Virus may affect memory loss decades later

A family of viruses that cause a range of ills from the common cold to polio may be able to infect the brain and cause steady damage, a team at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota reported.

“Our study suggests that virus-induced memory loss could accumulate over the lifetime of an individual and eventually lead to clinical cognitive memory deficits”. >>

Seniors who eat more vegetables have better brains

“Compared to people who consumed less than one serving of vegetables a day, people who ate at least 2.8 servings of vegetables a day saw their rate of cognitive decrease slow by roughly 40 per cent,” study author Martha Clare Morris of Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago said.

They also found that the older the person, the greater the impact of eating more than two servings of vegetables a day.   Researchers said they were surprised that fruit showed no link to reducing memory loss. >>

Good memory is in the gene

Researchers in the United States and Switzerland have identified one protein in the brain that appears to be a key player in memory. They found the protein by comparing 500 people with good memories to 500 people with poor memories.

The protein, called KIBRA, is involved in helping brain cells form connections to each other and is found in areas known to be important for memory. >>