forgetfulness

New book outlines the five lifestyle pillars to “build a better brain at any age”

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Like many peo­ple over 60, I some­times lose my keys or for­get the names of favorite films. When I do, it makes me won­der: Is this the begin­ning of cog­ni­tive decline? Or, worse, am I fat­ed to fol­low in the foot­steps of my moth­er, who died of Lewy-body demen­tia in her 70s?

Accord­ing to neu­ro­sur­geon San­jay Gup­ta, CNN med­ical cor­re­spon­dent and author of the new book Keep Sharp: Build­ing a Bet­ter Brain at Any Age, the answer is no. For­get­ful­ness is nor­mal at all ages, and your genes don’t doom you to demen­tia. What’s impor­tant is tak­ing care of your brain in the best way pos­si­ble, he argues.

“You can affect your brain’s think­ing and mem­o­ry far more than you real­ize or appre­ci­ate, and the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple haven’t even begun to try,” he writes.

Gup­ta dis­tills results from hun­dreds of research stud­ies to help read­ers under­stand what’s known (and not known) [Read more…] about New book out­lines the five lifestyle pil­lars to “build a bet­ter brain at any age”

Dr. Gary Small’s The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head: Brain Fog

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(Edi­tor’s Note: what fol­lows is an excerpt from Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vor­gan’s new book, The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head: A Psy­chi­a­trist’s Sto­ries of His Most Bizarre Cas­es)

CHAPTER TEN

Brain Fog

Sum­mer 1990

Gigi and I had moved to Stu­dio City, about a forty-minute com­mute to UCLA. On week­ends, we often went to the movies at Uni­ver­sal City­Walk, a repli­ca­tion of Los Ange­les with­in Los Ange­les. Why peo­ple couldn’t just walk down the real streets of Los Ange­les made no sense to me, yet there we were, on a Fri­day evening, eat­ing ice cream and strolling down a sim­u­lat­ed street.

We had just seen Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new sci­encefic­tion film about a con­struc­tion work­er who under­goes a false mem­o­ry trans­plant that takes him on an imag­i­nary trip to Mars. But things go wrong, and when he comes out of it, he can’t tell what’s real and what’s imagined.

“When he first got back from Mars, there were so many signs that he was from the future that I believed it,” I said.
“But hon­ey, before he had that mem­o­ry implant done, he was per­fect­ly hap­py liv­ing in the present—on Earth. Then he got all paranoid.”
“Of course he did. How do you know what’s real­i­ty if you can’t trust your mem­o­ry?” I asked.
“I don’t know; you’re the mem­o­ry expert. I want to go into this shop for a minute.” Gigi dis­ap­peared into a record store.

As I ate my ice cream and watched the crowds, I kept think­ing about those ques­tions. If two real­i­ties seem equal­ly true, how would you know which ver­sion to believe? Many of my patients strug­gled with sim­i­lar issues, whether they were psy­chot­ic, dement­ed, or sim­ply hav­ing mem­o­ry problems.

Over the past few years, I had begun to con­cen­trate a large part of my prac­tice on mem­o­ry issues—not just in old­er patients with Alzheimer’s dis­ease but in mid­dle-aged peo­ple who were wor­ried about their increas­ing for­get­ful­ness. My research was also focus­ing on ear­ly detec­tion of demen­tia and age-relat­ed mem­o­ry decline, and I was devel­op­ing brain imag­ing as a diag­nos­tic tool.

Gigi came back with a bag of CDs and said [Read more…] about Dr. Gary Small’s The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head: Brain Fog

Alzheimer’s Prevention and Diagnostic Tests

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Brain Health NewsRoundup of sev­er­al insight­ful arti­cles and recent research:

Fish Oil May Help Pre­vent Alzheimer’s (Wash­ing­ton Post)

- “The omega‑3 fat­ty acids found in fish oil might play an impor­tant role in pre­vent­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease, accord­ing to a research team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les (UCLA).”

- “Pub­lish­ing in the Dec. 26 issue of the Jour­nal of Neu­ro­science, the sci­en­tists demon­strat­ed that the omega‑3 fat­ty acid docosa­hexaenoic acid (DHA) increas­es the pro­duc­tion of LR11, a pro­tein that is found at reduced lev­els in Alzheimer’s patients. LR11 is known to destroy the pro­tein that forms the plaques asso­ci­at­ed with the dis­ease, the researchers explained.”
— “Alzheimer’s is a debil­i­tat­ing neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease that caus­es mem­o­ry loss, demen­tia, per­son­al­i­ty change and ulti­mate­ly death. The Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion esti­mates that 5.1 mil­lion Amer­i­cans are cur­rent­ly afflict­ed with the dis­ease. The asso­ci­a­tion pre­dicts that may increase to between 11 mil­lion and 16 mil­lion peo­ple by 2050.”

‘Find­ing Alzheimer’s Before a Mind Fails’ (New York Times)

- “Ms. Ker­ley is part of an ambi­tious new sci­en­tif­ic effort to find ways to detect Alzheimer’s dis­ease at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble moment. Although the dis­ease may seem like a calami­ty that strikes sud­den­ly in old age, sci­en­tists now think it begins long before the mind fails.”

- “Many sci­en­tists believe the best hope of progress, maybe the only hope, lies in [Read more…] about Alzheimer’s Pre­ven­tion and Diag­nos­tic Tests

Brain Coach Answers: Is “placenta brain” real? I can’t remember anything ever since I got pregnant!

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Q: Is “pla­cen­ta brain” real? I am 6 months preg­nant and can’t remem­ber any­thing ever since I got pregnant!

A: Yes, in the third trimester.
[Read more…] about Brain Coach Answers: Is “pla­cen­ta brain” real? I can’t remem­ber any­thing ever since I got pregnant!