Hourglass: Biology of Aging blog carnival

Wel­come to the 8th edi­tion of Hour­glass, the blog car­ni­val devot­ed to biogeron­tol­ogy. Enjoy!

Use It or Lose It 

Exis­tence is Won­der­ful,
by Anne C.
Nei­ther A Tran­shu­man­ist Nor a “Pes­simist”, And That’s Okay
“I can’t sur­vive cog­ni­tive­ly in envi­ron­ments that force every­thing into false dichotomies, and nobody should feel hurt, slight­ed, or bit­ter because of my doing what I need to do for the sake of being able to actu­al­ly use my brain.”
“Just because I think superla­tiv­i­ty tends to dis­tort dia­logue and make it dif­fi­cult to focus on what can actu­al­ly be done in the real world does not mean I dis­par­age the pow­er of human imag­i­na­tion or our capac­i­ty to change things for the better.”

Cog­ni­tive Enhance­ment, Health and Assessments

Ouroboros,
by Chris Patil
Bet­ter think­ing through chemistry
“I sus­pect that the struc­ture of argu­ments about cog­ni­tive enhance­ment will mir­ror those of future debates regard­ing lifes­pan extension.”
Fight Aging,

by “Rea­son”


A View of the Enhance­ment Debate
“A great many peo­ple grow up with what they know — hav­ing things far bet­ter than their par­ents, despite the efforts of past lud­dites who strived to block advance­ments — and then spend the rest of their lives fight­ing against vision­ar­ies who are try­ing to make things even better.”
Sharp­Brains,
by Alvaro Fernandez
Ten Reflec­tions on Cog­ni­tive Health and Assessments
“Cog­ni­tive health is a crit­i­cal fac­tor in over­all health­care, but is often approached in a frag­ment­ed, non-sys­tem­at­ic way. We lack of a com­mon frame­work and tax­on­o­my to define the prob­lem and iden­ti­fy solu­tions and inter­ven­tions to mea­sure and help main­tain cog­ni­tive health across the lifespan.”

The Ben­e­fits of Caloric Restriction

Not Rock­et Sci­ence,
by Ed Yong

Low-calo­rie diets improve mem­o­ry in old age
“Witte found that elder­ly peo­ple who slash the calo­ries in their diet by 30% were bet­ter able to remem­ber lists of words than peo­ple who stuck to their nor­mal rou­tine. It’s the first exper­i­ment to show that cut­ting calo­ries can improve human mem­o­ry at an age when declin­ing mem­o­ry is par for the course.”
Brain Health Hacks,

by Ward Plunet

Do longevi­ty treat­ments make you more social?
“A new paper by Gov­ic et al found that 3 weeks of calo­rie restric­tion (they test­ed 25% and 50%) increased social behav­ior.” (In rats, at least.)
Week­ly Adven­tures,
by Liz
CR in the news
“Yes- it is dif­fi­cult to give up foods you love. No, you can not eat as many greasy foods as you may want. But if you look at my records, I eat ham­burg­ers, french fries, I drink beer and wine, I even eat doughnuts!”

Demen­tia Research and Lewy Bodies

Psique,
by Lau­ra Kilarski

A short Intro to Demen­tia with Lewy bodies
“Until the mid 80s Demen­tia with Lewy bod­ies (DLB) was thought to be rare, but it is now rec­og­nized to be the most com­mon type of demen­tia fol­low­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD).”

For infor­ma­tion on future edi­tions, check Hour­glass.

About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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