On mental fitness beliefs, lifestyles and new tools like apps, digital therapeutics, virtual reality, “brain age gaps” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun cou­ple of math brain teasers. #1. Study on the “ABCs of Men­tal Health” finds that sim­ply believ­ing you can improve men­tal well­be­ing helps actu­al­ly improve it Beliefs mat­ter. #2. “Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics” vs. “Men­tal health apps”: A growing…

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Deep learning model built on neuroimaging data identifies “Brain Age Gaps” as markers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

Brain Age Gap is a Com­pos­ite Bio­mark­er for Demen­tia Pathol­o­gy or Sever­i­ty (GEN): Mayo Clin­ic sci­en­tists have devel­oped a com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el that pre­dicts brain age using a large col­lec­tion of neu­roimag­ing data obtained using FDG-PET (flu­o­rodeoxyglu­cose positron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy) and struc­tur­al MRI (mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing). The deep learn­ing-based mod­el tests the rela­tion­ship between brain age…

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

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…

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Don’t worry, be happy: How excessive worrying may influence the rate of neurodegeneration

Wor­ry­ing and the Aging Brain (Dana Foun­da­tion): Over the past decade, sci­en­tists and clin­i­cians have not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tion between com­mon men­tal health con­di­tions and accel­er­at­ed brain aging—the changes to brain struc­ture, phys­i­ol­o­gy, and func­tion that are thought to lead to lat­er cog­ni­tive decline. Both depres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, for exam­ple, are strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed with…

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Brain scans show lower accumulation of tau and amyloid pathology among cognitive “super-agers”

Super-Agers Show Resis­tance to Tau and Amy­loid Accu­mu­la­tion, Main­tain High Cog­ni­tive Func­tion (Soci­ety of Nuclear Med­i­cine and Mol­e­c­u­lar Imag­ing press release): Super-agers, or indi­vid­u­als whose cog­ni­tive skills are above the norm even at an advanced age, have been found to have increased resis­tance to tau and amy­loid pro­teins, accord­ing to research pre­sent­ed at the Society…

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The Future of Brain Health & Wellness as seen by Joy Ventures, Total Brain, Vielight, Arrowsmith, Peak, CABHI and NeurotechX

__________ Dur­ing Expo Day at the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (May 7–9th), select­ed Sum­mit Spon­sors and Part­ners had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case their most promis­ing brain health & well­ness ini­tia­tives and solu­tions. We hope you enjoy their slid­edecks below! (and please remem­ber that the full record­ings are avail­able for pur­chase here) 8.30am. Dr. Hag­it Alon, VP Scientific…

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