Kristin Kramer woke up early on a Tuesday morning 10 years ago because one of her dogs needed to go out. Then, a couple of odd things happened. When she tried to call her other dog, “I couldn’t speak,” she said. As she walked downstairs to let them into the yard, “I noticed that my…
A prime example of elderspeak: Cindy Smith was visiting with her father in his assisted living apartment in Roseville, Calif. An aide who was trying to induce him to do something — Ms. Smith no longer remembers exactly what — said, “Let me help you, sweetheart.” “He just gave her The Look — under his…
The first poem I memorized was “Pinkle Purr” by A.A. Milne. I was around seven years old when I encountered it and was immediately enchanted. It’s a children’s poem, four stanzas, all with the same hypnotic AA/BB/AA rhyme scheme. It’s a poem about a kitten, Pinkle Purr, and his mother, Tattoo, and their changing relationship…
Virat Kohli plays a shot during IPL 2025. Virat Kohli is one of the few players who has been part of every season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) which is now in its 18th season. The star Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter went down memory lane to recall the moment when he was picked by…
This collection consists of 248 manuscripts by Abhinavagupta (940–1015 CE), a remarkable Indian philosopher and polymath from 10th-century Srinagar, Kashmir. Abhinavagupta made lasting contributions to philosophy, aesthetics, literary theory, performing arts, music, tantra, yoga, and devotion. The manuscripts span 41 texts (granthas) and reflect a vibrant knowledge culture whose influence once extended across South Asia,…
Joan Presky worries about dementia. Her mother lived with Alzheimer’s disease for 14 years, the last seven in a memory-care residence, and her maternal grandfather developed dementia, too. “I’m 100 percent convinced that this is in my future,” said Ms. Presky, 70, a retired attorney in Thornton, Colo. Last year, she spent almost a full…
How Vishvaa Rajakumar Became the Memory League World Champion in Just 13.5 Seconds Vishvaa Rajakumar, a 20-year-old student from Puducherry, India, has gained international recognition for his remarkable achievement in the Memory League World Championship 2025. The competition is an intense online challenge where participants are required to memorise and recall sequences of numbers, images,…
In early February, Vishvaa Rajakumar, a 20-year-old Indian college student, won the Memory League World Championship, an online competition pitting people against one another with challenges like memorizing the order of 80 random numbers faster than most people can tie a shoelace. The renowned neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire, who died in January, studied mental athletes like…
Eleanor Maguire, a cognitive neuroscientist whose research on the human hippocampus — especially those belonging to London taxi drivers — transformed the understanding of memory, revealing that a key structure in the brain can be strengthened like a muscle, died on Jan. 4 in London. She was 54. Her death, at a hospice facility, was…
NEW DELHI: Worried about overeating? Blame the hippocampus — part of the brain responsible for learning and memory — as it may be behind your food craving and the resulting weight gain, according to a study on Wednesday.The study, published in the journal Nature Metabolism, showed that neurons in the hippocampus are encoding memories of…