age

Study: Some “brain-boosting” supplements sold in the US contain not-approved drugs at supratherapeutic doses, exposing users to unknown side effects

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Some brain-boost­ing sup­ple­ments con­tain an unap­proved drug that could harm users, study warns (STAT news):

“Promis­ing to lift brain fog or improve mem­o­ry, brain-boost­ing sup­ple­ments have joined sex­u­al-enhance­ment and weight-loss reme­dies in the light­ly reg­u­lat­ed world of dietary sup­ple­ments. These prod­ucts may be sold legal­ly with broad-brush come-ons like these, as long as they don’t make spe­cif­ic claims about treat­ing a dis­ease — or con­tain actu­al drugs.

New research led by Dr. Pieter Cohen of Har­vard Med­ical School doc­u­ments five sup­ple­ment brands for sale in the U.S. that con­tain var­i­ous amounts of pirac­etam [Read more…] about Study: Some “brain-boost­ing” sup­ple­ments sold in the US con­tain not-approved drugs at suprather­a­peu­tic dos­es, expos­ing users to unknown side effects

Study finds lifelong neurogenesis in the hippocampus, but rates decline with age and, especially, Alzheimer’s disease

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Recent, imma­ture neu­rons (in red) and old­er, mature neu­rons (in blue) in the hip­pocam­pus of a 68-year-old’s brain. Cred­it: CSIC

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Old brains still make neu­rons, study finds, offer­ing a pos­si­ble way to pro­tect against Alzheimer’s (STAT):

“Reports of old brains’ decrepi­tude have been great­ly exag­ger­at­ed, sci­en­tists report­ed on Mon­day, unveil­ing results that con­tra­dict a much-dis­cussed 2018 study and instead sup­port the idea that human gray mat­ter is capa­ble of gen­er­at­ing new neu­rons up to the ninth decade of life.

The research, pub­lished in Nature Med­i­cine, also found that old brains from peo­ple with­out demen­tia have much high­er rates of such neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis than [Read more…] about Study finds life­long neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis in the hip­pocam­pus, but rates decline with age and, espe­cial­ly, Alzheimer’s disease

Study: Cognitive deficits continue long term in cancer survivors in domains important for social and executive functioning

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elderly_senior_memory_loss_confusionCog­ni­tive Deficits Con­tin­ue Long Term in Can­cer Sur­vivors (Med­scape):

“Although can­cer patients fre­quent­ly expe­ri­ence short-term cog­ni­tive deficits, lit­tle is known about how long these deficits last or whether they wors­en over time. Now, data from a large nation­al sam­ple sug­gest that cog­ni­tive deficits may per­sist long term. [Read more…] about Study: Cog­ni­tive deficits con­tin­ue long term in can­cer sur­vivors in domains impor­tant for social and exec­u­tive functioning

Update: Videogames or Meditation?; Internship Program @ SharpBrains

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First of all, an announce­ment. We are start­ing a Vir­tu­al Intern­ship Pro­gram @ Sharp­Brains, allow­ing full-time under­grad and grad stu­dents and post­docs to lead 100-hour projects joint­ly defined by them­selves and by Sharp­Brains. Inter­est­ed can­di­dates should Con­tact Us indi­cat­ing a) a pre­lim­i­nary project pro­pos­al (200 words or less), and b) brief bio and qual­i­fi­ca­tions (200 words or less). Intern­ships don’t require trav­el and will be paid in-kind, with access to Sharp­Brains reports and con­fer­ence record­ings. Sharp­Brains will select a lim­it­ed num­ber of Interns based on fit between can­di­dates’ pro­pos­al and bio and Sharp­Brains mis­sion and activities.

Let’s now explore the lat­est edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, start­ing with a com­pre­hen­sive per­spec­tive on the edu­ca­tion­al val­ue and lim­i­ta­tions of videogames, writ­ten by Mar­shall Wein­stein, a senior at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity who will be a Sharp­Brains Intern dur­ing the Fall.

Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion and Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing To Enhance Exec­u­tive Func­tions: Two very inter­est­ing new research studies…but please don’t miss the thought-pro­vok­ing com­ments by read­er Jay Kay.

Unlock­ing Dyslex­ia in Japan­ese: New clues emerge based on the obser­va­tion that some dyslex­ics have an eas­ier time with visu­al lan­guages like Japan­ese and Chinese.

Does ADHD med­ica­tion treat­ment in child­hood increase adult employ­ment?: A very insight­ful com­men­tary by Dr. David Rabin­er.

Boomers’ Abil­i­ty to Make Finan­cial Deci­sions Often Declines With Age: A new report by Cana­di­an bank BMO illus­trates the need for inno­v­a­tive brain fit­ness inter­ven­tions focused on main­tain­ing tar­geted cog­ni­tive func­tion­al­ity. What the report presents as inex­orable decline, it is not.

Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Aware­ness, Test­ing and Pre­ven­tion:  New data rein­forc­e the need to pay­ seri­ous atten­tion to lifestyle-based and non-inva­sive cog­ni­tive and emo­tional health inter­ven­tions, and the need to per­son­al­ize interventions.

Think­ing glob­al­ly to improve men­tal health: The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health and the Glob­al Alliance for Chron­ic Dis­eases announce a Grand Chal­lenges in Glob­al Men­tal Health Ini­tia­tive. We will keep you post­ed on this.

Have a great month of August and, as always, feel free to share this enewslet­ter with friends and col­leagues… and with poten­tial can­di­dates for the new Vir­tu­al Intern­ship Pro­gram @ SharpBrains!

Gardening your hippocampus with Physical and Mental Exercise

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Phys­i­cal Fit­ness Improves Spa­tial Mem­o­ry, Increas­es Size Of Brain Struc­ture (Sci­ence Daily)

- “Now researchers have found that elder­ly adults who are more phys­i­cal­ly fit tend to have big­ger hip­pocampi and bet­ter spa­tial mem­o­ry than those who are less fit.”

- “Cer­tain activ­i­ties are believed to mod­i­fy hip­pocam­pus size in humans. For exam­ple, a study of Lon­don taxi dri­vers found that the pos­te­ri­or por­tion of the hip­pocam­pus was larg­er in expe­ri­enced taxi dri­vers than in oth­er sub­jects. And a study of Ger­man med­ical stu­dents found that the same region of the hip­pocam­pus increased in size as they stud­ied for their final exams.”

- “Stud­ies also have found that the hip­pocam­pus shrinks with age, a process that coin­cides with small but sig­nif­i­cant cog­ni­tive declines. The rate at which this occurs, how­ev­er, dif­fers among individuals.”

Relat­ed articles:

Phys­i­cal Exer­cise and Brain Health

Brain Plas­tic­i­ty: How learn­ing changes your brain