brain-function

Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Overcoming astronauts’ cognitive and mental health challenges

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– Illus­tra­tion by Zoë Van Dijk

Space Between the Ears (Cere­brum):

A few short months ago, news pro­grams around the globe showed NASA engi­neers and sci­en­tists cel­e­brat­ing as a robot named Per­se­ver­ance suc­cess­ful­ly land­ed on the sur­face of Mars. The mis­sion: cap­ture and share images and audio that have nev­er been seen or heard before. As impressed as most observers were of this major mile­stone, many couldn’t help but won­der when we might be ready to some­day send humans. While it seems the stuff of sci­ence fic­tion and almost incon­ceiv­able, the answer—according to recent NASA planning—is before the end of the 2030s, less than two decades away. [Read more…] about Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

Higher body mass index (BMI) linked to lower blood supply to the brain in large neuroimaging study

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Fig­ure 6 from the study, show­ing 3‑D ren­der­ings of cere­bral per­fu­sion aver­aged across nor­mal BMI (23), over­weight (29), and obese (37) 40-year-old men

Body weight has sur­pris­ing, alarm­ing impact on brain func­tion (Sci­ence Daily):

As a per­son­’s weight goes up, all regions of the brain go down in activ­i­ty and blood flow, accord­ing to a new brain imag­ing study in the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease … sci­en­tists ana­lyzed over 35,000 func­tion­al neu­roimag­ing scans using sin­gle-pho­ton emis­sion com­put­er­ized tomog­ra­phy (SPECT) from more than 17,000 indi­vid­u­als to mea­sure blood flow and brain activ­i­ty. [Read more…] about High­er body mass index (BMI) linked to low­er blood sup­ply to the brain in large neu­roimag­ing study

Report finds only 35% of Canadian youth get the physical activity recommended for brain health

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Get­ting kids out­side and active could help with brain health: Par­tic­i­paction report (The Globe and Mail):

“The phys­i­cal ben­e­fits of kids lead­ing an active lifestyle, includ­ing bet­ter heart health and a decreased risk of devel­op­ing Type 2 dia­betes, are well known. But a grow­ing body of research sug­gests there are sig­nif­i­cant men­tal ben­e­fits as well, whether it’s low­er­ing stress lev­els or help­ing to treat anx­i­ety and depres­sion. A new report released by Par­tic­i­paction on Tues­day draws atten­tion to this link, [Read more…] about Report finds only 35% of Cana­di­an youth get the phys­i­cal activ­i­ty rec­om­mend­ed for brain health

Wearable brain scanners to enable broader, easier, cheaper access to neuroimaging

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Cred­it: Uni­ver­si­ty of Nottingham

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This Brain Scan­ner Is Way Small­er Than fMRI but Some­how 1,000% Creepi­er (Giz­mo­do):

“It may look like some­thing befit­ting Halloween’s Michael Myers, but the device pic­tured above is actu­al­ly a break­through in neuroscience—a portable, wear­able brain scan­ner that can mon­i­tor neur­al activ­i­ty while a per­son is mov­ing [Read more…] about Wear­able brain scan­ners to enable broad­er, eas­i­er, cheap­er access to neuroimaging

Reinventing Brain Medicine, Pharma adopts Digital Therapeutics: Evidence-based videogames, smartphone apps, and sensors

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From app store to drug store, dig­i­tal health is redefin­ing pharma’s pipeline (STAT):

“The pitch­es always sound­ed promis­ing: A new soft­ware app could track glu­cose lev­els for peo­ple with dia­betes or soothe the brains of insom­ni­acs. Most phar­ma exec­u­tives would polite­ly smile and nod, but then park their mon­ey some­where else.

Not any­more. [Read more…] about Rein­vent­ing Brain Med­i­cine, Phar­ma adopts Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics: Evi­dence-based videogames, smart­phone apps, and sensors

Photobiomodulation: A new and promising way to enhance brain function

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As is increas­ing­ly evi­dent, there are mul­ti­ple meth­ods aimed at enhanc­ing brain function.

Brain train­ing and mind­ful­ness prac­tices are com­mon­ly used. Sub­stance-based meth­ods are pop­u­lar too, includ­ing hal­lu­cino­gens in the form of plant extracts, and drugs. Same as tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) and tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion (TMS): All of these are promis­ing but have been chal­lenged — for exam­ple, the repro­ducibil­i­ty of elec­tri­cal-based stim­u­la­tion results is increas­ing­ly ques­tioned. [Read more…] about Pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion: A new and promis­ing way to enhance brain function