brain changes

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

Study finds that cognitive activity in old age may delay the onset of dementia by 5 years

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– Yuji Sakai / Dig­i­talVi­sion / Get­ty Images

Demen­tia Comes 5 Years Lat­er for Some (Med­Page Today):

A cog­ni­tive­ly active lifestyle that involves read­ing and pro­cess­ing infor­ma­tion in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia in Alzheimer’s dis­ease by as much as 5 years, a lon­gi­tu­di­nal study suggested.

Old­er adults who had the high­est lev­el of late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty had a mean onset age of Alzheimer’s demen­tia of 94, report­ed Robert Wil­son, PhD, of Rush Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter in Chica­go, and colleagues.

In con­trast, those with the low­est late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty lev­els devel­oped demen­tia at age 89, they wrote in Neu­rol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Study finds that cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia by 5 years

Next: Brain scans to identify children at high risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) before symptoms appear

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White arrows indi­cate abnor­mal­i­ties on MRI brain scans in chil­dren with no symp­toms of mul­ti­ple sclerosis.

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MS risk in chil­dren spot­ted with MRI brain scans (Yale News):

“By the time mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS) is diag­nosed in chil­dren, it may be dif­fi­cult to pre­vent the dis­abil­i­ties and relaps­es that come with the dis­ease. In a new Yale School of Med­i­cine study, researchers exam­ined MRI brain scans to iden­ti­fy chil­dren at high risk of devel­op­ing MS before symp­toms appear, which [Read more…] about Next: Brain scans to iden­ti­fy chil­dren at high risk of devel­op­ing mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS) before symp­toms appear

Study identifies brain circuits enabling four-year-olds to “put themselves in other people’s shoes”

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Thanks to a crit­i­cal fibre con­nec­tion in the brain (green), four-year-old kids can start to under­stand what oth­er peo­ple think. Cour­tesy of Max Planck Institute.

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A remark­able mile­stone occurs in chil­dren around their fourth birth­days: They learn that oth­er peo­ple can have dif­fer­ent thoughts than they do. A recent study is the first to exam­ine the spe­cif­ic brain changes asso­ci­at­ed with this devel­op­men­tal break­through. [Read more…] about Study iden­ti­fies brain cir­cuits enabling four-year-olds to “put them­selves in oth­er people’s shoes”

Study: Brain scans may predict depression risk better than clinical rating scales, paving the way for earlier preventive treatments

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depression-children-brain-scanBrain Scans Could Iden­ti­fy Kids at Risk of Depres­sion (Smith­son­ian):

“One of the most fright­en­ing aspects of depres­sion is the fact that, once some­one suf­fers a depres­sive episode, they’re very like­ly to have anoth­er. And depres­sion itself often brings oth­er ills, from sub­stance abuse to heart dis­ease [Read more…] about Study: Brain scans may pre­dict depres­sion risk bet­ter than clin­i­cal rat­ing scales, paving the way for ear­li­er pre­ven­tive treatments

Study: Brain changes seen in cabbies who take ‘The Knowledge’

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Brain changes seen in cab­bies who take ‘The Knowl­edge (BBC Health):

“The struc­ture of a Lon­don taxi dri­ver’s brain changes dur­ing the gru­el­ing process of learn­ing the quick­est way around the cap­i­tal, scans reveal. Dozens of trainee dri­vers had MRI scans before and after they acquired “The Knowl­edge”, mem­o­riz­ing hun­dreds of jour­neys and street names.

The Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don team, writ­ing in Cur­rent Biol­o­gy, found brain parts linked to mem­o­ry grew big­ger. [Read more…] about Study: Brain changes seen in cab­bies who take ‘The Knowledge’