Epigenetics research opens potential door to prevent neurodevelopmental disorders

___ Epi­ge­net­ic Changes Guide Devel­op­ment of Dif­fer­ent Brain Regions (Dana Foun­da­tion): “It’s one of the great­est stand­ing mys­ter­ies in neu­ro­science: Giv­en that each cell in the human body con­tains the same DNA, how, exact­ly, does the brain devel­op into dis­tinct func­tion­al regions, sup­port­ed by dif­fer­ent cell types? And how might that devel­op­men­tal pro­gram go awry,…

Read More

Understand your connectome, understand yourself

—– NO ROAD, NO trail can pen­e­trate this for­est. The long and del­i­cate branch­es of its trees lie every­where, chok­ing space with their exu­ber­ant growth. No sun­beam can fly a path tor­tu­ous enough to nav­i­gate the nar­row spaces between these entan­gled branch­es. All the trees of this dark for­est grew from 100 bil­lion seeds planted…

Read More

Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa (Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation): “You’re not a prisoner of your DNA”

What is your cur­rent job title and orga­ni­za­tion, and what excites you the most about work­ing there? As the Found­ing Pres­i­dent and Med­ical Direc­tor at the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion for over 20 years, I am more excit­ed than ever about the pos­si­bil­i­ties for enhanced men­tal per­for­mance and brain longevi­ty for everyone.

Read More

To Be (Your Connectome), or Not to Be (Your Genome)

The brain’s bil­lions of neu­rons resem­ble trees of many species and come in many fan­tas­tic shapes. Only the most deter­mined explor­ers can hope to cap­ture a glimpse of this forest’s inte­ri­or, and even they see lit­tle, and see it poor­ly. Would your con­nec­tome reveal any­thing inter­est­ing about you? Learn about con­nec­tome from this book.

Read More

A Love affair Across Generations: A Lamarckian Reincarnation?

Eric Jensen alert­ed me to a research study pub­lished in the Feb­ru­ary 4th Jour­nal of Neu­ro­science — Trans­gen­er­a­tional Res­cue of a Genet­ic Defect in Long-Term Poten­ti­a­tion and Mem­o­ry For­ma­tion by Juve­nile Enrich­ment. We both had the same ini­tial WOW! feel­ing that we had expe­ri­enced when we first read about the dis­cov­ery of mir­ror neu­rons a…

Read More

Cognitive Health News Roundup

July is shap­ing up to be a fas­ci­nat­ing month, full of cog­ni­tive health research reports and appli­ca­tions. Here you have a roundup, cov­er­ing food for the brain, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, men­tal train­ing and DNA, and more. 1) Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion (Nature Neu­ro­science) “Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain function”,…

Read More