Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

cognitive-performance

Promote brain plasticity and keep your mind at ease by taking your daily “exercise pill”

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As with many oth­er physi­cians, rec­om­mend­ing phys­i­cal activ­i­ty to patients was just a doc­tor chore for me – until a few years ago. That was because I myself was not very active. Over the years, as I picked up box­ing and became more active, I got first­hand expe­ri­ence of pos­i­tive impacts on my mind. I also start­ed research­ing the effects of dance and move­ment ther­a­pies on trau­ma and anx­i­ety in refugee chil­dren, and I learned a lot more about the neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy of exer­cise. [Read more…] about Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill”

Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Overcoming astronauts’ cognitive and mental health challenges

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– Illus­tra­tion by Zoë Van Dijk

Space Between the Ears (Cere­brum):

A few short months ago, news pro­grams around the globe showed NASA engi­neers and sci­en­tists cel­e­brat­ing as a robot named Per­se­ver­ance suc­cess­ful­ly land­ed on the sur­face of Mars. The mis­sion: cap­ture and share images and audio that have nev­er been seen or heard before. As impressed as most observers were of this major mile­stone, many couldn’t help but won­der when we might be ready to some­day send humans. While it seems the stuff of sci­ence fic­tion and almost incon­ceiv­able, the answer—according to recent NASA planning—is before the end of the 2030s, less than two decades away. [Read more…] about Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

Emerging applications of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS): e‑sports skills training, cognitive enhancement in older adults

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10 Min­utes of Elec­tri­cal Stim­u­la­tion Dur­ing Gam­ing Helps Improve e‑Sports Skills (Tech­nol­o­gy Networks):

Researchers at Lero, the Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Ire­land Research Cen­tre for Soft­ware and Uni­ver­si­ty of Lim­er­ick (UL), have found video gamers can sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve their esport skills by train­ing for just 10 min­utes a day.

The research team at Lero’s Esports Sci­ence Research Lab (ESRL) at UL also found novice gamers ben­e­fit­ed most when they wore a cus­tom head­set deliv­er­ing tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) for 20 min­utes before train­ing ses­sions. [Read more…] about Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

Study with 330 centenarians finds that cognitive decline is not inevitable

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Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Age-Relat­ed Cog­ni­tive Decline May Not Be Inevitable (Web­MD):

It is often assumed that a decrease in mem­o­ry and brain func­tion are inevitable parts of aging, but a new study of cen­te­nar­i­ans sug­gests otherwise.

Inves­ti­ga­tors found that despite the pres­ence of neu­ro­log­i­cal issues gen­er­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD), many cen­te­nar­i­ans main­tained high lev­els of cog­ni­tive performance.

(Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.” Her moth­er, who died at age 100, was also cog­ni­tive­ly intact at the end of her life. [Read more…] about Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable

Study: Elders today are in significantly better shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

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Old­er peo­ple have become younger: phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive func­tion have improved mean­ing­ful­ly in 30 years (Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä release):

The func­tion­al abil­i­ty of old­er peo­ple is nowa­days bet­ter when it is com­pared to that of peo­ple at the same age three decades ago. This was observed in a study con­duct­ed at the Fac­ul­ty of Sport and Health Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä, Fin­land. The study com­pared the phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive per­for­mance of peo­ple nowa­days between the ages of 75 and 80 with that of the same-aged peo­ple in the 1990s. [Read more…] about Study: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

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”