improve-cognition

Update: A life of cognitive and physical exercise helps you stay sharp in your 70s and beyond

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 13 fas­ci­nat­ing brain research find­ings, use­ful resources–and a brain teas­er to test your atten­tion skills.

#1. Good news of the month: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

#2. A dis­tinc­tion WITH a dif­fer­ence: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve cog­ni­tion over time

#3. “Be mind­ful that with the rapid changes we are expe­ri­enc­ing, our brains are going through accel­er­at­ed learn­ing. Our brains get tired just as our bod­ies would if we ran a marathon with­out train­ing.” How COVID-relat­ed stress can dis­rupt your brain cir­cuits and nine tips to pre­vent it

#4. Yes, Yes, and Yes. To har­ness our best selves, “Tem­per your empa­thy, train your com­pas­sion, and avoid the news”

#5. Things start ear­ly. Marsh­mal­low Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids dis­play more self-con­trol when their rep­u­ta­tion is at stake

#6. Which is why we look for­ward to see­ing 9,000+ stu­dents, plus their many teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors, fur­ther devel­op their unique brains and minds in years ahead: Help­ing shape the future of life­long learn­ing via SEK Edu­ca­tion Group

#7. “… it would cer­tain­ly be pre­ma­ture to sug­gest that mov­ing to a high alti­tude state would improve a child’s ADHD symp­toms. How­ev­er, the find­ings high­light the val­ue of keep­ing an open mind in efforts to under­stand the devel­op­ment of ADHD and the role nat­ur­al envi­ron­ments may play in poten­tial­ly alle­vi­at­ing it.” Study finds sur­pris­ing cor­re­la­tion between states’ ele­va­tion and ADHD prevalence

#9. Time to start pay­ing seri­ous atten­tion to the brain/ cog­ni­tive side effects of com­mon med­ica­tions. Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic predisposition

#10. Fas­ci­nat­ing: “After a 14-day train­ing peri­od … visu­ospa­tial skills improved by 40%. This increase in visu­ospa­tial abil­i­ty was shown to be direct­ly respon­si­ble for a reduc­tion in motion sick­ness by 51% in the sim­u­la­tor … and a 58% reduc­tion in the on-road tri­al.” Study: Self-dri­ving cars will increase motion sickness…unless we retrain our brains to improve visu­ospa­tial skills

#11. Behav­ioral health and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty meet big phar­ma to hope­ful­ly address a huge need. Click Ther­a­peu­tics and Boehringer Ingel­heim part­ner to devel­op and mar­ket a dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to treat schizophrenia

#12. Neu­ralink: Thumbs up or down?

#13. Brain teas­er: Did you notice the numer­i­cal error as it hap­pened? If not, feel free to go back and find it now 🙂

 

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy October,

 

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

Study: Actual, sustained practice–not mere knowledge–is needed to harness neuroplasticity and improve cognition over time

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Lifestyle improve­ments may lessen cog­ni­tive decline (Wiley):

” … 19 indi­vid­u­als old­er than 65 years of age who were expe­ri­enc­ing cog­ni­tive decline were ran­dom­ized to a con­trol group or an inter­ven­tion group for 8 weeks. The con­trol group received online infor­ma­tion relat­ed to demen­tia and lifestyle risk fac­tors, Mediter­ranean diet, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, and cog­ni­tive engage­ment. Par­tic­i­pants were instruct­ed to imple­ment this infor­ma­tion into their own lifestyles. The inter­ven­tion group received the same online infor­ma­tion, plus active com­po­nents to assist with imple­ment­ing this infor­ma­tion into their lifestyles: dietit­ian ses­sions, an exer­cise phys­i­ol­o­gist ses­sion, and online brain train­ing. [Read more…] about Study: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve cog­ni­tion over time

Study: Only 5% of US children ages 8–11 follow screen time, sleep and exercise guidelines recommended for brain development

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Lim­it­ing chil­dren’s screen time linked to bet­ter cog­ni­tion, study says (CNN):

“Lim­it­ing kids’ recre­ation­al screen time to less than two hours a day, along with suf­fi­cient sleep and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, is asso­ci­at­ed with improved cog­ni­tion, accord­ing to a study pub­lished in The Lancet Child & Ado­les­cent Health.

The study includ­ed about 4,500 US chil­dren ages 8 to 11 and mea­sured their habits against the Cana­di­an 24-Hour Move­ment Guide­lines for Chil­dren and Youth. It found that [Read more…] about Study: Only 5% of US chil­dren ages 8–11 fol­low screen time, sleep and exer­cise guide­lines rec­om­mend­ed for brain development

Think twice before taking Aderall for cognitive enhancement: It may actually impair working memory and other cognitive abilities

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ADHD drugs do not improve cog­ni­tion in healthy col­lege stu­dents (Sci­enceDai­ly):

“Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief across col­lege cam­pus­es, atten­tion deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD) med­ica­tions may fail to improve cog­ni­tion in healthy stu­dents and actu­al­ly can impair func­tion­ing, accord­ing to a study by researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rhode Island and Brown Uni­ver­si­ty. [Read more…] about Think twice before tak­ing Ader­all for cog­ni­tive enhance­ment: It may actu­al­ly impair work­ing mem­o­ry and oth­er cog­ni­tive abilities

Report finds only 35% of Canadian youth get the physical activity recommended for brain health

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Get­ting kids out­side and active could help with brain health: Par­tic­i­paction report (The Globe and Mail):

“The phys­i­cal ben­e­fits of kids lead­ing an active lifestyle, includ­ing bet­ter heart health and a decreased risk of devel­op­ing Type 2 dia­betes, are well known. But a grow­ing body of research sug­gests there are sig­nif­i­cant men­tal ben­e­fits as well, whether it’s low­er­ing stress lev­els or help­ing to treat anx­i­ety and depres­sion. A new report released by Par­tic­i­paction on Tues­day draws atten­tion to this link, [Read more…] about Report finds only 35% of Cana­di­an youth get the phys­i­cal activ­i­ty rec­om­mend­ed for brain health

Research trend: Combining brain stimulation with cognitive training to enhance attention and memory

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In 47 CE, Scri­bo­nius Largus, court physi­cian to the Roman emper­or Claudius, described in his Com­po­si­tiones a method for treat­ing chron­ic migraines: place tor­pe­do fish on the scalps of patients to ease their pain with elec­tric shocks. Largus was on the right path; our brains are com­prised of elec­tri­cal sig­nals that influ­ence how brain cells com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er and in turn affect cog­ni­tive process­es such as mem­o­ry, emo­tion and attention.

The sci­ence of brain stim­u­la­tion – alter­ing elec­tri­cal sig­nals in the brain – has, need­less to say, changed in the past 2,000 years. Today we have a hand­ful of [Read more…] about Research trend: Com­bin­ing brain stim­u­la­tion with cog­ni­tive train­ing to enhance atten­tion and memory