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Alzheimer's disease prevention

Update: Should candidates to high office should pass a cognitive/ mental fitness test?

July 24, 2020 by SharpBrains

Wow, that was a cou­ple of very insight­ful dis­cus­sions, via social media no less.

#1. The first one was about whether heads of state and can­di­dates to high office should pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test. Click HERE to read and dis­cuss some of the sharpest com­ments, such as…

  • “I won­der what brought this up.”
  • “Def­i­nite­ly. We rou­tine­ly screen appli­cants for a wide range of jobs.”
  • “Then the bal­ance of polit­i­cal pow­er would shift towards the design­ers of those tests.”
  • “That’s what debates are for.”
  • “Yes, but prob­a­bly nobody would pass it.”
  • “No, because if we can’t judge that for our­selves, then what busi­ness do we have vot­ing at all?”

#2. The sec­ond debate cen­tered on the future of men­tal health: In ten years, will we see DSM‑6 or Some­thing Much Bet­ter (SMB‑1)? Would you say “Some­thing bet­ter hope­ful­ly” or “Well con­sid­er­ing we approach men­tal health from a dis­ease model.…that’s the first prob­lem” or “DSM is a tool, and a very use­ful one. As any oth­er tool it depends on the use you make of it,” or some­thing else.

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing as always new think­ing, research and tools for life­long brain health and men­tal fitness.

#3. Study: Across all ide­o­log­i­cal groups, high­er cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty and intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty pre­dicts sup­port for free speech

#4. Let’s under­stand how to increase resis­tance to tau and amy­loid pro­teins so we can all become “super-agers.”  Brain scans show low­er accu­mu­la­tion of tau and amy­loid pathol­o­gy among cog­ni­tive “super-agers”

#5. For exam­ple: Jobs with low phys­i­cal stress and good work­ing con­di­tions linked to larg­er hip­pocam­pus and bet­ter memory

#6. Want­ed: 30,000 vol­un­teers! Large UC study to inves­ti­gate when and how brain train­ing trans­fers (or does not) to broad­er cog­ni­tive and health benefits

#7. Time­ly ques­tions: “How com­mon are neu­ro­log­i­cal and psy­chi­atric com­pli­ca­tions in patients with COVID-19? What pro­por­tion of neu­ro­log­i­cal and psy­chi­atric com­pli­ca­tions affect the (cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem) ver­sus the periph­er­al ner­vous sys­tem, and are nov­el syn­dromes emerg­ing? And who is most at risk?” Sur­vey finds ischaemic stroke and altered men­tal sta­tus as most com­mon neu­ro­log­i­cal com­pli­ca­tions in severe COVID-19 cases

#8. “Our mind is one of the only things that we can­not con­sis­tent­ly mea­sure and quan­ti­fy. And humans do remark­able things when we can mea­sure some­thing.”  Ker­nel rais­es $53 mil­lion to ease access to rich neur­al data and mar­ket Neu­ro­science as a Ser­vice (NaaS)

#9. “We are tak­ing proven cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­pies and ful­ly automat­ing them to deliv­er the care scal­ably and con­sis­tent­ly as drugs.” Start­up Big Health rais­es $39M to uni­ver­sal­ize access to cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) for anx­i­ety and poor sleep

#10. Build­ing on Bill Gates’ orig­i­nal goal of ‘a com­put­er on every desk,’ per­haps it’s time for ‘real-time men­tal health sup­port on every phone.’ Microsoft announces sup­port for three inno­v­a­tive men­tal health ser­vices har­ness­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI)

#11. Res­o­nance. Empa­thy. Aware­ness. Com­pas­sion. Hope. And our favorite… Humor. Six tips to help reg­u­late stress lev­els in our organizations

#12. Final­ly, a fun brain teas­er. What do you see, rec­tan­gles or cir­cles?

 

Wish­ing you a good and safe August,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Alzheimer's disease prevention, Alzheimers-disease, amyloid, artificial intelligence, Bill Gates, brain health, brain-teaser, cognitive behavioral therapies, cognitive test, cognitive-ability, free speech, hippocampus, mental fitness test, mental health, mental-fitness, Microsoft, neurological, psychiatric, regulate stress, stress-levels, tau

Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s pathology

June 16, 2020 by The Conversation

Dementia: negative thinking linked with more rapid cognitive decline, study indicates

Demen­tia affects an esti­mat­ed 54 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide. There no cure, but reports indi­cate that approx­i­mate­ly a third of demen­tia cas­es may be pre­ventable, which is why many researchers have begun to focus on iden­ti­fy­ing risk fac­tors. This would allow for bet­ter per­son­alised inter­ven­tions that may be able to reduce risk, delay, or even pre­vent the onset of dementia.

Cur­rent research shows that genet­ics, high blood pres­sure, and smok­ing are all risk fac­tors for devel­op­ing demen­tia. But a lot of peo­ple don’t realise that there is also a rela­tion­ship between men­tal ill-health and high­er demen­tia risk too. Stud­ies have shown that depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and post trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der are all linked to a high­er risk of devel­op­ing demen­tia in old­er age. Our recent study builds on this research by exam­in­ing whether a style of think­ing that is com­mon to these men­tal health con­di­tions is asso­ci­at­ed with indi­ca­tors of Alzheimer’s dis­ease, the most com­mon type of dementia.

Peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing men­tal ill health fre­quent­ly engage in a style of think­ing called “Repet­i­tive Neg­a­tive Think­ing”. This style of think­ing involves the ten­den­cy to have neg­a­tive thoughts about the future (wor­ry) or about the past (rumi­na­tion), and these thoughts can feel uncontrollable.

In 2015, I devel­oped a hypoth­e­sis called [Read more…] about Repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing may increase (or per­haps be caused by) cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s pathology

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: aging, Alzheimer's disease prevention, Alzheimers-disease, anxiety, behavioural marker, brain health, Brain-Fitness, chronic-stress, cognitive behavioural therapy, Cognitive Debt, cognitive decline, dementia, dementia risk, depression, mindfulness, post-traumatic-stress-disorder, rumination

Report: 10 million people develop dementia every year

August 28, 2015 by SharpBrains

Alzheimer rates
Chart: Esti­mat­ed preva­lence of demen­tia for peo­ple over 60. [World Alzheimer Report 2015, ADI.]

World Alzheimer Report 2015: Revised Esti­mates Hint at Larg­er Epi­dem­ic (Alz­fo­rum):

“Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Inter­na­tion­al yes­ter­day released its World Alzheimer Report 2015: The Glob­al Impact of Demen­tia. This sev­enth annu­al report from the fed­er­a­tion of Alzheimer asso­ci­a­tions updates 2009 esti­mates of [Read more…] about Report: 10 mil­lion peo­ple devel­op demen­tia every year

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Alzheimer's disease prevention, Alzheimers-disease, dementia, health, public-health

Update: Test your stress level with this fun brain teaser

July 31, 2014 by SharpBrains

pressure-performance-curve-400x300—

Time for Sharp­Brains’ July 2014 e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of thought-pro­vok­ing insights, sci­ence reports…and this fun brain teas­er to deter­mine your stress lev­el.

New think­ing:

  • Why “dis­or­ders of the brain” deserve at least equal atten­tion as car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases and cancer
  • Pre­lim­i­nary Agen­da of the 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Octo­ber 28–30th)
  • Debunk­ing Myers-Brig­gs per­son­al­i­ty test
  • How to remem­ber what you read

New tools:

  • Upgrad­ing Edu­ca­tion and Health in light of Neu­ro­science: The Fron­tier of Gaming?
  • Study: Neu­ro­feed­back treat­ment for ADHD in only 12 sessions?
  • News: Launch of Brain Start-up Chal­lenge on August 1st
  • Brain Resource rais­ing $7m to expand cor­po­rate brain well­ness offerings

New sci­ence:

  • Under what con­di­tions can mind­ful­ness cours­es help health care work­ers man­age stress and burnout?
  • Alzheimer’s dis­ease can be delayed through lifestyle: New, large study joins grow­ing chorus
  • One more rea­son to improve edu­ca­tion and car­dio­vas­cu­lar health in devel­op­ing countries
  • How big data can aug­ment brain health clin­i­cal research

Final­ly, you may also want to try this teas­er to test your cog­ni­tive bias­es.

Enjoy, and have a great month of August!

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: alternative ADHD treatments, Alzheimer's disease prevention, brain, Brain-Fitness, cognitive-bias, corporate brain wellness, delay Alzheimer's Disease, Education & Lifelong Learning, Gaming, health, improve memory skills, manage-stress, mental-exercise, mild Alzheimer's disease, mindfulness, Myers-Briggs, Neurofeedback, reduce burnout

Harnessing brain training games to better research, prevent and treat Alzheimer’s Disease

June 18, 2014 by SharpBrains

HRAkili

—

Brain Train­ing Data­base: Trea­sure Trove for Pre­clin­i­cal Alzheimer’s Research? (Alz­fo­rum):

“Some researchers think brain games in general—which adapt to each user’s cog­ni­tive ability—may one day serve as cog­ni­tive diag­nos­tics to [Read more…] about Har­ness­ing brain train­ing games to bet­ter research, pre­vent and treat Alzheimer’s Disease

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Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AD prevention, ADAS-Cog, Akili Interactive Labs, Alzheimer's disease prevention, Brain-games, Brain-Training, brain-training-games, cognitive diagnostics, cognitive-ability, cognitive-decline, Cognitive-impairment, Cognitive-tests, CogState, Internet, Lumosity, MMSE, neuropsychologist, Pfizer

Why Both Aerobic and Cognitive Exercise Promote Brain Health

October 2, 2012 by Alvaro Fernandez

USC Davis researcher Liz Zelin­s­ki just brought to our atten­tion a very insight­ful meta-analy­sis  (sys­tem­at­ic analy­sis of pre­vi­ous sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies) titled Extend­ed prac­tice and aer­o­bic exer­cise inter­ven­tions ben­e­fit untrained cog­ni­tive out­comes in old­er adults: a meta-analy­sis.

  • OBJECTIVES:  To exam­ine whether ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tions [Read more…] about Why Both Aer­o­bic and Cog­ni­tive Exer­cise Pro­mote Brain Health

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: aerobic-exercise, Alzheimer's disease prevention, Brain-health, choice reaction time, cognitive, executive-function, memory, Ther­a­peu­tic

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Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

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