds of the sample, their average age was 21. 

Since the eight studies defined and measured false memories in different ways, the data could not be combined directly. As such, the researchers obtained the original transcripts of the participants’ memory reports and reassessed them using a coding scheme they developed for defining a false memory.

Their coding scheme was based on seven criteria: (1) verbal statements of remembering, (2) acceptance of suggested information, (3) elaboration beyond suggested information, (4) presence and quality of mental imagery, (5) coherence of memory narratives, (6) evidence of emotional experience and (7) no rejection of the suggested event.

Study Findings
Applying the coding scheme to the 423 memory reports, the researchers found more than half of the participants showed evidence of believing that the implanted false event actually occurred. Of these, 30% remembered the false memory and another 23% accepted the suggested event to some degree though they did not meet the criterion for remembering.

Of the remaining participants, 10% had strong mental representations of the event but rejected having the false memory, and 36% completely rejected the suggestion of the false memory.

Wrap Up
The study demonstrated that suggesting a false autobiographical event can produce a false memory in a large percentage of people, especially if evidence of the event is provided, imagination is employed and resistance to considering the event’s possible occurrence can be overcome.

The researchers also point out the difficulty of distinguishing when someone is remembering the past, reporting other forms of knowledge or belief, or describing thoughts that originated in other sources of experience.

Finally, as has been demonstrated over the past year, implanting false memories is not limited to individuals. The collective memories of groups or segments of society can be incorrect, due, for example, to misinformation. False news, anyone? Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
False memory study in Memory journal: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2016.1260747
Article on study on Science Daily website:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161207101433.htm
General background on memory implantation in Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_implantation

Healthful Ice Cream

Ice cream cone--
4 scoops!
(multiple websites)

Welcome back. You’d like to be healthier, wouldn’t you? Well, all you have to do is eat ice cream. Oh, not just any ice cream. It has to be loaded with antioxidants. And not just any antioxidants. No, you want polyphenols. Those are the antioxidants you get from plant-derived foods like fruit, vegetables and--please don’t make me eat it--chocolate. Anyway, that’s what research collaborators from Italy’s University of Rome, found.

Antioxidants
I know you’ve heard about antioxidants, but the rules say I have to offer a bit of background. I’ll start with free radicals. Those are highly reactive, unstable molecules generated by cellular processes (e.g., when we metabolize food) as well as by factors such as ultraviolet light, air pollution, smoking, trauma or excess heat. There are many kinds of free radicals; in living tissue, most contain the element oxygen.

Why do we care? Free radicals, especially in high concentrations, can cause cumulative and debilitating cell damage associated with many chronic diseases.

Antioxidants come to our rescue. They interact with and neutralize free radicals. Antioxidants are natural or manufactured chemicals, including vitamins A, C and E, carotenoids, lycopene, selenium and the plant-derived polyphenols I mentioned. Our bodies produce some antioxidants, and we get the rest from external sources, primarily diet.

If our diet is poor, free radicals can run amuck. You can pop a dietary supplement, but while a diet with ample antioxidants promotes health, high-dose supplements of antioxidants may be linked to health risk. Eat better, skip the pills!

University of Rome Study
The usual approach to producing more healthful ice cream is to reduce the fat and sugar contents. Instead, the University of Rome researchers tried increasing the antioxidants.

For their small-sample study, the researchers recruited 14 healthy nonsmokers (7 male), age 20 to 40. Those volunteers had to forego medications, intensive physical activity and polyphenol-rich food for two weeks before beginning the study.

Three days before the study, the volunteers were given an exercise stress test, then randomly assigned to eat 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of either an antioxidant ice cream, containing dark cocoa powder, extracts of hazelnut and green tea, or the control ice cream, which had milk chocolate. (The phenolic content of dark chocolate is much higher than that of milk chocolate.)

Additional testing included measures of oxidative stress (d-ROMs, hydrogen peroxide) and vascular function (serum polyphenols, NOx, FRAP, FMD and RHI) before and two hours after eating the ice cream, and another exercise stress test two hours after the ice cream.

After a one-week break, the volunteer assignments to the antioxidant or control ice creams were switched and testing was repeated.

The researchers found that, when volunteers ate the antioxidant ice cream, their oxidative stress decreased, vascular function increased significantly and exercise tolerance improved. In contrast, no changes were observed after eating the control ice cream. In short, an ice cream rich in polyphenols effectively promoted good health.

Wrap Up
I, of course, have a few comments.

The study’s antioxidant ice cream included green tea extract. I drink green tea daily and a sprinkling of green tea extract is probably healthy and safe (see earlier post, Tea Time). But high-dose extract supplements and concentrated infusions of green tea have been implicated in many cases of liver damage.

I also should mention that, several years ago, various media outlets were tracking a University of Missouri food chemistry researcher’s progress in developing ice cream with added antioxidants, fiber and probiotics. I didn’t find any peer-reviewed publication on the work, yet the resulting ice cream was produced for at least local consumption.

Sugar- and fat-free, vanilla
frozen yogurt, blueberries,
nuts and cocoa powder.

Finally, I suggest that If you can’t find ice cream (or frozen yogurt) with all the right stuff, buy it sugarless and add a banana, berries, nuts (pecan, walnut or hazelnut) or even dark chocolate. Yes, it’s OK to forget the ice cream and just eat the dark chocolate (see earlier post, Chocolate for Health). Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
University of Rome study in Nutrition journal:
www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/S0899-9007(16)30128-9/abstract
University of Rome’s clinical trial report to U.S. National Institutes of Health: clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02685163
Article on study on DairyReporter website: www.dairyreporter.com/R-D/Study-shows-antioxidant-ice-cream-can-promote-overall-health
Example references on antioxidants:
medlineplus.gov/antioxidants.html#summary
www.news-medical.net/health/What-are-Antioxidants.aspx
www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/antioxidants-fact-sheet
National Institutes drug record on green tea: livertox.nih.gov/GreenTea.htm
Example articles on University of Missouri research on functional ice cream:
cafnrnews.com/2009/11/healthy-ice-cream/
www.foodqualityandsafety.com/article/making-ice-cream-functional/
www.columbiatribune.com/news/education/mu-to-offer-healthy-ice-cream/article_12565b18-0c3f-5d0e-8f5c-68dad0c8a046.html

Fragrance Free

Welcome back. In a long-ago blog post, Time for Allergies, I wrote: I’m no longer beset by hay fever, yet perfumes and fragrances can do me in. The entire cosmetic line my wife favored when she and I first got together was in jeopardy until we determined that the non-fragrant, hypoallergenic, couldn’t-possibly-bother-you cosmetic base was the culprit. Being a mile downwind of that base was enough to shut down my breathing, clunk.

Am I the only one bothered by perfumes or products with added fragrances? No, of course not. In fact, a recent study of American adults characterized the prevalence and types of exposures, health effects and societal impacts of fragranced products. It’s the latest work on the topic by the investigator, who’s currently with the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Fragrance-free lotion.
No artificial fragrances.

Online Survey
Data for the study were collected via a comprehensive online survey of 1136 U.S. adults, representative of age, gender and region.

Survey questions included exposure to fragranced products from both one’s own use and others’ use, health effects, exposure in the workplace and awareness of product ingredients and labeling.

Fragranced products were categorized as air fresheners and deodorizers, personal care products (e.g., soaps, deodorant, shampoos), cleaning supplies, laundry products, household products (e.g., scented candles, toilet paper, baby products), fragrances (e.g., perfume, cologne, aftershave) as well as other.

Health effects surveyed ran the gamut from migraines to asthma attacks to neurological and musculoskeletal problems. 

“Fragrance” in the bottom line of a lotion’s ingredients label.
Hmmm, what’s in that fragrance?

Key Findings
As you’d probably guess, nearly everyone was exposed to fragranced products at least once a week, and it wasn’t always a pleasant whiff. Those exposures caused one or more adverse health effects in over a third of those surveyed and potentially disabled 17%.

Exposures in the workplace caused 15% of survey respondents to become sick or lose workdays or even a job. Surprisingly, little more than half of the respondents would support a fragrance-free workplace policy; 20% would not.

As for exposures in public places, I remember following my wife to the top of a department store escalator, stepping off and being sprayed with a strong fragrance by an overexuberant salesperson. I waved her away, but many customers just wave goodbye--20% of the respondents want to leave a business quickly if they smell air fresheners or fragranced products, 18% are unable or reluctant to use public toilets because of scented products, and 14% may forego using soap because they know or suspect the soap is fragranced.

Ingredients? Did you know that a product’s fragrance is typically a mixture of dozens to hundreds of chemicals? I and 46% of those surveyed did not. So too, 65% were unaware fragrance chemicals need not be fully disclosed on the label; about the same number had no idea fragranced products commonly emit hazardous air pollutants--yes, hazardous--and nearly 3 out of 4 respondents mistakenly thought “natural,” “green” and “organic” fragranced products would be free of such hazardous air pollutants.

Wrap Up

Unscented antiperspirant.
What fragrances are added
to cover the scent?

When I shop, I try to find products that are labeled fragrance-free, but some are unscented. They’re the same, right? Nope, not even close. Fragrance-free means no artificial (synthetic) fragrances have been added; you won’t find the word “fragrance” on the ingredient label. Unscented products commonly have added fragrances to mask the smells of other chemicals.

Oh, as far as labels and my wife’s former cosmetic base go, hypoallergenic means only that the product is probably not going to cause an allergic reaction, no guarantee. Sorry about that. But thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Report on fragrance survey in Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health journal: link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11869-016-0442-z
Article on study on Science Daily website: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161024095420.htm
Earlier report on volatile product emissions in Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health journal: link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11869-015-0327-6

Hearing Versus Understanding

Welcome back. Guess what. I’ve started receiving advertisements in the mail for hearing aids. The vendors probably figure he’s old, he must need hearing aids. I wonder who told them I was old.

All of the direct mailing about hearing aids used to be addressed to my father-in-law. We share the same address. He, like several of his buddies, already has hearing aids, though he prefers to go unaided. For an interim step, some vendors added my name to his address label.

Full-page newspaper
ad for hearing aids.

While I’m immensely gratified that the vendors now think enough of me to send me my very own direct mailing for recycling, if I were in the market for hearing aids, I could just check out the ads in the local newspaper. Hearing aids or audiologists are frequently advertised, and the ads are big in case your vision has gone the way of your hearing.

Hearing Loss with Age
I can’t fault the vendors for linking age to hearing loss. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, hearing loss affects about one third of U.S. adults age 65 to 74 and nearly half of those over 75.

The usual cause is age-related changes in the inner ear, or less commonly, changes in either the middle ear or the nerve pathways from ear to brain. Certain medical conditions or meds themselves might be involved. It’s difficult to separate age-related hearing loss from that caused by factors such as noise. In fact, hearing loss in most older folks is both age- and noise-related.

All that aside, a recent study showed that what seems to be age-related hearing loss may instead be age-related loss in the brain’s ability to process speech, especially in noisy environments.

Speech Processing Study
University of Maryland researchers monitored brain responses of older and younger adults while someone was speaking to them in two settings: in a quiet environment and in the presence of a competing talker, speaking either English or an unfamiliar language (Dutch).

All test participants--15 older adults, ages 61 to 73, and 17 younger adults, ages 18 to 27--had clinically normal hearing. The older participants had also been screened for dementia and rated no worse than mild cognitive impairment (a score of 22 or higher on Montreal Cognitive Assessment).

Brain monitoring was done with two noninvasive, neurophysiological techniques--magnetoencephalography (MEG), which measures the magnetic fields generated by neuronal activity, and electroencephalography (EEG), which records electrical activity. The researchers focused on two areas of the brain--the midbrain (aka mesencephalon), which plays a major role in auditory processing, and the cerebral cortex, whose responsibility includes language and information processing.

Study Results
The researchers found the cortical and midbrain responses of the older adults were more dependent on the level of background noise and more affected by the information content of the background noise than the responses of the younger adults.

Normal hearing notwithstanding, the ability to process speech when there was a competing speaker present degraded significantly with aging. The effect was more pronounced when the competing speech was in English and thus understood than when it was in an unfamiliar language and thus incomprehensible.

Wrap Up
In an earlier blog post (Brain Focusing with Sound), I wrote that I was having a harder time ignoring distractions, which apparently is characteristic of aging.

So what should you do when conversing with someone like me, whose hearing is fine? Not much right now, but planning ahead, try to find a quiet space; don’t speak louder, but do speak clearly and maybe a tad slower than you would normally speak; and since actually seeing the speaker helps the listener process the speech, try to get my attention. That will be easier, of course, if you find a topic of interest.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
National Institute review of age-related hearing loss: www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/age-related-hearing-loss
University of Maryland research paper in Jour. of Neurophysiology:
jn.physiology.org/content/early/2016/09/02/jn.00373.2016
Science Daily review of Univ. of Maryland study: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161018141152.htm

Rachel Photographs Cuba

Welcome back. With Cuba in the news, I thought I’d kickoff my next 499 blog posts with a mention of my daughter’s book. A year ago, Rachel joined two other professional photographers on an eight day, photo tour of Havana and Viñales, Cuba.

Google map of Cuba, annotated with red arrows pointing to Havana (right) and Viñales, which are about a 110 mile drive apart. Note Miami, Florida, at top.

On their return to Ithaca, N.Y., the three were featured in a well-received joint exhibit, Photographing Cuba. Rachel followed that a few months later with another well-received solo exhibit, La Habana, which offered a small selection of her photos of Havana.

And she, of course, began offering a handful of Cuba photo greeting cards and, most recently, a 2017 Cuba photo calendar on her Etsy shop.

But for her pièce de résistance, to capture memories and respond to requests for photos, Rachel self-published a beautiful hardcopy book of 144 photos, with a reviewer’s forward and minimal text. Although she will never accede to publishing an e-book because it would require her photos be low resolution, she gave me permission to show a few photos from the book, alas, all low resolution and watermarked. (Captions are those from the book.) There are other photos in the publisher’s book preview, www.blurb.com/b/7286292-cuba.
 

Rachel’s Cuba photo book available from Blurb.

Red car white top.

Ration market, Old Havana.

Tomás the water buffalo.

Thanks for stopping by.
 
P.S
Review of Photographing Cuba exhibit: www.ithaca.com/entertainment/photographing-cuba-at-corners-gallery-until-march/article_cb725c62-d037-11e5-b61e-7b6271328a6f.html
Review of La Habana exhibit: www.ithaca.com/entertainment/art/intimacy-within-a-small-space-rachel-philipson-photographs-cuba/article_56026c38-3897-11e6-ac68-cbbd9de9690d.html
Rachel’s Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/il-en/shop/rachelphilipson?ref=pr_shop_more

Here We Go Again!

Welcome back. Well, I hope you’re back. I am. I plan to start blogging again.

Warren (Vicki’s
fingers are in
everything).

I’m sorry I closed the shop last January. I needed an extended break. Among other entries on my break’s to-do list was Publish an E-Book. I drafted three and will stop at self-publishing one until I’m a celebrity, which might take a while.
 
Though it wasn’t on my list, I thought about beginning a new blog, one with a domain name more in line with my shift in emphasis toward reviewing new research in a mostly non-technical way. I didn’t get far with that thought because I’m not sure where the blog will go next. So, for now, I’ll stick with the somewhat misleading blog name (and the awkward em dash).

In my never-ending quest for organization, I’ve routinely begun a new blog topic on Friday and posted an addendum to the topic the following Tuesday. I hope you won’t give up on me if I fail to keep that schedule. The easiest way to know if something new is posted is to subscribe--submit your email address at the bottom of the blog website to be emailed new posts. (The format isn’t exact, but you’ll avoid the ads.) Or just check the website occasionally.

As always, thank you for stopping by. It’s greatly appreciated.