Lifestyle Matters: Let’s optimize cognition, health and life in 2024

December 27, 2023/SharpBrains/Comments Off on Lifestyle Matters: Let’s optimize cognition, health and life in 2024

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing research find­ings on lifestyle, pro­tec­tive brain struc­tures, Inter­net access, men­tal health, brain imag­ing, and more.

#1. Lifestyle mat­ters: What we can do in 2024 to opti­mize cog­ni­tion and life, delay­ing cog­ni­tive prob­lems even dementia

“Actor Chris Hemsworth…watched his grand­fa­ther live with Alzheimer’s and is mak­ing lifestyle changes after learn­ing he has two copies of the APOE4 gene. This gene is a risk fac­tor for Alzheimer’s, and hav­ing two copies sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­es his risk of devel­op­ing the same con­di­tion.” (Smart move regard­less of one’s genes)

#2. Study iden­ti­fies pro­tec­tive brain struc­ture that delays the onset of fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia symp­toms over 2 years

“We dis­cov­ered that in par­tic­i­pants who had this extra fold on the right side of their brain, their demen­tia symp­toms began on aver­age two and a half years lat­er … This two-and-a-half-year delay in symp­toms may not sound like much, but con­sid­er­ing the poor prog­no­sis of the con­di­tion and the bur­den of symp­toms, this is an extreme­ly mean­ing­ful amount of time for patients and their relatives.”

#3. The ADHD expe­ri­ence includes pos­i­tive self-report­ed aspects, espe­cial­ly relat­ed to hyperfocus

  • “If it is some­thing I real­ly like, I have bet­ter endurance than oth­ers. I can work on some­thing I enjoy for­ev­er with­out stopping.”
  • “Being diag­nosed with ADHD made me learn a lot about myself.“

#4. Brain imag­ing AI start-up Neu­rophet rais­es $15M to bet­ter direct Alzheimer’s treat­ments, low­er ARIA side-effects

“Anti-amy­loid anti­body ther­a­pies have the side effect of caus­ing Amy­loid-Relat­ed Imag­ing Abnor­mal­i­ties (ARIA), which are swelling and micro­he­m­or­rhages in the brain dur­ing admin­is­tra­tion. Neu­rophet said it has advanced tech­nol­o­gy in the field of auto­mat­ed quan­tifi­ca­tion of vas­cu­lar neu­ropathol­o­gy that can mon­i­tor and ana­lyze ARIA” (This is prob­a­bly going to be cru­cial as lecanemab and donanemab pre­scrip­tions grow in years ahead)

#5. No evi­dence found to link inter­net access with poor­er psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being and men­tal health

“Thought lead­ers and some pol­i­cy folks claim there is a glob­al men­tal health epi­dem­ic caused by the inter­net, but they do not both­er to col­lect [and] wran­gle data to sup­port this extra­or­di­nary claim … I am sure that tech­nol­o­gy use has its ups and downs, but we’ll nev­er be able to map this out, and inter­vene if nec­es­sary, if we don’t have objec­tive data on how, why, and when peo­ple engage with online worlds” — Dr. Andrew Przy­byl­s­ki, Pro­fes­sor of Human Behav­iour and Tech­nol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford

#6. (Emailed to e‑news sub­scribers) Please take a brief Sur­vey to pro­vide your feed­back as we’re prepar­ing a sub­stan­tial update of The Sharp­Brains Guide and our over­all activ­i­ties. (We’d real­ly appre­ci­ate hear­ing from you, every answer counts)

#7. Five sharp rid­dles to cel­e­brate the Hol­i­days in per­fect harmony

Q: What is a sure way of sus­tain­ing a friend­ly and socia­ble feel­ing towards the whole world?

Look­ing for­ward to a healthy and won­der­ful 2024!

– The Sharp­Brains Team

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About SharpBrains

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