hippocampus

Large neuroimaging study finds social isolation to be an early indicator of increased dementia risk

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Why do we get a buzz from being in large groups at fes­ti­vals, jubilees and oth­er pub­lic events? Accord­ing to the social brain hypoth­e­sis, it’s because the human brain specif­i­cal­ly evolved to sup­port social inter­ac­tions. Stud­ies have shown that belong­ing to a group can lead to improved well­be­ing and increased sat­is­fac­tion with life.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly though, many peo­ple are lone­ly or social­ly iso­lat­ed. [Read more…] about Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzuki on the parasympathetic nervous system and harnessing anxiety for good

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Anx­i­ety can feel like a heavy weight that we didn’t ask to car­ry. Who wouldn’t love to get rid of it?

But neu­ro­sci­en­tist Wendy Suzu­ki wants to chal­lenge the way we look at our anx­i­ety. In fact, her new book is called Good Anx­i­ety: Har­ness­ing the Pow­er of the Most Mis­un­der­stood Emo­tion.

If you’re skep­ti­cal, so was I. But Suzuki’s point is that anx­i­ety is a nat­ur­al human emo­tion, one that evolved to serve a pur­pose. We feel anx­ious when there is some kind of dan­ger; it primes our body to fight or flee from that dan­ger, in hopes that we’ll end up bet­ter off (i.e., alive). In the same way, our mod­ern anx­i­eties can be a warn­ing sig­nal for things that are wrong: not enough rest, too much mul­ti­task­ing, iso­la­tion from oth­ers. Our anx­ious ener­gy alerts us to change our lives for the bet­ter, she argues. [Read more…] about Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

Promote brain plasticity and keep your mind at ease by taking your daily “exercise pill”

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As with many oth­er physi­cians, rec­om­mend­ing phys­i­cal activ­i­ty to patients was just a doc­tor chore for me – until a few years ago. That was because I myself was not very active. Over the years, as I picked up box­ing and became more active, I got first­hand expe­ri­ence of pos­i­tive impacts on my mind. I also start­ed research­ing the effects of dance and move­ment ther­a­pies on trau­ma and anx­i­ety in refugee chil­dren, and I learned a lot more about the neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy of exer­cise. [Read more…] about Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill”

The neuroscience behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

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With COVID-19 vac­cines work­ing and restric­tions lift­ing across the coun­try, it’s final­ly time for those now vac­ci­nat­ed who’ve been hun­kered down at home to ditch the sweat­pants and reemerge from their Net­flix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your for­mer social life. [Read more…] about The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

Debate: Are depression and dementia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

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Every sev­en sec­onds, some­one in the world is diag­nosed with demen­tia. A typ­i­cal case that I often see in my prac­tice is as fol­lows: A 76-year-old woman has a two-year his­to­ry of pro­gres­sive wors­en­ing of short-term mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tive decline. She can’t recall the names of her grand­chil­dren and is dev­as­tat­ed by her dete­ri­o­rat­ing abilities.

How­ev­er, this is not the first time in her life that she has had feel­ings of loss and despair. Over the past 30 years, she has inter­mit­tent­ly strug­gled with depres­sion and anx­i­ety. Her fam­i­ly has many ques­tions: Does she have demen­tia or Alzheimer’s? Could her depres­sion have led to a demen­tia diag­no­sis? Is it only depres­sion and not demen­tia? These are all good ques­tions and the col­lec­tive answer to them is “yes.” [Read more…] about Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

Neurostimulation device GammaSense by Cognito Therapeutics secures FDA Breakthrough Device Designation to explore Alzheimer’s Disease applications

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Cred­it: The Picow­er Insti­tute @ MIT

Cog­ni­to Ther­a­peu­tics nets FDA break­through label for light, sound ther­a­py for Alzheimer’s dis­ease (Fierce Biotech):

Using spe­cif­ic fre­quen­cies of flash­ing lights and sounds to stim­u­late the brain’s elec­tri­cal activ­i­ty, Cog­ni­to Ther­a­peu­tics believes it can help treat Alzheimer’s dis­ease by ener­giz­ing neu­rons and reac­ti­vat­ing the immune system.

[Read more…] about Neu­rostim­u­la­tion device Gam­maSense by Cog­ni­to Ther­a­peu­tics secures FDA Break­through Device Des­ig­na­tion to explore Alzheimer’s Dis­ease applications