Update: Moderate lifetime drinking may lead to lower Alzheimer-related beta amyloid deposits in the brain

__ Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter. #1. First of all, it’s not all bad news this month. Study finds that mod­er­ate life­time drink­ing may lead to low­er Alzheimer-relat­ed beta amy­loid deposits in the brain #2. And, talk about per­son­al­ized med­i­cine! This fas­ci­nat­ing study show­ing how brain imag­ing (fMRI) + machine learn­ing + inten­sive, non-invasive…

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Must-read interview with George Rebok, PhD: Can cognitive training help aging brains?

Can Train­ing Help Aging Brains? (Web­MD): George Rebok, PhD, con­duct­ed one of the largest stud­ies to date look­ing at how cog­ni­tive train­ing affects old­er adults. Rebok, a pro­fes­sor at the Cen­ter on Aging and Health at Johns Hop­kins School of Pub­lic Health, talks about the study find­ings, com­mer­cial­ly avail­able brain train­ing, and what he recommends…

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Cognitive therapy or medication? Brain scans may help personalize treatments

Pre­dict­ing How Patients Respond to Ther­a­py (press release): “A new study led by MIT neu­ro­sci­en­tists has found that brain scans of patients with social anx­i­ety dis­or­der can help pre­dict whether they will ben­e­fit from cog­ni­tive behav­ioral therapy…Social anx­i­ety is usu­al­ly treat­ed with either cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py or med­ica­tions. However,

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Working with Healthcare Stakeholders towards Brain-Based Personalized Medicine

(Edi­tor’s Note: this is Part 3 of the new 3‑part series writ­ten by Dr. Evian Gor­don draw­ing from his par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine World Con­gress on Jan­u­ary, 23, 2012 at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty.) Work­ing with Health Care Indus­try Stake­hold­ers: Clin­i­cians, Pharma/Biotech, Pay­ers, PBMs, Lawyers, Medicare, FDA Clin­i­cians seek clear val­i­dat­ed “rules of thumb” that can be…

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Personalized Medicine in Psychiatry: from DSM to brain-based RDoC, iSPOT‑D and biomarkers

(Edi­tor’s Note: this is Part 2 of the new 3‑part series writ­ten by Dr. Evian Gor­don draw­ing from his par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine World Con­gress on Jan­u­ary, 23, 2012 at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty.) Most Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine research in Psy­chi­a­try using mol­e­c­u­lar mea­sures alone have failed to repli­cate. Whilst dis­ap­point­ing, this is not sur­pris­ing, since 80%…

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The State of Personalized Medicine: The Role of Biomarkers

(Edi­tor’s Note: this is Part 1 of the new 3‑part series writ­ten by Dr. Evian Gor­don draw­ing from his par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine World Con­gress on Jan­u­ary, 23, 2012 at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty.) On aver­age, the med­ica­tions pre­scribed for brain-relat­ed con­di­tions ben­e­fit approx­i­mate­ly 50% of patients. But which 50%? Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine seeks to move away from…

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