Pros and Cons of using four nootropics–caffeine, creatine, L‑theanine, Ashwaghanda–as cognitive enhancers

By The Conversation | June 18, 2024 |

Humans have long been search­ing for a “mag­ic elixir” to make us smarter, and improve our focus and mem­o­ry. This includes tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese med­i­cine used thou­sands of years ago to improve cog­ni­tive func­tion. Now we have nootrop­ics, also known as smart drugs, brain boost­ers or cog­ni­tive enhancers. You can buy these gum­mies, chew­ing gums, pills…

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Evidence review: Physical exercise helps boost attention, cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control in children and adolescents with ADHD

By Dr. David Rabiner | August 23, 2023 |

The impact of phys­i­cal exer­cise on ADHD has been exam­ined in a large num­ber of stud­ies. Col­lec­tive­ly, these stud­ies have exam­ined whether exer­cise reduces on core ADHD symp­toms, e.g., inat­ten­tion and hyperactivity/impulsivity, and strength­ens exec­u­tive func­tions, e.g., inhibito­ry con­trol, work­ing mem­o­ry, and men­tal health, e.g., emo­tion­al and social func­tion­ing. Over­all, results across mul­ti­ple stud­ies suggest…

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

By The Conversation | January 11, 2023 |

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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Veterans Affairs won’t cover Biogen’s new “Alzheimer’s drug” given concerns over safety and lack of evidence

By SharpBrains | August 16, 2021

VA Health Sys­tem Won’t Cov­er Biogen’s Alzheimer’s Drug (The Wall Street Jour­nal): The Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs won’t cov­er Bio­gen Inc.’s new Alzheimer’s drug, the lat­est rebuke of the con­tro­ver­sial treat­ment since it was approved ear­li­er this sum­mer. The VA decid­ed not add the drug, called Aduhelm, to its for­mu­la­ry list of avail­able med­i­cines because…

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On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

By SharpBrains | April 30, 2021

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fit­ness. #1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study :-) Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in researching…

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