The Mindful Body argues against mindlessly accepting age-related decline in cognition and health as inevitable

In 1979, Har­vard researcher Ellen Langer invit­ed elder­ly men to spend a week at a retreat designed to remind them of their younger days, sur­round­ed by the art, music, food, games, décor, and more from the late 1950s. After­ward, the men were test­ed and found to have made sig­nif­i­cant gains in hear­ing, mem­o­ry, dex­ter­i­ty, posture,…

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Hopes and Questions raised by Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi (lecanemab)

The FDA has approved Leqem­bi, the first dis­­ease-mod­­i­­fy­ing treat­ment for ear­­ly-stage Alzheimer’s and a pre­cur­sor con­di­tion, mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment. Medicare has said it will pay for the ther­a­py. Med­ical cen­ters across the coun­try are scram­bling to final­ize poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for pro­vid­ing the med­ica­tion to patients, pos­si­bly by summer’s end or ear­ly autumn. It’s a…

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Reading for pleasure during childhood may lead to higher brain/ cognitive development and mental well-being during adolescence

Ear­ly child­hood is a crit­i­cal peri­od for brain devel­op­ment, which is impor­tant for boost­ing cog­ni­tion and men­tal well­be­ing. Good brain health at this age is direct­ly linked to bet­ter men­tal heath, cog­ni­tion and edu­ca­tion­al attain­ment in ado­les­cence and adult­hood. It can also pro­vide resilience in times of stress. But, sad­ly, brain devel­op­ment can be hampered…

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Alto Neuroscience raises $60M (equity + credit) to help fix the “trial and error” approach to psychiatric medication

Alto Neu­ro­science bags $25M for four Phase II drugs (End­points News): Anoth­er $25 mil­lion is flow­ing the way of a Cal­i­for­nia biotech attempt­ing to fix the “tri­al and error” sys­tem in neu­ro­science drug R&D. Alto Neu­ro­science picked up the cap­i­tal from Alpha Wave Ven­tures via an exten­sion to its Series B, bring­ing total equi­ty raised…

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Ballroom dancing can reduce aging-related brain atrophy in the hippocampus (and, more than treadmill walking!)

Social ball­room danc­ing can improve cog­ni­tive func­tions and reduce brain atro­phy in old­er adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. That’s the key find­ing of my team’s recent­ly pub­lished study in the Jour­nal of Aging and Phys­i­cal Activ­i­ty. In our study, we enrolled 25 adults over 65 years…

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