cognitive

Study finds sharp decrease (nearly one-third) in the prevalence of dementia among those 65+ in the United States

by Leave a Comment

Demen­tia plum­mets by near­ly one-third among U.S. seniors, RAND says (UPI):

The preva­lence of demen­tia in the Unit­ed States is declin­ing among peo­ple over age 65, falling dra­mat­i­cal­ly from 2000 to 2016, a RAND Corp. study says.

Nation­wide, the age-adjust­ed preva­lence of demen­tia fell to 8.5% of peo­ple over age 65 in 2016, down by near­ly one-third from 12.2% of peo­ple over age 65 in 2000, accord­ing to the researchers. [Read more…] about Study finds sharp decrease (near­ly one-third) in the preva­lence of demen­tia among those 65+ in the Unit­ed States

Study: Building muscle mass helps delay cognitive decline beyond the value of exercise itself

by Leave a Comment

A new rea­son to build mus­cle: brain health (The Globe and Mail):

… a recent study from researchers at McGill Uni­ver­si­ty, pub­lished in the jour­nal JAMA Net­work Open, offers a new rea­son for con­tin­u­ing to work on build­ing mus­cle: It’s good for your brain, not just your biceps. Greater mus­cle mass, the results sug­gest, helps ward off cog­ni­tive decline in old­er adults beyond what you’d expect based on their exer­cise lev­els alone. [Read more…] about Study: Build­ing mus­cle mass helps delay cog­ni­tive decline beyond the val­ue of exer­cise itself

Digital therapeutics pioneer Akili Interactive Labs goes public, raising $150M+; trades down 49% first day

by

Akili Inter­ac­tive is the lat­est com­pa­ny to go pub­lic via SPAC deal (Boston Busi­ness Journal):

Boston’s Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs Inc. is the lat­est Mass­a­chu­setts-based com­pa­ny to go pub­lic after com­plet­ing a reverse merg­er — in a year of mar­ket tur­moil that saw few local firms pass­ing the thresh­old between pri­vate and pub­lic status.

Shares of Akili start­ed trad­ing on Mon­day on the Nas­daq Cap­i­tal Mar­ket under the new tick­er sym­bol “AKLI” after the com­pa­ny com­plet­ed its pre­vi­ous­ly announced reverse merg­er with Social Cap­i­tal Suvret­ta Hold­ings Corp. I (Nas­daq: DNAA), a spe­cial pur­pose acqui­si­tion com­pa­ny, or SPAC. [Read more…] about Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pio­neer Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs goes pub­lic, rais­ing $150M+; trades down 49% first day

Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

by

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use 🙂

#1. Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)

“Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact of dif­fer­ent types of screen time (watch­ing, social­iz­ing, or gam­ing) on children’s intel­li­gence while con­trol­ling for the con­found­ing effects of genet­ic dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tion and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus … Broad­ly, our results are in line with research on the mal­leabil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties from envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, such as cog­ni­tive train­ing and the Fly­nn effect.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing! Hav­ing said that…

#2. Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

“Social inter­ac­tion is huge­ly impor­tant. One study found that the size of our social group is actu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the vol­ume of the orbitofrontal cor­tex (involved in social cog­ni­tion and emo­tion). But how many friends do we need? … It is hard to argue with the fact that humans are social ani­mals and gain enjoy­ment from con­nect­ing with oth­ers, what­ev­er age we are. But, as we are increas­ing­ly uncov­er­ing, it also cru­cial for the health of our cognition.”

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

“Some peo­ple do very well in train­ing, such as play­ing a video game, but they don’t show near trans­fer, per­haps because they are using high­ly spe­cif­ic strate­gies,” said first author Anja Pahor … “For these peo­ple, far trans­fer is unlike­ly. By bet­ter under­stand­ing why this type of mem­o­ry train­ing or ‘inter­ven­tion’ works for some peo­ple but not oth­ers, we can move for­ward with a new gen­er­a­tion of work­ing-mem­o­ry train­ing games or use approach­es that are more tai­lored to indi­vid­u­als’ needs”

#4. Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

“In our ongo­ing large-scale study (note: the one right above) we aim to recruit 30,000 adults who are moti­vat­ed and will­ing to help us bet­ter under­stand the fac­tors that under­lie learn­ing out­comes using a vari­ety of train­ing par­a­digms and out­come mea­sures. Our endeav­or will ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the per­son­al­iza­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing so that, hope­ful­ly, any­one who would like to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing will be able to choose the approach that may fit them best.” — researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Irvine/ Riverside

#5. Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

Esports are bor­row­ing a page from Pro Sports’ book … we would­n’t be sur­prised to see the inverse tak­ing place too in just a few years.

#6. Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

“For those with­out severe men­tal ill­ness, app-based ther­a­py may be help­ful in match­ing clients with a pro­fes­sion­al famil­iar with a range of prob­lems and stres­sors. This makes apps attrac­tive to those with anx­i­ety and mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion. They also appeal to peo­ple who wouldn’t ordi­nar­i­ly seek out office-based ther­a­py, but who want help with life issues such as mar­i­tal prob­lems and work-relat­ed stress.”

#7. AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

Let’s talk!

#8. And here’s the Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and fun summer!

Large neuroimaging study finds social isolation to be an early indicator of increased dementia risk

by

Why do we get a buzz from being in large groups at fes­ti­vals, jubilees and oth­er pub­lic events? Accord­ing to the social brain hypoth­e­sis, it’s because the human brain specif­i­cal­ly evolved to sup­port social inter­ac­tions. Stud­ies have shown that belong­ing to a group can lead to improved well­be­ing and increased sat­is­fac­tion with life.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly though, many peo­ple are lone­ly or social­ly iso­lat­ed. [Read more…] about Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

Study finds that playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial for children than other forms of screentime (social media, watching videos/ TV)

by

Many par­ents feel guilty when their chil­dren play video games for hours on end. Some even wor­ry it could make their chil­dren less clever. And, indeed, that’s a top­ic sci­en­tists have clashed over for years.

In our new study, we inves­ti­gat­ed how video games affect the minds of chil­dren, inter­view­ing and test­ing more than 5,000 chil­dren aged ten to 12. And the results, pub­lished in Sci­en­tif­ic Reports, will be sur­pris­ing to some. [Read more…] about Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)