Optimal Being

Recent research has shed light on how different levels of illuminance—the measure of the amount of light—can enhance alertness and cognitive performance in humans. The study found that higher light levels affect specific areas of the brain region known as the hypothalamus, enhancing certain cognitive functions during tasks that involve executive and emotional processing. The findings were published in the journal   eLife . The primary motivation behind the study was to understand how varying intensities of light impact the human brain, particularly the hypothalamus, which plays a crucial role in regulating sleep, wakefulness, and cognitive functions. Light exposure is known to affect these areas in animal brains, but the specifics of these effects in humans remained unclear. Animal models have shown that certain brain regions respond to light in ways that affect behavior, but humans have different physiological and neurological complexities. For example, the human cortex matures la...

If children take a daily supplement containing extra vitamins and minerals, their brains work in a more focused way. In psychological tests the children make fewer mistakes, researchers at Northumbria University concluded from an experiment involving eighty children between eight and fourteen. Study The researchers gave their test subjects two Pharmaton Kiddi chew tablets daily for twelve weeks. The children took their tablets in the morning with their breakfast. The table below shows what the tablets contain. Soon after the children started taking the vitamins the researchers got them to do computer tests. The last test took place on the final day of the experiment, but the children were also tested a few times during the course of the experiment. Results The most consistent – in fact the only consistent – effect that the researchers discovered was for a test in which an arrow pointing left or right appeared on the computer screen. If it pointed to the left, the children had to click ...