drugs

Update: A Fresh Look at Enhancing Brain & Mental Health Across the Lifespan

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kid brainTime for Sharp­Brains’ May 2013 e‑newsletter, which fea­tures a vari­ety of arti­cles offer­ing a more opti­mistic and evi­dence-based approach to brain and men­tal health than cur­rent practices.

First of all, let us high­light that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can just pub­lished an excel­lent review of our new book. The author sums it up by say­ing that “…I wish I had read this awe­some guide when I was much younger…I find the emerg­ing field of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty immense­ly excit­ing, and guides like this one are both hope­ful and rea­son­able.” As a read­er points out, the word “awe­some” does not appear often in sci­ence-ori­ent­ed publications…so we are espe­cial­ly proud to see the book mer­it such treatment.

New think­ing:

New sci­ence:

New tools:

That’s it for now. Have a stim­u­lat­ing June!

Challenging medical dogma: Mental exercise vs drugs, supplements and physical exercise to prevent cognitive decline

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Brain ThinkerMen­tal exer­cis­es may pre­vent men­tal decline in seniors (CBC News):  “A review released by the Cana­di­an Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion Jour­nal on the pre­ven­tion of cog­ni­tive decline said that med­i­c­i­nal and non-med­i­c­i­nal prod­ucts, and phys­i­cal exer­cise did noth­ing to pre­vent the decline in healthy seniors, but men­tal exer­cis­es [Read more…] about Chal­leng­ing med­ical dog­ma: Men­tal exer­cise vs drugs, sup­ple­ments and phys­i­cal exer­cise to pre­vent cog­ni­tive decline

Drugs for Early-Stage Alzheimer’s?

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Medical-warning-label-concept--42312982Drugs for Ear­ly-Stage Alzheimer’s (good New York Times editorial):

“The Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion has pro­posed low­er­ing the bar for approv­ing drugs to treat peo­ple at the ear­li­est stages of Alzheimer’s dis­ease, before they have devel­oped any seri­ous impair­ment or overt demen­tia. The goal is com­mend­able — to find ways to pre­vent or slow the pro­gres­sion of this ter­ri­ble dis­ease before it can rob peo­ple of their men­tal capac­i­ties. But the pro­pos­al rais­es trou­bling ques­tions as to whether the agency would end up approv­ing drugs that pro­vide lit­tle or no clin­i­cal ben­e­fit yet [Read more…] about Drugs for Ear­ly-Stage Alzheimer’s?

Neurologists prescribing cognitive enhancement drugs to healthy kids and adults?

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Human-brain-pillsAccord­ing to a new posi­tion state­ment by the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy (AAN), pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, “atten­tion-boost­ing,” drugs to healthy chil­dren is mis­guid­ed and not jus­ti­fi­able. Inter­est­ing­ly, a 2009 posi­tion state­ment by AAN still in force today stat­ed that doing so with adult “patients” is both legal and eth­i­cal (includ­ing the remark that “Neu­rol­o­gists who pre­scribe med­ica­tions for the off-label use of neu­roen­hance­ment are act­ing law­ful­ly,” with­out real­ly chal­leng­ing whether the drugs have been proven to be a) effec­tive and b) safe in that con­text). [Read more…] about Neu­rol­o­gists pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment drugs to healthy kids and adults?

Alzheimer’s Disease population to triple: We need smarter research, public health initiatives and lifestyles

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Human brainAccord­ing to a new study, the pop­u­la­tion with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease in the US will triple by 2050: from 4.7 mil­lions in 2010 to 13.8 mil­lions. This empha­sizes the urgent need for more research to find pre­ven­tive mea­sures, and for more enlight­ened pub­lic health ini­tia­tives and indi­vid­ual lifestyles designed to decrease demen­tia risks and delay onset of symptoms.

Between 1993 and 2011, researchers fol­lowed more than 10,000 indi­vid­u­als 65 and old­er. Par­tic­i­pants were inter­viewed and assessed for demen­tia every three years. [Read more…] about Alzheimer’s Dis­ease pop­u­la­tion to triple: We need smarter research, pub­lic health ini­tia­tives and lifestyles

New Report: Human Enhancement and the Future of Work

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Sum­ma­ry of the report just issued by The Roy­al Soci­ety in the UK: “Although the impact of human enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies has been wide­ly debat­ed, until now they have not been con­sid­ered in terms of their impact upon the nature of work…the Acad­e­my of Med­ical Sci­ences, British Acad­e­my, Roy­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing and Roy­al Soci­ety came togeth­er to [Read more…] about New Report: Human Enhance­ment and the Future of Work