Is the brain slower than in summer?

2000/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Since 15 years ago psychiatrists discovered that the change of season had psychological effects on the human being, the idea has been maintained that winter reduces the activity of the brain, although it has never been demonstrated, and when they have tried to prove it have obtained opposite results. The psychologist of the University of Tromso in Norway, Tim Brenn, when performing the same tests with 100 inhabitants of the village in winter and spring, observed that there were no differences between the results obtained and that, in addition, in cases where there were differences, the winter results were better.

In the world there are no universities located further north than the University of Tromso; the inhabitants of Tromso have a night of 2 months in winter and two months in summer. And if it is such a dark and long winter the influence of this winter on its inhabitants is not appreciated, it does not have to appear in other people more southern. The statement approved for 15 years, therefore, was not correct.