Study: Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers

Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve could pro­tect against mem­o­ry and think­ing decline, even with low child­hood cog­ni­tion scores (Alzheimer’s Research UK): New research sug­gests that peo­ple who devel­op high ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ by the time they reach 69 years old may reduce their like­li­hood of mem­o­ry and think­ing decline, even with low child­hood cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. The study was…

Read More

Q&A with researcher Robb Rutledge on mental health, expectations, decision-making and, yes, holiday planning!

Have you ever looked for­ward to a con­cert, beach vaca­tion, or par­ty only to find your­self not enjoy­ing it as much as you thought you would? You may be suf­fer­ing from over­ly high expec­ta­tions, says psy­chol­o­gist Robb Rut­ledge of Yale Uni­ver­si­ty. Rut­ledge and his col­leagues have been using smart­­phone-based data col­lec­tion (via a free app called…

Read More

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

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…

Read More

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

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…

Read More

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

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…

Read More