memory

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

Study: Education and lifestyle helped over a million older Americans avoid serious cognitive problems in 2017

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Study: More U.S. seniors, espe­cial­ly women, retain­ing health brains (UPI):

The per­cent­age of old­er Amer­i­cans report­ing seri­ous prob­lems with mem­o­ry and think­ing has declined in recent years — and high­er edu­ca­tion lev­els may be part of the rea­son, a new study finds. [Read more…] about Study: Edu­ca­tion and lifestyle helped over a mil­lion old­er Amer­i­cans avoid seri­ous cog­ni­tive prob­lems in 2017

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?

On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

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Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fitness.

#1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study 🙂

Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.”

#2. Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Lisa Gen­o­va, author of the beau­ti­ful nov­el Still Alice, releas­es non-fic­tion book on Mem­o­ry: “It is sober­ing to real­ize that three out of four pris­on­ers who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence were ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. “You can be 100 per­cent con­fi­dent in your vivid mem­o­ry,” Gen­o­va writes, “and still be 100 per­cent wrong” … Gen­o­va assures her read­ers that only two per cent of Alzheimer’s cas­es are of the strict­ly inher­it­ed, ear­ly-onset kind. For most of us, our chances of devel­op­ing the dis­ease are high­ly amenable to interventions…”

#3. Time­ly tips for the week­end: Shape your envi­ron­ment, shape your mind

  • Sur­round your­self with nature
  • Cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for awe
  • Clear the clutter

#4. “For a mis­sion to suc­ceed, high men­tal and cog­ni­tive func­tion would be absolute­ly crit­i­cal; astro­nauts would be called on to per­form demand­ing tasks in a demand­ing envi­ron­ment. Los­ing 20 IQ points halfway to Mars is not an option … Stress—an emo­tion­al or men­tal state result­ing from tense or over­whelm­ing circumstances—and the body’s response to it, which involves mul­ti­ple sys­tems, from metab­o­lism to mus­cles to memory—may be the chief chal­lenge that astro­nauts face.” Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

#5. Study: Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion … mak­ing it more accu­rate (based on a cool opti­cal illusion)

#6. It’s good to have more tools in the neu­ro toolkit…assuming we use them wise­ly: Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

#7. Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)

#8. Men­tal Health in the Dig­i­tal Age: From dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to per­son­al­ized men­tal health solu­tions: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics expands plat­form via part­ner­ships with Empat­i­ca, etec­tRx, Key­Wise, and Winterlight

#9. The award was won last year by Indi­an vil­lage teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale; who will be next? Final day to nom­i­nate teach­ers for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize 2021

#10. And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, let’s wel­come Men­tal Health Month (May) by appre­ci­at­ing our beau­ti­ful brains

Wish­ing you a men­tal­ly healthy and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Neuroscientist Lisa Genova, author of the beautiful novel Still Alice, releases non-fiction book on Memory

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A Neuroscientist’s Poignant Study of How We For­get Most Things in Life (The New Yorker):

Any study of mem­o­ry is, in the main, a study of its frailty. In “Remem­ber,” an engross­ing sur­vey of the lat­est research, Lisa Gen­o­va explains that a healthy brain quick­ly for­gets most of what pass­es into con­scious aware­ness. The frag­ments of expe­ri­ence that do get encod­ed into long-term mem­o­ry are then sub­ject to “cre­ative edit­ing.” To remem­ber an event is to reimag­ine it; in the reimag­in­ing, we inad­ver­tent­ly intro­duce new infor­ma­tion, often col­ored by our cur­rent emo­tion­al state. A dream, a sug­ges­tion, and even the mere pas­sage of time can warp a mem­o­ry. It is sober­ing to real­ize that three out of four pris­on­ers who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence were ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. “You can be 100 per­cent con­fi­dent in your vivid mem­o­ry,” Gen­o­va writes, “and still be 100 per­cent wrong.” [Read more…] about Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Lisa Gen­o­va, author of the beau­ti­ful nov­el Still Alice, releas­es non-fic­tion book on Memory

Fun brain teaser to test your cognitive skills during International Brain Teaser Month

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Mem­o­ry relies most­ly on the tem­po­ral lobes (see green area) and also the frontal lobes (red), Temporal lobe Frontal Lobeso those are the areas that will get some good neu­ronal acti­va­tion when read­ers raised in the US try to remem­ber the miss­ing words in the Amer­i­can proverbs below.

Now, if you were raised out­side the US and are not famil­iar with those proverbs you will have to use your rea­son­ing skills more than your mem­o­ry skills — In that case, frontal lobe acti­va­tion will be wider and more intense.

Con­verse­ly, if you were raised in the US you will find the inter­na­tion­al proverbs below to be more chal­leng­ing. You will not be able to remem­ber them, as you prob­a­bly nev­er learned them, but you should be able to fig­ure them out for extra frontal lobe, cog­ni­tive exercise.

Here’s the task: Guess the miss­ing words of each US and inter­na­tion­al proverb below. Get a pen and piece of paper and write your answers before you check the solutions 🙂

Ready, Set, Go! [Read more…] about Fun brain teas­er to test your cog­ni­tive skills dur­ing Inter­na­tion­al Brain Teas­er Month