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Pilot program by IU and Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative to test AI-powered cognitive screening at scale

April 11, 2023 by SharpBrains

How AI, Dig­i­tal Screen­ing Tools Can Help Flag Ear­ly Cog­ni­tive Decline (Health IT Analytics):

Ear­ly diag­no­sis of Alzheimer’s and oth­er demen­tias remains at the fore­front of efforts to min­i­mize the impact of these neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. But chal­lenges such as increased life expectan­cy and the risks of aging, along with com­plex­i­ties in diag­no­sis and treat­ment result­ing from mixed brain patholo­gies, make ear­ly detec­tion dif­fi­cult … A new pilot pro­gram at Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine and Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty Health, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Davos Alzheimer’s Col­lab­o­ra­tive (DAC), seeks to tack­le these issues using dig­i­tal screen­ing tools. [Read more…] about Pilot pro­gram by IU and Davos Alzheimer’s Col­lab­o­ra­tive to test AI-pow­ered cog­ni­tive screen­ing at scale

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, artificial intelligence, cognitive decline, cognitive evaluation, Cognitive-impairment, Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, digital screening, early diagnosis of Alzheimer's, Linus Health, Linus Health Core Cognitive Evaluation, neurodegenerative-diseases

The 7 Habits of Highly Stress-Resilient Minds

March 7, 2023 by Greater Good Science Center

Are you suf­fer­ing from chron­ic stress? Many of us are—whether we’re stressed out by our jobs, com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ships, care­giv­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties, or the gen­er­al state of the world.

That’s where Elis­sa Epel’s new book, The Stress Pre­scrip­tion, comes in. A health psy­chol­o­gist and direc­tor of the Aging, Metab­o­lism, and Emo­tions Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co, Epel explains how stress affects our bod­ies and minds—including our health, hap­pi­ness, and longevity—and how to man­age it in the best way possible.

Too many of us are in a con­stant state of alert­ness, she argues, which makes us ill-pre­pared to nav­i­gate the every­day stres­sors and big­ger upsets that occur when liv­ing a full life. We may think we’re relaxed, but we’re actu­al­ly main­tain­ing a low-lev­el vig­i­lance that’s hard on our bod­ies. Con­stant phys­i­o­log­i­cal strain can short­en our telom­eres (the caps at the ends of our DNA that pro­tect it from aging)—a process she wrote about in her best­selling book, The Telom­ere Effect.

Epel empha­sizes that not all stress is inher­ent­ly bad—and that we shouldn’t aim for a stress-free life. We need our phys­i­o­log­i­cal stress response to sur­vive, as it can come in handy when we’re gear­ing up to per­form or fac­ing an actu­al life-or-death threat. [Read more…] about The 7 Habits of High­ly Stress-Resilient Minds

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aging, chronic-stress, deep breathing, Gratitude, high-intensity interval training, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness-meditation, physiological stress, Stress Prescription, Stress Response

Combined tDCS neurostimulation and cognitive training found to improve working memory among older adults–especially those with lower starting capacity

October 25, 2022 by SharpBrains

Giv­ing mem­o­ry a lift: Can games and brain stim­u­la­tion do it? (Med­ical­New­sTo­day):

A person’s work­ing mem­o­ry may decline with age or if they have demen­tia, Parkinson’s dis­ease, or have had a stroke. When this occurs, the loss can affect their day-to-day qual­i­ty of life, turn­ing even sim­ple tasks into often-demor­al­iz­ing chal­lenges. [Read more…] about Com­bined tDCS neu­rostim­u­la­tion and cog­ni­tive train­ing found to improve work­ing mem­o­ry among old­er adults–especially those with low­er start­ing capacity

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, brain stimulation, Brain-Plasticity, COGNISANT, cognitive needs, cognitive-functioning, cognitive-skills, Cognitive-Training, dementia, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, neuroplasticity, Parkinsons-disease, prefrontal-cortex, strengthen working memory, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation, Working-memory, working-memory-training

Complex occupations help protect our brains from aging-related cognitive decline

December 15, 2021 by SharpBrains

Cog­ni­tive aging: Work helps our brain (AAAS):

A recent study shows that work plays an active role in keep­ing our brains healthy. “We have demon­strat­ed the role of work­ing activ­i­ty on cog­ni­tive per­for­mance”. Pro­fes­sor Raf­fael­la Rumiati says … “Many stud­ies have been focused on the fac­tors influ­enc­ing our brain aging and dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive decline have been often observed in asso­ci­a­tion with edu­ca­tion or oth­er relat­ed to qual­i­ty of life. From our analy­sis it emerges that the type of work activ­i­ty also con­tributes to the dif­fer­ences in nor­mal and patho­log­i­cal cog­ni­tive aging”. [Read more…] about Com­plex occu­pa­tions help pro­tect our brains from aging-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aging, brain-aging, cognition, cognitive, Cognitive Aging, cognitive decline, cognitive-performance, Education & Lifelong Learning, neuropsychological-tests, occupation, protective factors, working

Study in China finds that retirement may accelerate cognitive decline, even for those with stable income

June 10, 2021 by The Conversation

Peo­ple who retire ear­ly suf­fer from accel­er­at­ed cog­ni­tive decline and may even encounter ear­ly onset of demen­tia, accord­ing to a new eco­nom­ic study (Note: opens PDF) I con­duct­ed with my doc­tor­al stu­dent Alan Adelman.

To estab­lish that find­ing, we exam­ined the effects of a rur­al pen­sion pro­gram Chi­na intro­duced in 2009 that pro­vid­ed peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed with a sta­ble income if they stopped work­ing after the offi­cial retire­ment age of 60. We found that peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­gram and retired with­in one or two years expe­ri­enced a cog­ni­tive decline equiv­a­lent to a drop in gen­er­al intel­li­gence of 1.7% rel­a­tive to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. This drop is equiv­a­lent to about three IQ points and could make it hard­er for some­one to adhere to a med­ica­tion sched­ule or con­duct finan­cial plan­ning. The largest neg­a­tive effect was in what is called “delayed recall,” which mea­sures a person’s abil­i­ty to remem­ber some­thing men­tioned sev­er­al min­utes ago. Neu­ro­log­i­cal research links prob­lems in this area to an ear­ly onset of demen­tia. [Read more…] about Study in Chi­na finds that retire­ment may accel­er­ate cog­ni­tive decline, even for those with sta­ble income

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aging, China, cognition, cognitive decline, cognitive-abilities, cognitive-functioning, cognitive-skills, dementia, developing countries, health, mental retirement, middle-income countries, neuroplasticity

On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

April 30, 2021 by SharpBrains

Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fitness.

#1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study 🙂

Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.”

#2. Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Lisa Gen­o­va, author of the beau­ti­ful nov­el Still Alice, releas­es non-fic­tion book on Mem­o­ry: “It is sober­ing to real­ize that three out of four pris­on­ers who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence were ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. “You can be 100 per­cent con­fi­dent in your vivid mem­o­ry,” Gen­o­va writes, “and still be 100 per­cent wrong” … Gen­o­va assures her read­ers that only two per cent of Alzheimer’s cas­es are of the strict­ly inher­it­ed, ear­ly-onset kind. For most of us, our chances of devel­op­ing the dis­ease are high­ly amenable to interventions…”

#3. Time­ly tips for the week­end: Shape your envi­ron­ment, shape your mind

  • Sur­round your­self with nature
  • Cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for awe
  • Clear the clutter

#4. “For a mis­sion to suc­ceed, high men­tal and cog­ni­tive func­tion would be absolute­ly crit­i­cal; astro­nauts would be called on to per­form demand­ing tasks in a demand­ing envi­ron­ment. Los­ing 20 IQ points halfway to Mars is not an option … Stress—an emo­tion­al or men­tal state result­ing from tense or over­whelm­ing circumstances—and the body’s response to it, which involves mul­ti­ple sys­tems, from metab­o­lism to mus­cles to memory—may be the chief chal­lenge that astro­nauts face.” Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

#5. Study: Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion … mak­ing it more accu­rate (based on a cool opti­cal illusion)

#6. It’s good to have more tools in the neu­ro toolkit…assuming we use them wise­ly: Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

#7. Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)

#8. Men­tal Health in the Dig­i­tal Age: From dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to per­son­al­ized men­tal health solu­tions: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics expands plat­form via part­ner­ships with Empat­i­ca, etec­tRx, Key­Wise, and Winterlight

#9. The award was won last year by Indi­an vil­lage teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale; who will be next? Final day to nom­i­nate teach­ers for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize 2021

#10. And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, let’s wel­come Men­tal Health Month (May) by appre­ci­at­ing our beau­ti­ful brains

Wish­ing you a men­tal­ly healthy and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, ADHD-Treatment, aging, Alzheimer’s, astronauts, beautiful brains, brain health, centenarians, cognitive decline, cognitive-function, cognitive-health, depression, digital health, digital therapeutics, IQ, MaRS, memory, Pear Therapeutics, Stress, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation

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