Navorsing by die Sweedse mediese universiteit Karolinska Institutet het bewys dat oefening van werkende geheue (‘working memory’) sigbare veranderinge teweegbring in die aantal dopamien reseptors in die menslike brein.

Werkende geheue is kritiek vir onder andere

• konsentrasievermoë,
• die vermoë om te kan organiseer,
• om instruksies te kan volg,
• leesbegrip, en
• om vraestelle te beantwoord.

Dié navorsingstudie, wat in die tydskrif Science gepubliseer is, is uitgevoer met behulp van PET-skanderings en bied dieper insig in die komplekse wisselwerking tussen kognisie en die brein se biologiese struktuur:

Brain biochemistry doesn’t just underpin our mental activity; our mental activity and thinking process can also affect the biochemistry,” says Professor Klingberg, who led the study.

The neurotransmitter dopamine plays a key part in many of the brain’s functions. Disruptions to the dopamine system can impair working memory, making it more difficult to remember information over a short period of time, such as when problem solving. Impaired working memory has, in its turn, proved to be a contributory factory to cognitive impairments in such disorders as ADHD.

Professor Klingberg and his colleagues have previously shown that the working memory can be improved with a few weeks’ intensive training. Through a collaborative project conducted under the Stockholm Brain Institute, the researchers have now taken a step further and monitored the brain using PET scans, and have confirmed that intensive brain training leads to a change in the number of dopamine D1 receptors in the cortex.

In another study, University of Oregon researchers found that students with high working memory storage capacity were clearly better able to ignore distractions and stay focused on their assigned tasks.

Principal investigator Edward K. Vogel, a UO professor of psychology, compares working memory to a computer’s random-access memory (RAM) rather than the hard drive’s size — the higher the RAM, the better processing abilities. With more RAM, he said, students were better able to ignore distractions.

Die navorsingstudies is relevant vir Edublox aangesien werkende geheue een van die geheuetipes is wat aktief in ons klinieke geoefen word.

Meer inligting:

Edublox lees- en leerklinieke spesialiseer in breinopleiding wat kinders slimmer maak, en hulle help om vinniger, makliker en beter te leer en te lees. Die klasse spreek die volgende aan:

* Konsentrasie: Gefokusde, volgehoue en verdeelde aandag.

* Perseptuele vaardighede: Visuele en ouditiewe voorgrond-agtergrond onderskeidingsvermoë; visuele en ouditiewe diskriminasie, sintese en analise; vorm-onderskeiding; ruimtelike verhoudings.

* Geheue: Visueel en ouditief, kort- en langtermyn, reeks-, ikoniese en werkende geheue.

* Logiese denke: Deduktiewe en induktiewe redenering.

* Lees, spel, woordeskat en begrip.

Klasse word in Afrikaans en Engels aangebied. Kontak ons