The season doesn’t just have an impact on mood. Cognitive abilities could also change over the year.
In the middle of winter or under the rays of the summer sun, the brain activity of individuals is not the same. Many scientists had already been interested in the impact of the season on moods, but few had looked at the changes in brain activity.
A new study, published in the journal PNAS, shows that cognitive response and the rate of brain activity show significant differences from season to season when individuals are faced with memorization and concentration exercises.
4.5 days in the laboratory
To reach these conclusions, they looked at the case of 28 completely healthy volunteers. At different times during the year, they were invited to go to the laboratory for periods of 4.5 days, where they were placed in environments devoid of any seasonal benchmarks. They found themselves in rooms with no natural light and no internet access.
Their brain activity was then measured using MRI scans while they performed two tasks: one involved short-term memory and the other involved attention. The researchers then observed different cognitive responses depending on the season in which the test took place.
For the task involving attention and concentration, the maximum response was observed near the summer solstice, with particularly developed brain activity. On the contrary, the cognitive response was minimal as the winter solstice approached.
For the exercise which relied on short-term memory, the response was at its peak close to the autumn equinox, while at the spring equinox it was at its minimum.
According to the researchers, these observations show that our abilities to retain information and concentrate on tasks will be different, depending on the month of the year.
.
