Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

cognitive-performance

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”

Study: Across all ideological groups, higher cognitive ability and intellectual humility predicts support for free speech

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Free­dom of Speech: A Right for Every­body, or Only for Like-Mind­ed Peo­ple? (Het­ero­dox Academy):

Free­dom of speech is often con­sid­ered key to a well-func­tion­al democ­ra­cy. In many coun­tries, free­dom of speech is con­sid­ered a more impor­tant demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ue than reg­u­lar elec­tions. But do peo­ple gen­uine­ly believe in the virtues of open debates by sup­port­ing free­dom of speech for every social group? Or do they sup­port free speech only for their own groups? In a recent­ly pub­lished paper in Social Psy­cho­log­i­cal and Per­son­al­i­ty Sci­ence, we aimed to answer these ques­tions, and we sought to explore whether high­er cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty was asso­ci­at­ed with more prin­ci­pled posi­tions on free speech. We expect­ed that peo­ple with high­er cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties would be more inclined to embrace the open exchange of ideas, where­in view­points can be scru­ti­nized and chal­lenged in order to fos­ter informed deci­sion mak­ing and knowledge…

[Read more…] about Study: Across all ide­o­log­i­cal groups, high­er cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty and intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty pre­dicts sup­port for free speech

U.S. Army develops novel way to analyze brain imaging data and shape emerging non-invasive neurotechnology

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Aggre­gate dis­tri­b­u­tion of cor­ti­cal brain-wave activ­i­ty, orga­nized by stan­dard fre­quen­cy bands, across a range of depths. Cred­it: U.S. Army

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Army devel­ops big data approach to neu­ro­science (press release):

“A big data approach to neu­ro­science promis­es to sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve our under­stand­ing of the rela­tion­ship between brain activ­i­ty and performance.

To date, there have been rel­a­tive­ly few attempts to use a big-data approach with­in the emerg­ing field of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy. [Read more…] about U.S. Army devel­ops nov­el way to ana­lyze brain imag­ing data and shape emerg­ing non-inva­sive neurotechnology

Growing concern (and hope) about astronauts’ cognitive health during spaceflight

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NASA astro­naut Scott Kel­ly checks out the Microsoft HoloLens aboard a space sta­tion on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2016. (Pho­to by NASA via Get­ty Images)

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About the con­cern: Brain MRI scans may help NASA plan safer mis­sions to space (Health Imaging):

“Not a lot is known about cog­ni­tive impair­ment in humans dur­ing space­flight,” Don­na R. Roberts, MD, Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty of South Carolina’s Depart­ment of Radi­ol­o­gy, said in a state­ment [Read more…] about Grow­ing con­cern (and hope) about astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive health dur­ing spaceflight

Next: Measuring the impact of space flight on cognitive performance and brain fitness

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The flight that brings space weight­less­ness to Earth (BBC Future):

“Five, four, three, two, one…”

Not many air­craft cap­tains give their pas­sen­gers a rock­et launch-style count­down before take-off, but this is no ordi­nary plane. For starters, every­one on board, apart from the crew, is a sci­en­tist and has passed a full med­ical check – includ­ing a heart assess­ment. This is not a trip for ner­vous fliers [Read more…] about Next: Mea­sur­ing the impact of space flight on cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and brain fitness