Cognitive Aging

Complex occupations help protect our brains from aging-related cognitive decline

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Cog­ni­tive aging: Work helps our brain (AAAS):

A recent study shows that work plays an active role in keep­ing our brains healthy. “We have demon­strat­ed the role of work­ing activ­i­ty on cog­ni­tive per­for­mance”. Pro­fes­sor Raf­fael­la Rumiati says … “Many stud­ies have been focused on the fac­tors influ­enc­ing our brain aging and dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive decline have been often observed in asso­ci­a­tion with edu­ca­tion or oth­er relat­ed to qual­i­ty of life. From our analy­sis it emerges that the type of work activ­i­ty also con­tributes to the dif­fer­ences in nor­mal and patho­log­i­cal cog­ni­tive aging”. [Read more…] about Com­plex occu­pa­tions help pro­tect our brains from aging-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline

Debate: What is the role of financial advisors and platforms in detecting and addressing cognitive decline among older clients?

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Baby Boomers’ Biggest Finan­cial Risk: Cog­ni­tive Decline (The Wall Street Journal):

For baby boomers who man­age their own nest eggs, a risk is loom­ing that has noth­ing to do with stock prices or inter­est rates.

The risk is cog­ni­tive decline, which can rob them of their judg­ment, often with­out much warn­ing. One big mistake—or a series of small­er ones—can go unno­ticed by loved ones, and poten­tial­ly rav­age a life­time of hard-earned sav­ings. [Read more…] about Debate: What is the role of finan­cial advi­sors and plat­forms in detect­ing and address­ing cog­ni­tive decline among old­er clients?

Jobs with low physical stress and good working conditions linked to larger hippocampus and better memory

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CSU study links phys­i­cal stress on the job with brain and mem­o­ry decline in old­er age (press release):

A new study out of Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty has found that phys­i­cal stress in one’s job may be asso­ci­at­ed with faster brain aging and poor­er memory.

Aga Burzyn­s­ka, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Human Devel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Stud­ies, and her research team con­nect­ed occu­pa­tion­al sur­vey respons­es with brain-imag­ing data from 99 cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal old­er adults, age 60 to 79. They found that those who report­ed high lev­els of phys­i­cal stress in their most recent job had small­er vol­umes in the hip­pocam­pus and per­formed poor­er on mem­o­ry tasks. The hip­pocam­pus is the part of the brain that is crit­i­cal for mem­o­ry and is affect­ed in both nor­mal aging and in dementia.

[Read more…] about Jobs with low phys­i­cal stress and good work­ing con­di­tions linked to larg­er hip­pocam­pus and bet­ter memory

Brain scans show lower accumulation of tau and amyloid pathology among cognitive “super-agers”

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– Tau (blue) and amy­loid (orange) dis­tri­b­u­tion pat­terns for super-agers, nor­mal-agers and MCI patients, when com­pared to a group of younger, healthy, cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal, amy­loid-neg­a­tive indi­vid­u­als. Cred­it: Mer­le C. Hoenig.

Super-Agers Show Resis­tance to Tau and Amy­loid Accu­mu­la­tion, Main­tain High Cog­ni­tive Func­tion (Soci­ety of Nuclear Med­i­cine and Mol­e­c­u­lar Imag­ing press release):

Super-agers, or indi­vid­u­als whose cog­ni­tive skills are above the norm even at an advanced age, have been found to have increased resis­tance to tau and amy­loid pro­teins, accord­ing to research pre­sent­ed at the Soci­ety of Nuclear Med­i­cine and Mol­e­c­u­lar Imag­ing (SNMMI) 2020 Annu­al Meet­ing. An analy­sis of positron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy (PET) scans has shown that com­pared to nor­mal-agers and those with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment, super-agers have a low­er bur­den of tau and amy­loid pathol­o­gy asso­ci­at­ed with neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion, which prob­a­bly allows them to main­tain their cog­ni­tive per­for­mance. An image show­ing the com­par­i­son of tau and amy­loid dis­tri­b­u­tion pat­terns in these dif­fer­ent cog­ni­tive aging tra­jec­to­ries has been select­ed as SNMMI’s 2020 Image of the Year. [Read more…] about Brain scans show low­er accu­mu­la­tion of tau and amy­loid pathol­o­gy among cog­ni­tive “super-agers”

UW Medicine creates new Institute for Brain Health Solutions focused on cognitive aging, brain wellness and mental health

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$50 mil­lion gift is foun­da­tion for brain dis­or­ders research (UW press release):

“UW Med­i­cine is cre­at­ing the Gar­vey Insti­tute for Brain Health Solu­tions to devel­op effec­tive new treat­ments for brain dis­or­ders, such as depres­sion, post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, addic­tion and Alzheimer’s dis­ease. The foun­da­tion­al $50 mil­lion gift to estab­lish the insti­tute was made by local phil­an­thropists Lynn and Mike Gar­vey [Read more…] about UW Med­i­cine cre­ates new Insti­tute for Brain Health Solu­tions focused on cog­ni­tive aging, brain well­ness and men­tal health

Discuss: Should financial advisors help detect and address their clients’ cognitive decline? And, if so, how?

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What Your Finan­cial Choic­es Say About Your Brain (Finan­cial Advisor):

“…finan­cial advi­sors have to be in the fore­front of the fight against cog­ni­tive decline, which can lead to the finan­cial exploita­tion of the elder­ly,” added Philip Mar­shall, an advo­cate for elder jus­tice. [Read more…] about Dis­cuss: Should finan­cial advi­sors help detect and address their clients’ cog­ni­tive decline? And, if so, how?