memory impairment

On the value and the limits of cognitive screening, as seen in President Trump’s examination

by

Exam­ple clocks, cour­tesy of William Souil­lard-Man­dar et al (2015)

In the News:

Why you may be mis­un­der­stand­ing the men­tal test that Trump passed with fly­ing col­ors (The Wash­ing­ton Post):

“On its sur­face, the Mon­tre­al Cog­ni­tive Assess­ment (MoCA) test seems pret­ty easy. Can you draw a three-dimen­sion­al cube? Can you iden­ti­fy these var­i­ous ani­mals? Can you draw a clock? Can you repeat back the phrase, “The cat always hid under the couch when dogs were in the room”?…The point is not that the test is easy. The point is that an inabil­i­ty to com­plete aspects of the test reveals dif­fer­ent types of men­tal decline. [Read more…] about On the val­ue and the lim­its of cog­ni­tive screen­ing, as seen in Pres­i­dent Trump’s examination

Attention: Why do SuperAgers Maintain Memory and a Thick Cortex?

by

Are brain aging and cog­ni­tive decline ineluctable? Maybe not. Grow­ing research is help­ing iden­ti­fy “Super­Agers” whose brains at 80+ appear as young as the brains of peo­ple in their 50s.

What the lat­est Super­Agers study found

In a recent paper, researchers defined Super­Agers as peo­ple over 80 whose mem­o­ry per­for­mance was at least as good as aver­age 50- to 65-year-old’s per­for­mance. 36 par­tic­i­pants [Read more…] about Atten­tion: Why do Super­Agers Main­tain Mem­o­ry and a Thick Cortex?

Update: Innovation to Upgrade Brain Care

by

Here you have the July107px-gray1197thumbnail edi­tion of our month­ly eNewslet ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this free Brain Fit­ness eNewslet­ter by email, using the box in the right column.

Tech­nol­o­gy to upgrade brain care: In this exten­sive inter­view, Dr. John Docher­ty helps con­nect the dots on why new frame­works and tools are a must to put recent brain research to good use. A must read for all pro­fes­sion­als in the field.

Research

Find­ings from NIH Expert Pan­el: The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging asked Alvaro Fer­nan­dez to com­ment on the find­ings from a major cog­ni­tive health research review by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health. Lifestyle still mat­ters, and pro­tec­tive fac­tors against cog­ni­tive decline are led by cog­ni­tive train­ing, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and cog­ni­tive engagement.

Sci­en­tif­ic cri­tique of BBC brain train­ing exper­i­ment: Dr. Eliz­a­beth Zelin­s­ki shares her con­cerns about the April 2010 BBC study, which includ­ed sub­stan­tial and unex­plained dropout rates, and ques­tion­able out­come mea­sure­ment and interpretation.

The val­ue of being bilin­gual and build­ing a Cog­ni­tive Reserve to pre­serve learn­ing and mem­o­ry even in the face of brain dam­age are explored in recent studies.

San Fran­cis­co Bay Area study seeks par­tic­i­pants: The Gaz­za­ley Lab at UCSF is look­ing for par­tic­i­pants aged 20–59 to explore the impact of dis­trac­tion and mul­ti­task­ing on per­for­mance across the lifespan.


Inno­va­tion

What impressed Inno­va­tion Awards Judg­ing Pan­el: Get some insight into what most impressed the Judg­ing Pan­el about each Win­ner and Final­ist of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards.

New — Sharp­Brains’ 2010 Mar­ket Report:  Sharp­Brains’ flag­ship, 207-page, third annu­al mar­ket report finds con­tin­ued growth for dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to assess, enhance and treat cognition.

To man­age brain fit­ness through life, we need to put puz­zle pieces togeth­er: inno­v­a­tive tools to help us bet­ter mon­i­tor our cog­ni­tive health and take informed action are bad­ly needed.…and already emerging.

The inter­net will fry your brain. Sure: In his lat­est book, Nicholas Carr does a great job high­light­ing the impli­ca­tions of life­long neuro­plasticity, but picks the wrong enemy.

“Seri­ous Games”:  Can video games inspire peo­ple to per­form acts of altru­ism? Kyle Smith reports.

Teasers

Yahoo Opti­cal Illu­sions and teasers: Yahoo! has cre­at­ed an expand­ed sec­tion of illu­sions and teasers, and we were glad to con­tribute to it. Enjoy…and have a great summer!