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

By SharpBrains | December 2, 2019

___ 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…

Read More

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

By SharpBrains | March 25, 2019

___ 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…

Read More

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

By SharpBrains | January 21, 2016

Cog­ni­tive 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

Update: Videogames or Meditation?; Internship Program @ SharpBrains

By SharpBrains | July 31, 2011

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…

Read More

Gardening your hippocampus with Physical and Mental Exercise

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 19, 2009

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…

Read More