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About 13 years ago, I watched my very vital moth­er die a slow death from Lewy-Body demen­tia. For me, it was a wake­up call. If there were any­thing I could do to stay healthy myself—to avoid the slow decline of an aging brain—I want­ed to do it. But what real­ly helps us stay sharp longer? And how can we sep­a­rate fad ideas from sol­id, evi­dence-based advice around aging? Read the rest of this entry »

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Ready for a Hap­py New Year  and Hap­py New Decade?

Here’s a spe­cial edi­tion of the Sharp­Brains month­ly e‑newsletter fea­tur­ing the lat­est on brain health and men­tal well-being — we hope you enjoy these tips and advice about what to do, and what not to, to pro­mote brain well­ness in 2020 and beyond:

Prac­tice Breath­ing & Com­pas­sion: Three evi­dence-based ways to devel­op a resilient mind

… and a Sport you love: Play sports (smart­ly) for a qui­eter brain

Chal­lenge your friends, often: For bet­ter mem­o­ry and think­ing skills at age 70, play cards and board games from age 11

… for exam­ple by solv­ing big prob­lems togeth­er: Mind­strong Health recruits slew of Sil­i­con Val­ley tal­ent

When in trou­ble, con­sid­er ther­a­py before meds: To treat depres­sion, ther­a­py alone works bet­ter than ther­a­py com­bined with anti­de­pres­sants

… your might even be able to access it pri­vate­ly, online: First Dig­i­tal Health For­mu­la­ry by Express Scripts includes CBT-based pro­grams to treat depres­sion, anx­i­ety and insom­nia

Final­ly, beware “brain-boost­ing” sup­ple­ments, and don’t jump on direct-to-con­sumer tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) unless you under­stand Pros and Cons

… but always keep your mind open to awe and to new ways to tease your brain, see the world around us and even shape it!

Wishing you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year and New Decade,

The SharpBrains Team

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This start­up just raised $8 mil­lion to help busy doc­tors assess the cog­ni­tive health of 50 mil­lion seniors (TechCrunch):

“…star­tups increas­ing­ly rec­og­nize oppor­tu­ni­ties to cater to this aging pop­u­la­tion. Some are devel­op­ing prod­ucts to sell to indi­vid­u­als and their fam­i­ly mem­bers direct­ly; oth­ers are com­ing up with ways to empow­er those who work direct­ly with old­er Amer­i­cans.

BrainCheck, a 20-per­son, Hous­ton-based start­up whose cog­ni­tive health­care prod­uct aims to help physi­cians assess and track the men­tal health of their patients, is among the lat­ter. Investors like what it has put togeth­er, too. Today, the start­up is announc­ing $8 mil­lion in Series A fund­ing co-led by S3 Ven­tures and Ten­sil­i­ty Ven­ture Part­ners. Read the rest of this entry »

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Mem­o­ry Con­test Comes To MIT, Where Brain Sci­en­tists Explain Why Train­ing Works (WBUR):

“For the last few months, 13-year-old Claire Wang of Los Ange­les has been train­ing her mem­o­ry with play­ing cards, phone num­bers, soft­ware — “what­ev­er I can get my hands on,” she says.

She’s been buff­ing up her skills to com­pete in an annu­al sport­ing tour­na­ment where the ath­letes are not phys­i­cal but men­tal. Read the rest of this entry »

—– In the study, both (A) Total medi­al tem­po­ral lobe (MTL) and (B) parahip­pocam­pal thick­ness cor­re­lat­ed inverse­ly with hours of sitting/day, con­trol­ling for age. Ref­er­ence: Sid­darth P et al (2018), Seden­tary behav­ior asso­ci­at­ed with reduced medi­al tem­po­ral lobe thick­ness in mid­dle-aged and old­er adults. PLOS ONE 13(4): e0195549.

Sit­ting is bad for your brain — not just your metab­o­lism or heart (UCLA release):

“UCLA researchers recruit­ed 35 peo­ple ages 45 to 75 and asked about their phys­i­cal activ­i­ty lev­els and the aver­age num­ber of hours per day they spent sit­ting over the pre­vi­ous week. Each per­son had a high-res­o­lu­tion MRI scan, which pro­vides a detailed look at the medi­al tem­po­ral lobe, or MTL, a brain region involved in the for­ma­tion of new mem­o­ries.

The researchers found that seden­tary behav­ior is a sig­nif­i­cant pre­dic­tor of thin­ning of the MTL and Read the rest of this entry »