Understanding Brain Health via Cosmological Health, and vice versa

Neu­ro­science Meets Astro­physics: Does the Human Brain Resem­ble the Uni­verse? (SciTech­Dai­ly): In their paper pub­lished in Fron­tiers of Physics, Fran­co Vaz­za (astro­physi­cist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna) and Alber­to Felet­ti (neu­ro­sur­geon at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Verona) inves­ti­gat­ed the sim­i­lar­i­ties between two of the most chal­leng­ing and com­plex sys­tems in nature: the cos­mic net­work of galaxies…

Read More

Save the Date: Promoting Brain Health for Life, December 15–16th, online

We need a dif­fer­ent, two-pronged approach to address the Brain Health for Life chal­lenge: instead of try­ing to treat dis­eases, we need to focus on pro­mot­ing brain health, edu­cate and empow­er the pub­lic to adopt life­long healthy lifestyles in order to min­i­mize the risk of devel­op­ing psy­chi­atric and neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases. In par­al­lel, we need to…

Read More

Update: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 14 research find­ings, resources and tips for brain health … and start­ing with this fas­ci­nat­ing study: #1. Wow. The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a place­bo #2. Beat­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease will require a com­bined physical/ men­tal approach: From the ten fac­tors found…

Read More

Large study finds that placebo works as well as vitamin D supplements to prevent depression and improve mood

Large Study Con­firms Vit­a­min D Does Not Reduce Risk of Depres­sion in Adults (Mass Gen­er­al press release): Vit­a­min D sup­ple­men­ta­tion does not pro­tect against depres­sion in mid­­dle-age or old­er adult­hood accord­ing results from one of the largest ever stud­ies of its kind … “There was no sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit from the sup­ple­ment for this pur­pose. It…

Read More

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

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…

Read More

Brain health innovators needs to escape from the “efficiency trap”

Fun to (remote­ly) talk at the Start­up Impact Sum­mit in Hong Kong to dis­cuss the lat­est on brain health and men­tal fit­ness and to high­light a key point: in such a rapid­­ly-and-pro­­found­­ly-evolv­ing field, we need to pri­or­i­tize effec­tive­ness over effi­cien­cy; oth­er­wise we sim­ply keep doing –faster, cheap­er– the wrong things time and again. Think of the…

Read More