Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

What should come first to treat ADHD in children, behavior therapy or stimulant medication?

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Stim­u­lant med­ica­tion treat­ment and behav­ior ther­a­py are cur­rent­ly the two child ADHD treat­ments with the strongest research sup­port. How­ev­er, when par­ents begin treat­ment for their child, or when pro­fes­sion­als are ini­ti­at­ing treat­ment with a new client, there is no research to guide the deci­sion of which approach to begin with.

Is it bet­ter to start with med­ica­tion treat­ment and add behav­ior ther­a­py if need­ed? Or, should behav­ior ther­a­py come first with med­ica­tion added if the child’s response is not suf­fi­cient? Or, is it always prefer­able to begin with com­bined treat­ment? [Read more…] about What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant med­ica­tion?

Study: High Cognitive Reserve (CR) seen to significantly lower dementia risk even in the presence of high Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) neuropathology

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Fig­ure 2. Inci­dence Rates of Demen­tia per 1000 Per­son-Years by Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) Ter­tile and Brain Pathol­o­gy; adjust­ed for age, sex, smok­ing, alco­hol con­sump­tion, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, body mass index, heart dis­ease, hyper­ten­sion, cere­brovas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, and apolipopro­tein E e4. AD indi­cates Alzheimer dis­ease. Source: Xu H et al (2020)

Lifes­pan Cog­ni­tive Reserve—A Secret to Cop­ing With Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Pathol­o­gy (JAMA Neu­rol­o­gy edi­to­r­i­al):

Giv­en the lim­it­ed suc­cess of ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tions for Alzheimer dis­ease, there is increased inter­est in under­stand­ing whether mod­i­fi­able fac­tors can help cope with or post­pone the appear­ance of brain pathol­o­gy. It is esti­mat­ed that about 35% of Alzheimer risk is mod­i­fi­able. Epi­demi­o­log­ic stud­ies have shown that life­time expo­sures to high­er edu­ca­tion, high­er occu­pa­tion­al attain­ment, and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties are asso­ci­at­ed with reduced risk of Alzheimer demen­tia. Autop­sy stud­ies have shown interindi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in the amount of brain pathol­o­gy peo­ple can tol­er­ate before man­i­fest­ing cog­ni­tive impair­ments, and autop­sied brains of about one-third of indi­vid­u­als who are cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal meet neu­ropatho­log­i­cal cri­te­ria for Alzheimer dis­ease. [Read more…] about Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neu­ropathol­o­gy

Evolution of Cajal’s drawings: Award-winning image shows neuroimaging progress in a century

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About the Image:

“With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of. The com­po­si­tion was cre­at­ed by mir­ror­ing an image of two pyra­mi­dal cells of a mouse hip­pocam­pus. [Read more…] about Evo­lu­tion of Cajal’s draw­ings: Award-win­ning image shows neu­roimag­ing progress in a cen­tu­ry

Given cognitive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain training may work best for each person and under which conditions?

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Does ‘Brain Train­ing’ Actu­al­ly Work? (Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can):

If there were an app on your phone that could improve your mem­o­ry, would you try it? Who wouldn’t want a bet­ter mem­o­ry? After all, our rec­ol­lec­tions are frag­ile and can be impaired by dis­eases, injuries, men­tal health con­di­tions and, most acute­ly for all of us, aging. [Read more…] about Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which con­di­tions?

Update: A life of cognitive and physical exercise helps you stay sharp in your 70s and beyond

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 13 fas­ci­nat­ing brain research find­ings, use­ful resources–and a brain teas­er to test your atten­tion skills.

#1. Good news of the month: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

#2. A dis­tinc­tion WITH a dif­fer­ence: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve cog­ni­tion over time

#3. “Be mind­ful that with the rapid changes we are expe­ri­enc­ing, our brains are going through accel­er­at­ed learn­ing. Our brains get tired just as our bod­ies would if we ran a marathon with­out train­ing.” How COVID-relat­ed stress can dis­rupt your brain cir­cuits and nine tips to pre­vent it

#4. Yes, Yes, and Yes. To har­ness our best selves, “Tem­per your empa­thy, train your com­pas­sion, and avoid the news”

#5. Things start ear­ly. Marsh­mal­low Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids dis­play more self-con­trol when their rep­u­ta­tion is at stake

#6. Which is why we look for­ward to see­ing 9,000+ stu­dents, plus their many teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors, fur­ther devel­op their unique brains and minds in years ahead: Help­ing shape the future of life­long learn­ing via SEK Edu­ca­tion Group

#7. “… it would cer­tain­ly be pre­ma­ture to sug­gest that mov­ing to a high alti­tude state would improve a child’s ADHD symp­toms. How­ev­er, the find­ings high­light the val­ue of keep­ing an open mind in efforts to under­stand the devel­op­ment of ADHD and the role nat­ur­al envi­ron­ments may play in poten­tial­ly alle­vi­at­ing it.” Study finds sur­pris­ing cor­re­la­tion between states’ ele­va­tion and ADHD preva­lence

#9. Time to start pay­ing seri­ous atten­tion to the brain/ cog­ni­tive side effects of com­mon med­ica­tions. Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion

#10. Fas­ci­nat­ing: “After a 14-day train­ing peri­od … visu­ospa­tial skills improved by 40%. This increase in visu­ospa­tial abil­i­ty was shown to be direct­ly respon­si­ble for a reduc­tion in motion sick­ness by 51% in the sim­u­la­tor … and a 58% reduc­tion in the on-road tri­al.” Study: Self-dri­ving cars will increase motion sickness…unless we retrain our brains to improve visu­ospa­tial skills

#11. Behav­ioral health and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty meet big phar­ma to hope­ful­ly address a huge need. Click Ther­a­peu­tics and Boehringer Ingel­heim part­ner to devel­op and mar­ket a dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to treat schiz­o­phre­nia

#12. Neu­ralink: Thumbs up or down?

#13. Brain teas­er: Did you notice the numer­i­cal error as it hap­pened? If not, feel free to go back and find it now 🙂

 

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy Octo­ber,

 

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

Study: Elders today are in significantly better shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

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Old­er peo­ple have become younger: phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive func­tion have improved mean­ing­ful­ly in 30 years (Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä release):

The func­tion­al abil­i­ty of old­er peo­ple is nowa­days bet­ter when it is com­pared to that of peo­ple at the same age three decades ago. This was observed in a study con­duct­ed at the Fac­ul­ty of Sport and Health Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä, Fin­land. The study com­pared the phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive per­for­mance of peo­ple nowa­days between the ages of 75 and 80 with that of the same-aged peo­ple in the 1990s. [Read more…] about Study: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago