How Cof­fee May Pro­tect Brain Health: A New Study Sug­gests The Ben­e­fits Aren’t Just From Caf­feine (Forbes):

“Cof­fee has been get­ting con­sid­er­able atten­tion for a grow­ing list of health ben­e­fits, with brain health high among them. While not with­out a few down­sides, stud­ies have shown impres­sive upsides of mod­er­ate cof­fee con­sump­tion, often linked to its high caf­feine con­tent. But a new lab study sug­gests that when it comes to brain health, cof­fee offers more than the stim­u­lat­ing effects of our favorite legal drug–in fact, decaf could be just as effec­tive Read the rest of this entry »

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Build­ing the Ther­mome­ter for Men­tal Health (The Dana Foun­da­tion):

“Imag­ine that you vis­it your physi­cian com­plain­ing of a fever and, rather than tak­ing out a ther­mome­ter, they begin hov­er­ing their “edu­cat­ed hands” over you. Grad­u­al­ly, they press down against your arm to gain a full impres­sion of your skin’s tem­per­a­ture and the “deep­er seat­ed com­bus­tions.” Remov­ing their hand, they look close­ly at your appear­ance and pro­nounce their assess­ment: you do, in fact, have a fever. You might (jus­ti­fi­ably) be dubi­ous Read the rest of this entry »

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Dear read­er,

Time for Sharp­Brains month­ly e-newslet­ter, dis­cussing the lat­est inno­va­tions for brain health and men­tal health, and open­ing in this occa­sion with a fas­ci­nat­ing study track­ing 2,232 twins over 10+ years.

New research:

• Large study with twins high­lights the lim­it­ed role of genet­ics in men­tal health and the impor­tance of effec­tive ear­ly inter­ven­tions for ADHD
• How do you respond to unfa­mil­iar music?
  

  – New Por­tuguese edi­tion of The Sharp­Brains Guide, as spot­ted by a sharp read­er in a book­store in Por­to, Por­tu­gal

New thinking:

• We need to rethink neu­ro­science. And you can help us
• Wel­com­ing “Como Inve­stir no Seu Cére­bro?”

New tools:

• Five rea­sons to wel­come Dig­i­tal Men­tal Health inno­va­tions
• Mixed reac­tions on the devel­op­ment of dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers and growth of Mind­strong Health
• Feb­ru­ary 26–28th: Save the Date for the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit and help shape the Future of Brain Health

Wish­ing you a great month of Decem­ber,

The Sharp­Brains Team

PS: And, here’s a fun brain teaser…ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

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Mul­ti­ple stud­ies have indi­cat­ed that, on aver­age, youth with ADHD have poor­er out­comes in young adult­hood in mul­ti­ple areas com­pared to their unaf­fect­ed peers.

A lim­i­ta­tion of these stud­ies, how­ev­er, is that they have not typ­i­cal­ly dis­tin­guished between indi­vid­u­als whose ADHD per­sists into adult­hood from those where the con­di­tion remits. Read the rest of this entry »

Music seems to be a social glue. Think of how love songs enhance our roman­tic feel­ings, how march­ing bands inten­si­fy our affin­i­ty for the home team, or how huge rock con­certs make us feel one with a crowd of thou­sands. Music has some spe­cial pow­er to increase our sense of con­nec­tion and help us affil­i­ate with oth­ers.

But why? What’s hap­pen­ing in our brains that makes an iso­lat­ed set of sounds res­onate in these ways? A new neu­ro­science study aimed to find out. Read the rest of this entry »