cognitive-abilities

Study: A combined cognitive-physical training approach may enhance both mind and body as we age

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A com­bined cog­ni­tive and fit­ness train­ing helps restore old­er adults’ atten­tion abil­i­ties to young adult lev­els (Psy­Post):

A new study found promis­ing results for a com­bined phys­i­cal fit­ness and cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tion designed to enhance neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty in old­er adults. Using a motion-cap­ture video game, the inter­ven­tion appeared to reme­di­ate age-relat­ed declines in atten­tion. The find­ings were pub­lished in the jour­nal npj Aging. [Read more…] about Study: A com­bined cog­ni­tive-phys­i­cal train­ing approach may enhance both mind and body as we age

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

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

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Source: UAB researcher David Vance

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 pub­lished today in Neu­rol­o­gy, the med­ical jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Study: Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve helps delay mem­o­ry and think­ing decline regard­less of genet­ic or child­hood markers

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

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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

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

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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)

From “Eminence-based” to Evidence-based cognitive & mental healthcare: Time for quality and accountability

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news, two excel­lent new books and a few fun brain teasers.

#1. From “Emi­nence-based” to Evi­dence-based men­tal health­care: Time to focus on qual­i­ty and accountability

“The real chal­lenge is not find­ing a ther­a­pist, it’s find­ing a ther­a­pist who knows how to pro­vide the treat­ments that work. In the ear­ly 2000s, Myr­na Weiss­man was try­ing to under­stand why so few ther­a­pists use sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based treat­ments. She found that over 60 per­cent of pro­fes­sion­al schools of psy­chol­o­gy and master’s lev­el social work pro­grams did not include any super­vised train­ing for any sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based ther­a­py … In con­trast to evi­dence-based care, I call this “emi­nence-based care.” — Dr. Thomas Insel in his excel­lent new book

#2. Anoth­er great new book to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2022

“Spain played a unique role in Cajal’s discoveries—that is, in the pro­gres­sion of neu­ro­science. The coun­try was not a hotbed of sci­en­tif­ic research. Lack­ing men­tors, Cajal near­ly aban­doned his efforts. But work­ing inde­pen­dent­ly may have forged his auton­o­my and freed him from the influ­ence of tra­di­tion­al the­o­ries. He also longed to dis­prove the stereo­types about Spain. “One could admit that Spain pro­duces some genius artist, such as a long-haired poet or ges­tic­u­lat­ing dancer of either sex,” Cajal lat­er wrote, “but the idea that a true man of sci­ence would emerge from there was con­sid­ered absurd.” — Fas­ci­nat­ing insights into the “father of mod­ern neuroscience”

#3. UT-Dal­las Brain­Health presents vir­tu­al talks with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and San­jay Gup­ta next month (April 21th and 26th; both 8:00 – 9:00 PM EDT/ Mia­mi time)

We believe some of you may be interested 🙂

#4. Cana­di­an study finds causal link between time play­ing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symp­toms at age 13

“After con­trol­ling for sex, socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, and ADHD symp­toms at age 12, the week­ly amount video game play report­ed at age 12 pre­dict­ed high­er lev­els of self-report­ed ADHD symp­toms at age 13 … The mag­ni­tude of the effect was not large, but it was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant. In con­trast, high­er lev­els of ADHD symp­toms at age 12 did not pre­dict an increase in video game play one year later.”

#5. From for­est bathing to urban parks: How nature helps pro­tect our well-being dur­ing a pandemic

“Whether we gar­den, have a view of nature out our win­dow, vis­it near­by parks, or even just watch a nature video, we can help our­selves deal with the stress­es and strains of COVID iso­la­tion by giv­ing our­selves and our kids a dose of “Vit­a­min N.”

#6. A con­ver­sa­tion at the fron­tier of dig­i­tal health inno­va­tion, FDA reg­u­la­tions, and cog­ni­tive health

Good to see rec­og­nized the need for “reim­burse­ment inno­va­tion” for emerg­ing dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers & ther­a­peu­tics — the FDA does have both sticks and car­rots to leverage

#7. New DARPA ini­tia­tive aims to har­ness cog­ni­tive sci­ence, sen­sors and machine learn­ing to detect ear­ly brain signs of depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sui­ci­dal ideation

“NEAT is a proof-of-con­cept effort attempt­ing to devel­op a new tool for men­tal and behav­ioral health screen­ing that moves us beyond his­tor­i­cal and cur­rent meth­ods of ques­tions and con­scious­ly fil­tered respons­es … If suc­cess­ful, NEAT will not only sig­nif­i­cant­ly aug­ment behav­ioral health screen­ing, but it could also serve as a new way to assess ulti­mate treat­ment effi­ca­cy, since patients will often tell their clin­i­cians what they think the clin­i­cian wants to hear rather than how they are tru­ly feel­ing.” — Greg Witkop, pro­gram man­ag­er in DARPA’s Defense Sci­ences Office

#8. Sep­a­rat­ing brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becom­ing more urgent by the day

Would you trust claims in A or B or neither?

Final­ly, here’s a selec­tion of fun brain teasers that read­ers have enjoyed the most this year so far:

#9. Where’s the baby?

#10. Can you con­nect these pairs of words?

#11. Want to test your stress level?

#12. Which way is the bus head­ing?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing April … and let’s get some Vit­a­min N (and D) this weekend!

The Sharp­Brains Team