Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Helping young brains fight off anxiety by training and raising cognitive control

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Anx­i­ety is one of the most com­mon child­hood men­tal dis­or­ders. About 7% of chil­dren suf­fer from it at any giv­en time, with near­ly 1 in 3 ado­les­cents expe­ri­enc­ing it some­time dur­ing their teen years.

For an anx­ious child, seem­ing­ly nor­mal activ­i­ties can be hard. Wor­ried kids have trou­ble adjust­ing to school, mak­ing friends, and learn­ing. They can feel inhib­it­ed, avoid­ing chal­lenges by run­ning away or retreat­ing into them­selves. While par­ents may feel des­per­ate to help, their approach­es can back­fire. For exam­ple, try­ing to talk kids out of their feel­ings or keep them away from anx­i­ety-pro­duc­ing sit­u­a­tions may inad­ver­tent­ly make the anx­i­ety worse. [Read more…] about Help­ing young brains fight off anx­i­ety by train­ing and rais­ing cog­ni­tive control

Study finds that cognitive activity in old age may delay the onset of dementia by 5 years

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– Yuji Sakai / Dig­i­talVi­sion / Get­ty Images

Demen­tia Comes 5 Years Lat­er for Some (Med­Page Today):

A cog­ni­tive­ly active lifestyle that involves read­ing and pro­cess­ing infor­ma­tion in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia in Alzheimer’s dis­ease by as much as 5 years, a lon­gi­tu­di­nal study suggested.

Old­er adults who had the high­est lev­el of late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty had a mean onset age of Alzheimer’s demen­tia of 94, report­ed Robert Wil­son, PhD, of Rush Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter in Chica­go, and colleagues.

In con­trast, those with the low­est late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty lev­els devel­oped demen­tia at age 89, they wrote in Neu­rol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Study finds that cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia by 5 years

UK report identifies opportunities and gaps for digital tech to improve, not harm, mental health

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Gov­ern­ment urged to invest in digi­ti­sa­tion of men­tal health ser­vices (Med-Tech News):

The Men­tal Health Tech Land­scape Review, released today by Future Care Cap­i­tal (FCC), not only rec­om­mends a range of mea­sures to enable high­er qual­i­ty care through the use of tech­nol­o­gy, but it also shows that there is poten­tial for the devel­op­ment of a wider range of dif­fer­ent types of tech­nol­o­gy solu­tion (as) there is the dan­ger of men­tal health­care “falling through the gaps”. [Read more…] about UK report iden­ti­fies oppor­tu­ni­ties and gaps for dig­i­tal tech to improve, not harm, men­tal health

Promote brain plasticity and keep your mind at ease by taking your daily “exercise pill”

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As with many oth­er physi­cians, rec­om­mend­ing phys­i­cal activ­i­ty to patients was just a doc­tor chore for me – until a few years ago. That was because I myself was not very active. Over the years, as I picked up box­ing and became more active, I got first­hand expe­ri­ence of pos­i­tive impacts on my mind. I also start­ed research­ing the effects of dance and move­ment ther­a­pies on trau­ma and anx­i­ety in refugee chil­dren, and I learned a lot more about the neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy of exer­cise. [Read more…] about Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill”

Becoming better mind-wanderers to boost problem-solving and mood

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I’m a big believ­er in day­dream­ing now and then—especially when I’m out hik­ing. There’s some­thing about being in nature that helps me let go of dai­ly cares and allows my mind to wan­der where it will, which feels great and often jump­starts my cre­ativ­i­ty as a writer and musician.

I admit, though, I’ve been trou­bled by research show­ing how mind-wan­der­ing could make me less pro­duc­tive or depressed—the last thing I need! But it turns out this gap between per­son­al expe­ri­ence and sci­ence may best be explained by how researchers have lumped togeth­er dif­fer­ent kinds of mind-wan­der­ing. Not all research has dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed between depres­sive rumi­na­tion (like replay­ing an ongo­ing dis­agree­ment with our spouse in our minds) and pleas­ant day­dream­ing (let­ting our minds wan­der freely). [Read more…] about Becom­ing bet­ter mind-wan­der­ers to boost prob­lem-solv­ing and mood

Study shows promising results of EEG-based brain training in helping adults with ADHD

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Man­ag­ing atten­tion deficit dis­or­der by train­ing the brain (Sci­enceDai­ly):

Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty Dis­or­der (ADHD) affects about 7% of chil­dren, with a two out of three chance of per­sist­ing into adult­hood. This neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der is char­ac­terised by con­cen­tra­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, increased dis­tractibil­i­ty, impul­siv­i­ty and hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty. Today, ADHD is treat­ed with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs that may have unwant­ed side effects. This is why sci­en­tists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Gene­va (UNIGE) and the Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tals of Gene­va (HUG), Switzer­land, explored a new tech­nique called ‘neu­ro­feed­back’, which enables ADHD patients to train their atten­tion, based on instant feed­back from the lev­el of their brain activ­i­ty. [Read more…] about Study shows promis­ing results of EEG-based brain train­ing in help­ing adults with ADHD