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Brain-Plasticity

Study identifies cognitive benefits of ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression

December 8, 2022 by The Conversation Leave a Comment

Ket­a­mine mol­e­cules attach them­selves to NMDA neu­ronal recep­tors, which play an impor­tant role in brain plas­tic­i­ty and pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing. C22H31NO2, CC BY-SA

Which fac­tors deter­mine what we believe about our world, our­selves, our past, and our future? Cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science sug­gests that our beliefs are depen­dent on brain activ­i­ty, specif­i­cal­ly on the way our brains process sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion in order to make sense of our environment.

These beliefs (defined as prob­a­bil­i­ty esti­mates) are cen­tral to our brain’s pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing func­tion, which enables it to pre­dict the prob­a­bilis­tic struc­ture of the world around us. These pre­dic­tions could even be the fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks of men­tal states, such as per­cep­tions and emotions.

Many psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, such as depres­sion and schiz­o­phre­nia, are char­ac­terised by irreg­u­lar beliefs whose ori­gins we still don’t ful­ly under­stand. But if we can iden­ti­fy the cere­bral sys­tems gov­ern­ing them, we could tar­get those very areas in a bid to alle­vi­ate the pain asso­ci­at­ed to these ill­ness­es. [Read more…] about Study iden­ti­fies cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of ket­a­mine in patients with treat­ment-resis­tant depression

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: affective bias, antidepressants, augmented psychotherapy, brain-activity, Brain-Plasticity, Cognitive Neuroscience, depression, depressive beliefs, ketamine, NMDA, pharmacological, psilocybin, psychedelic medicine, psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia

Combined tDCS neurostimulation and cognitive training found to improve working memory among older adults–especially those with lower starting capacity

October 25, 2022 by SharpBrains

Giv­ing mem­o­ry a lift: Can games and brain stim­u­la­tion do it? (Med­ical­New­sTo­day):

A person’s work­ing mem­o­ry may decline with age or if they have demen­tia, Parkinson’s dis­ease, or have had a stroke. When this occurs, the loss can affect their day-to-day qual­i­ty of life, turn­ing even sim­ple tasks into often-demor­al­iz­ing chal­lenges. [Read more…] about Com­bined tDCS neu­rostim­u­la­tion and cog­ni­tive train­ing found to improve work­ing mem­o­ry among old­er adults–especially those with low­er start­ing capacity

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, brain stimulation, Brain-Plasticity, COGNISANT, cognitive needs, cognitive-functioning, cognitive-skills, Cognitive-Training, dementia, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, neuroplasticity, Parkinsons-disease, prefrontal-cortex, strengthen working memory, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation, Working-memory, working-memory-training

UC study finds near-transfer of cognitive training to be necessary (yet not sufficient) for far-transfer, broader benefits

June 21, 2022 by SharpBrains

Guicheng “Ariel” Tan / UCI Work­ing Mem­o­ry & Plas­tic­i­ty Lab

Who ben­e­fits from brain train­ing, and why? (UCI release):

If you are skilled at play­ing puz­zles on your smart­phone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puz­zles, or more broad­ly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the lan­guage of psy­chol­o­gists, does “near trans­fer” pre­dict “far transfer”?

A team of psy­chol­o­gists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side reports in Nature Human Behav­ior that peo­ple who show near trans­fer are more like­ly to show far trans­fer. For a per­son skilled at play­ing a game, such as Wor­dle, near trans­fer refers to being skilled at sim­i­lar games, such as a cross­word puz­zle. An exam­ple of far trans­fer for this per­son would be the abil­i­ty to bet­ter focus on dai­ly life activ­i­ties. [Read more…] about UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain training, Brain-Plasticity, brain-training-games, cognitive-abilities, far transfer, games, Memory-Training, near transfer, neuroplasticity, puzzles, video-game, working-memory-training

Studies find growing evidence linking weight, physical activity, neuroplasticity and depression

October 18, 2021 by SharpBrains

Being over­weight can cause depres­sion — and exer­cise is an anti­dote, dual stud­ies con­firm (Run­ner’s World):

A large-scale study from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Exeter has found ‘robust evi­dence’ that being over­weight hikes up your risk of devel­op­ing depres­sion – but as fresh evi­dence con­firms, log­ging your morn­ing miles is one of the most effec­tive ways to fight back. Exer­cise jolts your brain into action, and not just because of the endor­phin high … ‘Obe­si­ty and depres­sion are both major glob­al health chal­lenges, and our study pro­vides the most robust evi­dence to date that high­er BMI caus­es depres­sion,’ said lead author Jess O’Lough­lin. ‘Under­stand­ing whether phys­i­cal or social fac­tors are respon­si­ble for this rela­tion­ship can help inform effec­tive strate­gies to improve men­tal health and well­be­ing.’ [Read more…] about Stud­ies find grow­ing evi­dence link­ing weight, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and depression

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: body mass index, Brain-Plasticity, depression, depressive disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, mental health, metabolic health, neuroplasticity, obesity, Physical-activity, Physical-Exercise, Transcranial-Magnetic-Stimulation

Update: Promote brain plasticity by taking your daily exercise pill — physical and cognitive

July 30, 2021 by Alvaro Fernandez

By lordzg/ shutterstock.com

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain health.

#1. A must-read, and must-prac­tice: Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill”

#2. If cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion came in a pill it’d be worth a quadrillion, give or take a few tril­lions: Study finds that cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia by 5 years

#3. “A young child with low cog­ni­tive con­trol is also more like­ly to devel­op anx­i­ety lat­er on in child­hood, while one with a high­er capac­i­ty will be more resilient to stress. Rais­ing cog­ni­tive con­trol could both treat anx­i­ety in young chil­dren and poten­tial­ly pre­vent it from becom­ing worse over time” — Help­ing young brains fight off anx­i­ety by train­ing and rais­ing cog­ni­tive control

#4. The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

“In a nation­al sur­vey last fall, 36% of adults in the U.S. – includ­ing 61% of young adults – report­ed feel­ing “seri­ous lone­li­ness” dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Sta­tis­tics like these sug­gest peo­ple would be itch­ing to hit the social scene. But if the idea of mak­ing small talk at a crowd­ed hap­py hour sounds ter­ri­fy­ing to you, you’re not alone. Near­ly half of Amer­i­cans report­ed feel­ing uneasy about return­ing to in-per­son inter­ac­tion regard­less of vac­ci­na­tion status.”
#5. Fas­ci­nat­ing to see mind­ful­ness apps/ pro­grams going main­stream: Evi­dence-based, employ­er-focused med­i­ta­tion pro­gram eMind­ful acquired by dig­i­tal behav­ioral change firm Won­dr Health
#6. AI-pow­ered Woe­bot rais­es $90M to scale up dig­i­tal self-ther­a­py platform
“The stress of the pan­dem­ic has made an exist­ing men­tal health cri­sis even more alarm­ing. We’re see­ing this first­hand in ado­les­cents in class­rooms across the coun­try and in adults who are report­ing symp­toms of anx­i­ety and depres­sion at a rate four times pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els” — Ian Chiu, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Owl Ventures

#7. Study shows promis­ing results of EEG-based brain train­ing in help­ing adults with ADHD

“The study demon­strates for the first time the ben­e­fi­cial neu­robe­hav­ioral effect of a sin­gle NFB ses­sion in adult ADHD, and rein­forces the notion that Event-relat­ed poten­tials (ERPs) could serve as use­ful diagnostic/prognostic mark­ers of exec­u­tive dysfunction.”

#8. Sys­tem­at­ic review calls for ear­ly tar­get­ed inter­ven­tions to help babies and tod­dlers with cere­bral pal­sy har­ness time win­dow with max­i­mum brain plasticity

“Cur­rent­ly, ear­ly diag­no­sis of high-risk CP offers the oppor­tu­ni­ty for ear­ly inter­ven­tion at a crit­i­cal devel­op­men­tal plas­tic­i­ty win­dow. The ear­li­er we inter­vene, the bet­ter the out­come is.”

#9. UK report iden­ti­fies oppor­tu­ni­ties and gaps for dig­i­tal tech to improve, not harm, men­tal health

“Sup­port for men­tal health has need­ed improve­ment for many years in the UK. The path­ways for access­ing ser­vices are con­vo­lut­ed, wait­ing lists are exten­sive, and out­comes are poor over the long term … Com­ing up with new ways to main­tain good men­tal health, in a pre­ven­ta­tive way, will be as essen­tial as pro­vid­ing tools for acute care and we believe tech­nol­o­gy has a sig­nif­i­cant role to play.” — Dr Peter Bloom­field, FCC’s head of Pol­i­cy and Research

Wish­ing you a hap­py and healthy month of August,

The Sharp­Brains Team

NB: Please remem­ber that, if you’re look­ing for some fun and var­ied cog­ni­tive exer­cise, you can always try these 25 Brain Teasers, Puz­zles & Games that Sharp­Brains read­ers have enjoyed the most.

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain Teasers, Brain-games, Brain-Plasticity, brains, cognitive-control, cognitive-stimulation, EEG, eMindful, mental health, mindfulness apps, neuroscience, puzzles, Woebot, Wondr Health

Promote brain plasticity and keep your mind at ease by taking your daily “exercise pill”

July 14, 2021 by The Conversation

As with many oth­er physi­cians, rec­om­mend­ing phys­i­cal activ­i­ty to patients was just a doc­tor chore for me – until a few years ago. That was because I myself was not very active. Over the years, as I picked up box­ing and became more active, I got first­hand expe­ri­ence of pos­i­tive impacts on my mind. I also start­ed research­ing the effects of dance and move­ment ther­a­pies on trau­ma and anx­i­ety in refugee chil­dren, and I learned a lot more about the neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy of exer­cise. [Read more…] about Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill”

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, BDNF, brain-cells, Brain-Plasticity, cognitive-performance, exercise, exercise pill, hippocampus, memory function, neurobiology, Neurons, neuroplasticity, neuroscientist, neurotransmitters, neurotrophic factor, Physical-activity, psychiatrist

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