cognitively

Study: Artificial intelligence program identifies linguistic markers that predict, with 70% accuracy, who gets Alzheimer’s Disease years later

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Fig. 3. Cook­ie-theft pic­ture descrip­tion task (CTT) exam­ples from the Fram­ing­ham Heart Study, includ­ing an unim­paired sam­ple (a), an impaired sam­ple (b), and an even more impaired sam­ple show­ing sig­nif­i­cant mis­spellings and min­i­mal gram­mat­ic com­plex­i­ty ©. Cred­it: Eyigoz et al (2020)

Alzheimer’s Pre­dic­tion May Be Found in Writ­ing Tests (The New York Times):

… the researchers looked at a group of 80 men and women in their 80s — half had Alzheimer’s and the oth­ers did not. But, sev­en and a half years ear­li­er, all had been cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal. [Read more…] about Study: Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram iden­ti­fies lin­guis­tic mark­ers that pre­dict, with 70% accu­ra­cy, who gets Alzheimer’s Dis­ease years later

Anticholinergic drugs found to significantly increase risk of cognitive decline, especially among those with Alzheimer’s Disease biomarkers or genetic predisposition

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Com­mon Class of Drugs Linked to Increased Risk of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (UC San Diego release):

A team of sci­en­tists, led by researchers at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego School of Med­i­cine, report that a class of drugs used for a broad array of con­di­tions, from aller­gies and colds to hyper­ten­sion and uri­nary incon­ti­nence, may be asso­ci­at­ed with an increased risk of cog­ni­tive decline, par­tic­u­lar­ly in old­er adults at greater risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) … cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal study par­tic­i­pants who were tak­ing at least one anti­cholin­er­gic drug at base­line were 47 per­cent more like­ly to devel­op mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI), often a pre­cur­sor to demen­tia such as AD, while being tracked over a peri­od of up to a decade com­pared to par­tic­i­pants who did not take such drugs. [Read more…] about Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic predisposition

Next: Smell tests to help detect brain injury and neurodegenerative ailments

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smell_systemSmell Tests Could One Day Reveal Head Trau­ma and Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Dis­ease (Sci­en­tif­ic American):

“Name that smell—if you can’t, it could be an indi­ca­tor of a prob­lem some­where in your brain. New research sug­gests that scratch-and-sniff smell tests could become [Read more…] about Next: Smell tests to help detect brain injury and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive ailments

Study: Contrasting Brain Growth in Baby Humans and Baby Chimpanzees

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Chart­ing Brain Growth in Humans and Chimps (New York Times):
— “Although baby humans and baby chim­panzees both start out with unde­vel­oped fore­brains, a new study reports that the human brain increas­es in vol­ume much more rapid­ly ear­ly on.”
— “The growth is in a region of the brain known as the pre­frontal cor­tex and is part of what makes humans cog­ni­tive­ly advanced com­pared with oth­er ani­mals, includ­ing the chim­panzee, our clos­est rel­a­tive. The pre­frontal cor­tex plays a major role in deci­sion-mak­ing, self-aware­ness and cre­ative thinking.”

–> To learn more about study Dif­fer­en­tial Pre­frontal White Mat­ter Devel­op­ment in Chim­panzees and Humans: click Here (requires subscription).

–> To explore what may have hap­pened oth­er­wise, you may want to watch the new movie Rise of the Plan­et of the Apes.

Hourglass: Biology of Aging blog carnival

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Wel­come to the 8th edi­tion of Hour­glass, the blog car­ni­val devot­ed to biogeron­tol­ogy. Enjoy!

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Use It or Lose It 

Exis­tence is Won­der­ful,
by Anne C.		 Nei­ther A Tran­shu­man­ist Nor a “Pes­simist”, And That’s Okay
“I can’t sur­vive cog­ni­tive­ly in envi­ron­ments that force every­thing into false dichotomies, and nobody should feel hurt, slight­ed, or bit­ter because of my doing what I need to do for the sake of being able to actu­al­ly use my brain.”
“Just because I think superla­tiv­i­ty tends to dis­tort dia­logue and make it dif­fi­cult to focus on what can actu­al­ly be done in the real world does not mean I dis­par­age the pow­er of human imag­i­na­tion or our capac­i­ty to change things for the better.”

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Cog­ni­tive Enhance­ment, Health and Assessments

Ouroboros,
by Chris Patil
 Bet­ter think­ing through chemistry
“I sus­pect that the struc­ture of argu­ments about cog­ni­tive enhance­ment will mir­ror those of future debates regard­ing lifes­pan extension.”
Fight Aging,

by “Rea­son”


 A View of the Enhance­ment Debate
“A great many peo­ple grow up with what they know — hav­ing things far bet­ter than their par­ents, despite the efforts of past lud­dites who strived to block advance­ments — and then spend the rest of their lives fight­ing against vision­ar­ies who are try­ing to make things even better.”
Sharp­Brains,
by Alvaro Fernandez
 Ten Reflec­tions on Cog­ni­tive Health and Assessments
“Cog­ni­tive health is a crit­i­cal fac­tor in over­all health­care, but is often approached in a frag­ment­ed, non-sys­tem­at­ic way. We lack of a com­mon frame­work and tax­on­o­my to define the prob­lem and iden­ti­fy solu­tions and inter­ven­tions to mea­sure and help main­tain cog­ni­tive health across the lifespan.”

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The Ben­e­fits of Caloric Restric­tion [Read more…] about Hour­glass: Biol­o­gy of Aging blog carnival