ageing

Collaborative neuroimaging initiative BrainChart helps chart how brains change across the lifespan

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Source: Beth­le­hem et al (2020). A graph­i­cal sum­ma­ry of the nor­ma­tive tra­jec­to­ries of the medi­an (50th cen­tile) for each glob­al MRI phe­no­type, and key devel­op­men­tal mile­stones, as a func­tion of age (log-scaled).

For decades, growth charts have been used by pae­di­a­tri­cians as ref­er­ence tools. The charts allow health pro­fes­sion­als to plot and mea­sure a child’s height and weight from birth to young adult­hood. The per­centile scores they pro­vide, espe­cial­ly across mul­ti­ple vis­its, help doc­tors screen for con­di­tions such as obe­si­ty or inad­e­quate growth, which fall at the extremes of these scores.

Mean­while, it is pos­si­ble to mea­sure brain devel­op­ment with imag­ing tech­nolo­gies such as ultra­sound, mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) and com­put­erised tomog­ra­phy (CT). The devel­op­ment of these tech­nolo­gies has led to a wealth of research on how the brain changes, and each year, mil­lions of clin­i­cal brain scans are per­formed world­wide. Despite this progress, there are few mea­sures that are used to aid in mon­i­tor­ing brain devel­op­ment. Why? [Read more…] about Col­lab­o­ra­tive neu­roimag­ing ini­tia­tive Brain­Chart helps chart how brains change across the lifespan

How to properly “Use it or Lose it”: Kundalini Yoga vs. Crossword Puzzles

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yoga_wellnessYoga bet­ter than cross­words for pre­vent­ing pre-Alzheimer’s mem­o­ry loss (The Telegraph):

“His­tor­i­cal­ly and anec­do­tal­ly, yoga has been thought to be ben­e­fi­cial in age­ing well, but this is the sci­en­tif­ic demon­stra­tion of that benefit…We’re con­vert­ing his­tor­i­cal wis­dom into the high lev­el of evi­dence required for doc­tors to rec­om­mend ther­a­py to their patients. [Read more…] about How to prop­er­ly “Use it or Lose it”: Kun­dali­ni Yoga vs. Cross­word Puzzles

UK study: Dementia rates significantly lower than forecasted–especially for men–highlighting the protective role of lifestyle and education

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-- Incidence rate of dementia per 1,000 person years in CFAS I and CFAS II by age at baseline interview. Natural scale. Source: Study below
– Inci­dence rate of demen­tia per 1,000 per­son years in CFAS I (con­duct­ed in the 90s) and CFAS II (just fin­ished) by age at base­line inter­view. Nat­ur­al scale. Source: Study ref­er­enced below.

Drop in demen­tia rates sug­gests dis­ease can be pre­vent­ed, researchers say (The Guardian):

“In the UK, demen­tia has fall­en by a fifth over the past 20 years, pos­si­bly down to lifestyle and edu­ca­tion changes, high­light­ing ben­e­fits of pre­ven­ta­tive action…

A team from three British uni­ver­si­ties con­clud­ed that as a result the num­ber of new cas­es of demen­tia is low­er than had been pre­dict­ed in the 1990s [Read more…] about UK study: Demen­tia rates sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than forecasted–especially for men–highlighting the pro­tec­tive role of lifestyle and education

First Report of the Council on the Ageing Society

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The Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety is one of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils cre­at­ed by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in 2008. It address­es glob­al issues asso­ci­at­ed with our age­ing soci­ety and has the task of chal­leng­ing pre­vail­ing assump­tions, mon­i­tor­ing trends, propos­ing solu­tions, devis­ing strate­gies, and mak­ing pub­lic pol­i­cy pro­pos­als. It is com­posed of sci­en­tists, pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers, aca­d­e­mics, physi­cians and busi­ness lead­ers, includ­ing our very own Alvaro Fernandez.

The first report of the Coun­cil on the Age­ing Soci­ety was pub­lished this month in Glob­al Pol­i­cy. In this ?rst pub­li­ca­tion [Read more…] about First Report of the Coun­cil on the Age­ing Society

Council on the Ageing Society, at the Summit of the Global Agenda

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Head­ing to Dubai today (a 15-hour direct flight!), com­ing back to San Fran­cis­co next Monday.

Last year I wrote about this remark­able new ini­tia­tive by the imagesWorld Eco­nom­ic Forum here (pro­pos­al) and here (reflec­tions, emerg­ing dis­cus­sion). This year’s update:

Twit­ter: #WEF­Dubai. Will tweet dur­ing the event, and blog about it next week.