On cognitive reframing and biases, stress, mental health tech, Aduhelm backlash, Britney Spears, and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain and men­tal health. #1. To low­er stress lev­els and improve prob­lem-solv­ing, prac­tice cog­ni­tive refram­ing instead of vent­ing “… vent­ing like­ly doesn’t soothe anger as much as aug­ment it. That’s because encour­ag­ing peo­ple to…

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Alzheimer’s & Dementia researchers challenge FDA’s approval of Aduhelm given lack of evidence for beta-amyloid as a marker

Doc­tors Blast Bio­gen Alzheimer Approval as ‘Reg­u­la­to­ry Fail­ure’ (Bloomberg): Top researchers who advised the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion on Bio­gen Inc.’s Alzheimer’s drug blast­ed the agency for approv­ing it, call­ing the deci­sion a “reg­u­la­to­ry fail­ure” that is “at odds with the evidence.”

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Update: Moderate lifetime drinking may lead to lower Alzheimer-related beta amyloid deposits in the brain

__ Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter. #1. First of all, it’s not all bad news this month. Study finds that mod­er­ate life­time drink­ing may lead to low­er Alzheimer-relat­ed beta amy­loid deposits in the brain #2. And, talk about per­son­al­ized med­i­cine! This fas­ci­nat­ing study show­ing how brain imag­ing (fMRI) + machine learn­ing + inten­sive, non-invasive…

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New studies reinforce Education and Cognitive Reserve –instead of drugs targeting beta amyloid– as most promising avenue to prolong cognitive health and reduce dementia risk

Demen­tia Risk Declines, And Edu­ca­tion May Be One Rea­son Why (NPR): “Some encour­ag­ing news in the bat­tle against Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia: The rate at which old­er Amer­i­cans are get­ting these con­di­tions is declin­ing. That’s accord­ing to

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Update: New brain science leads to new tools and to new thinking

We often view mem­o­ry, think­ing, emo­tions, as com­plete­ly sep­a­rate enti­ties, but they tru­ly are part of the same process. So, if we want to improve brain health, we need to pay atten­tion to the “weak link” in that process. In today’s soci­ety, man­ag­ing stress and neg­a­tive emo­tions is often that weak link, as we discuss…

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