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Annotated Bibliography

Benton, David, and Deborah S. Owens. "Blood Glucose and Human Memory - Springer." Blood Glucose and Human Memory - Springer. 01 Nov. 1993. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. Blood glucose levels help enhance the ability to remember words. This glucose-induced improvement had no effect on what the initial glucose level was. Gold, P. E. "Role of Glucose in Regulating the Brain and Cognition." Role of Glucose in Regulating the Brain and Cognition. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. Glucose has broad influences on the brain. Studies have shown that increasing glucose concentrations have improved learning and memory in healthy aged humans. Hall, J. L. "Glucose Enhancement and Performance of Memory Tests in Young and Aged Humans." Glucose Enhancement of Performance of Memory Tests in Young and Aged Humans. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. Glucose effects were recorded in both young and elderly people. Both showed glucose enhanced the memory but more so in the elderly. Korol, D. L., and P. E. Gold. "Glucose, Memory, and Aging." Glucose, Memory, and Aging. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. In recent studies glucose is said to help college students remember thing from a paragraph as well as enhance attentional processes. Face and recognition memory does not seem to be effected by the amount of glucose. The effects of how glucose acts neurobiologically are still being reviewed. Manning, Carol A., Michael W. Parsons, Ellen M. Cotter, and Paul E. Gold. "Glucose Effects on Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory in Healthy Elderly and Young Adults - Springer." Glucose Effects on Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory in Healthy Elderly and Young Adults - Springer. Psychobiology, 01 June 1997. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. Studies suggest that glucose can enhance declarative/explicit memories but have no effect on non-declarative/implicit tasks. This agrees with the hypothesis that these memory types are separated functionally and anatomically.

Improving an Article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_improvement

Three improvements for this page: 1. Add information: The article doesn't include information suggesting that glucose levels can relate to improved memory. 2. Elaborate on new subject: Using the information from my citations I can add information about the research behind glucose improving memory. 3. Get more details: Everything can always be elaborated a little more. Since I am a neuroscience minor and am currently in a cognitive neuroscience class, I think it would be interesting to research the information stated in the cognitive neuroscience section and connect it to the evolutionary aspect.

Research has shown that increased glucose levels can improve memory in young adults as well as elderly.

Gold. 1995. Role of Glucose in Regulating the Brain and Cognition. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition vol. 61 no. 4; 9875-9955.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Memory_improvement#Suggestions_for_Improvement

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FINAL DRAFT STARTS HERE Evolution is the concept known as a change in a trait or characteristic in a species throughout time. When thinking of evolution most people think of how species develop from a common ancestor, for example humans evolving from apes. Have you ever thought of the changes in physiology that make humans and apes different? Looking a little closer to the physiological changes in species is an evolutionary phenomenon known as physiological evolution. Each system in the human body evolved differently and gives humans the ability to perform different tasks. Exactly how memory evolved in humans is still under research, although it is thought that there are multiple systems in the human body for memory. Recent studies have been conducted linking glucose levels to memory in humans. It is found that an increase in glucose level increases human’s short-term memory (Benton, Owens. 1993). Glucose is a sugar that can easily be passed through the blood-brain barrier. Blood glucose levels can vary in people depending on many factors such as age, gender, and medical conditions. The normal level for a healthy human adult is about 70-110 mg/dl. Glucose levels can be increased by eating and by receiving insulin. While some fluctuation in glucose levels after daily activities are normal there are medical conditions that are caused specifically by glucose levels. Hypoglycemia for example, is a condition in which your glucose levels are abnormally low; this can be caused by glucose being released too slowly into the blood stream or by the body using up store glucose too fast. Glucose is the primary source of energy for the brain, yet the brain doesn’t make glucose; this means that all glucose must come from your diet. Glucose is used directly in the bloodstream and absorbed by the insulin made in the pancreas. It is also stored in our liver as a reserve for when we don’t have any readily available in our bloodstream. It has many uses in the body including source of energy and metabolism. It is also thought that glucose can affect memory. Research has shown that increasing glucose levels have shown to increase cognitive functions such as memory and learning (Gold. 1995). Many experiments have been conducted to show how glucose levels affect memory. One study conducted on college students showed that increased glucose levels increased the amount remembered after reading a paragraph, as well as increasing attention processes (Korol and Gold. 1998). Another study helps confirm this idea by showing that increased glucose levels helped improve memory in not only young adults but elderly people as well (Hall. 1989). A different study looked at which type of memory glucose levels affected, it was found that increased glucose levels improved declarative/explicit memories rather than nondeclarative/implicit memories (Carol, Cotter, Gold, Parsons. 1997). Glucose has always played an important role in our bodies but through recent studies we have seen yet another role it plays, it has evolved. Understanding the evolutionary aspects of how glucose has evolved with its different roles in the body can be modeled by using the concept of phylogeny. Phylogeny shows the relation of organisms, usually expressed in the representation of a phylogenetic tree. In this case we are not comparing how different organisms are related but how different mechanisms in the body are related. The goal of phylogenetics is to discover shared ancestors between organisms, we can use this idea to see how glucose levels have come to effect memory. Phylogenetic trees have many parts, so we must first identify and understand the parts of a phylogenetic tree. The beginning of a tree is considered the root, or the convergence of all the relationships. Each branch is then broken out by the interior nodes, which are the hypothetical common ancestors for each group. Each group of related organisms is considered a taxon. The traits are then used to form relationships between taxa and interior nodes, and can be interpreted by the length and closeness of each branch. The out-group of the tree is an early branching relative that we are most interested in. The out-group is used to compare other species to identify how they are different. The taxa form clades, which group together all organisms that share an ancestor. Trees can be either monophyletic or polyphyletic depending on the relationship to the ancestor. Using glucose as the root we can then make each role in the body it’s own taxa. Here is an example of a phylogenetic tree using glucose and it’s roles in the body. In this tree we can see how glucose has been used throughout the body. Using a few of glucose functions you can see how it has evolved throughout time. Although this tree is just a very small representation, you can gather how to look at glucose with an evolutionary perspective. There could also be a tree conducted simply for memory. Using memory as the root, each branch would represent a structure that effects memory. There are many ways a phylogenetic tree can be represented this is just an example to fit my concepts. The idea of how memory evolved has many approaches and is still being researched. What researchers have agreed on is that memory is useful (Klein, Cosmides, Tooby, Chance. 2002). There are so many forms of memory and ideas on how these memories are formed and stored. Memory was once thought to be a single system with a single function, to store information for a later use. Recently new theories suggest that that multiple systems and functions are involved in the process of memory. Neurophysiological studies have been conducted to show that these new theories are valid. (Klein, Cosmides, Tooby, Chance. 2002). Memory like any other system has undergone evolutionary changes. These evolutionary changes in memory require specialization in function, meaning that functional problems in each memory system are handled independently (Sherry and Schacter. 1987). Evolutionary changes occur in every aspect of life on a daily basis. Although changes in evolution take time, baby steps are made everyday. Memory formation is thought to take on many different processes and it will take time to learn ways for improvement. The research of how glucose levels affect memory is just one small step towards learning even more about memory improvement. The effects of glucose on neurobiological studies are still being explored. Thinking ahead I think many more experiments need to be done to help support the research that has already been found. An idea might be to see how glucose levels affect certain paths of memory. Since it is believed that memory is a multi-functioning system, I think researching how glucose effects different functions would help tie together ideas. By finding more details on how exactly glucose effects memory and which paths it effects, we can better analyze how it has evolved. Using a phylogenetic tree we can predict how glucose has evolved, and adjust it based on the findings. Works Cited Benton, Owens. 1993. Blood Glucose and Human Memory. Psychopharmacology vol. 113 no. 1; 83-88. Carol, Cotter, Gold, Parsons. 1997. Glucose Effects on Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory in Healthy Elderly and Young Adults. Psychobiology vol. 25 no. 5; 103-108 Feldman. 2007. The Effects of Blood Glucose Levels on Cognitive Performance: A Review of the Literature. NASA; pdf, 1-135. Gold. 1995. Role of Glucose in Regulating the Brain and Cognition. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition vol. 61 no. 4; 9875-9955. Hall. 1989. Glucose Enhancement and Performance of Memory Tests in Young and Aged Humans. Neuropsychologia vol. 27 no. 9; 1129-38. Klein, Cosmides, Tooby, Chance. 2002. Decisions and the Evolution of Memory: Multiple Systems, Multiple Functions. Psycological Review vol. 109 no. 2; 306-329. Korol, D. L, and Gold, P.E. 1998. Glucose, Memory, and Aging. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. vol. 67; 764S-71S. Sherry, David F., and Schacter, Daniel L. 1987. The Evolution of Multiple Memory Systems. Psychological Review. vol. 94(4); 439-454.

EDITS TO AN ARTICLE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Memory_improvement