Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

cognitive-reserve

Study: High Cognitive Reserve (CR) seen to significantly lower dementia risk even in the presence of high Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) neuropathology

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Fig­ure 2. Inci­dence Rates of Demen­tia per 1000 Per­son-Years by Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) Ter­tile and Brain Pathol­o­gy; adjust­ed for age, sex, smok­ing, alco­hol con­sump­tion, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, body mass index, heart dis­ease, hyper­ten­sion, cere­brovas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, and apolipopro­tein E e4. AD indi­cates Alzheimer dis­ease. Source: Xu H et al (2020)

Lifes­pan Cog­ni­tive Reserve—A Secret to Cop­ing With Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Pathol­o­gy (JAMA Neu­rol­o­gy edi­to­r­i­al):

Giv­en the lim­it­ed suc­cess of ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tions for Alzheimer dis­ease, there is increased inter­est in under­stand­ing whether mod­i­fi­able fac­tors can help cope with or post­pone the appear­ance of brain pathol­o­gy. It is esti­mat­ed that about 35% of Alzheimer risk is mod­i­fi­able. Epi­demi­o­log­ic stud­ies have shown that life­time expo­sures to high­er edu­ca­tion, high­er occu­pa­tion­al attain­ment, and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties are asso­ci­at­ed with reduced risk of Alzheimer demen­tia. Autop­sy stud­ies have shown interindi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in the amount of brain pathol­o­gy peo­ple can tol­er­ate before man­i­fest­ing cog­ni­tive impair­ments, and autop­sied brains of about one-third of indi­vid­u­als who are cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal meet neu­ropatho­log­i­cal cri­te­ria for Alzheimer dis­ease. [Read more…] about Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neu­ropathol­o­gy

Study: For better memory and thinking skills at age 70 (and beyond), play cards and board games from age 11

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Cards, board games could ward off cog­ni­tive decline (UPI):

“Play­ing cards and board games like chess, bin­go and Scrab­ble might be the men­tal work­out you need to keep your wits as you age, Scot­tish researchers sug­gest.

Peo­ple in their 70s who reg­u­lar­ly play board games score high­er on tests of mem­o­ry and think­ing skills than those who don’t. And 70-some­things who step up their game-play­ing are more like­ly to main­tain think­ing skills as they age [Read more…] about Study: For bet­ter mem­o­ry and think­ing skills at age 70 (and beyond), play cards and board games from age 11

With pharma exiting Alzheimer’s research, new hope (and urgency) seen in the combination of brain training and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

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What does the future hold for the war on Alzheimer’s? (The Globe and Mail):

“After spend­ing huge sums on clin­i­cal trails in recent years, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try has failed to find a drug that can halt the mind-rob­bing dis­ease. And this month, Pfiz­er announced it is end­ing its Alzheimer’s research, although oth­er com­pa­nies haven’t thrown in the tow­el yet. But oth­er pre­ven­tion mea­sures are being explored.

Sev­er­al Toron­to hos­pi­tals are involved in an ambi­tious $10-mil­lion, five-year study to deter­mine whether a com­bi­na­tion of cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion – men­tal exer­cis­es – plus elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion of the brain can delay [Read more…] about With phar­ma exit­ing Alzheimer’s research, new hope (and urgency) seen in the com­bi­na­tion of brain train­ing and tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS)

New studies reinforce Education and Cognitive Reserve –instead of drugs targeting beta amyloid– as most promising avenue to prolong cognitive health and reduce dementia risk

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dementia-progressionDemen­tia Risk Declines, And Edu­ca­tion May Be One Rea­son Why (NPR):

“Some encour­ag­ing news in the bat­tle against Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia: The rate at which old­er Amer­i­cans are get­ting these con­di­tions is declin­ing. That’s accord­ing to [Read more…] about New stud­ies rein­force Edu­ca­tion and Cog­ni­tive Reserve –instead of drugs tar­get­ing beta amy­loid– as most promis­ing avenue to pro­long cog­ni­tive health and reduce demen­tia risk

Challenging the outdated “fixed brain” dogma, the cognitive training market keeps growing

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brain-scan-impairedThis Man’s Brain Recov­ery Has Baf­fled Sci­en­tists And Pro­vid­ed Hope For Oth­ers (The Tele­graph):

“…The odds of sur­viv­ing a coma are noto­ri­ous­ly hard to pre­dict, brain injury being the most com­plex of prob­lems afflict­ing the most com­plex organ in the body…In Lewis’s case, it took a vil­lage to rebuild his mind [Read more…] about Chal­leng­ing the out­dat­ed “fixed brain” dog­ma, the cog­ni­tive train­ing mar­ket keeps grow­ing

Study: Traumatic Brain Injury patients with high cognitive reserve recover 7 times better

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Car_AccidentPeo­ple with More Edu­ca­tion May Recov­er Bet­ter from Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury (Neu­rol­o­gy):

“The study exam­ined peo­ple with mod­er­ate to severe trau­mat­ic brain injuries, most of which were from motor vehi­cle acci­dents or falls. All were tak­en to [Read more…] about Study: Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury patients with high cog­ni­tive reserve recov­er 7 times bet­ter