MRI

Study: Moderate lifetime drinking may lead to lower Alzheimer-related beta amyloid deposits in the brain

by

__

Mod­er­ate drink­ing tied to low­er lev­els of Alzheimer’s brain pro­tein (Busi­ness Standard):

“Kore­an researchers stud­ied 414 men and women, aver­age age 71, who were free of demen­tia or alco­hol-relat­ed dis­or­ders. All under­went phys­i­cal exams, tests of men­tal acu­ity, and positron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy (PET) and mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) scans. They were care­ful­ly inter­viewed about their drink­ing habits.

The study, in PLOS Med­i­cine, mea­sured drink­ing in “stan­dard drinks” — 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine, or one-and-a-half ounces of hard liquor. Com­pared with abstain­ers, those who drank one to 13 stan­dard drinks a week had a 66 per cent low­er rate of beta amy­loid deposits in their brains. [Read more…] about Study: Mod­er­ate life­time drink­ing may lead to low­er Alzheimer-relat­ed beta amy­loid deposits in the brain

Neuroimaging study finds significant changes in brain structure during long-duration space flight

by

Before (Pan­el A) and After (Pan­el B) long term space flight. Cred­it: The New Eng­land Jour­nal of Medicine.

MRI reveals brain changes dur­ing space mis­sions (Med­ical Physics):

“Astro­nauts liv­ing and work­ing in space will expe­ri­ence the detri­men­tal effects of micro­grav­i­ty on the human body. Astro­nauts aboard the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, for exam­ple, have expe­ri­enced altered vision and increased pres­sure inside their heads, symp­toms termed as [Read more…] about Neu­roimag­ing study finds sig­nif­i­cant changes in brain struc­ture dur­ing long-dura­tion space flight

Next: Brain scans to identify children at high risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) before symptoms appear

by

White arrows indi­cate abnor­mal­i­ties on MRI brain scans in chil­dren with no symp­toms of mul­ti­ple sclerosis.

______________________________

MS risk in chil­dren spot­ted with MRI brain scans (Yale News):

“By the time mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS) is diag­nosed in chil­dren, it may be dif­fi­cult to pre­vent the dis­abil­i­ties and relaps­es that come with the dis­ease. In a new Yale School of Med­i­cine study, researchers exam­ined MRI brain scans to iden­ti­fy chil­dren at high risk of devel­op­ing MS before symp­toms appear, which [Read more…] about Next: Brain scans to iden­ti­fy chil­dren at high risk of devel­op­ing mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS) before symp­toms appear

Study identifies brain circuits enabling four-year-olds to “put themselves in other people’s shoes”

by

Thanks to a crit­i­cal fibre con­nec­tion in the brain (green), four-year-old kids can start to under­stand what oth­er peo­ple think. Cour­tesy of Max Planck Institute.

—–

A remark­able mile­stone occurs in chil­dren around their fourth birth­days: They learn that oth­er peo­ple can have dif­fer­ent thoughts than they do. A recent study is the first to exam­ine the spe­cif­ic brain changes asso­ci­at­ed with this devel­op­men­tal break­through. [Read more…] about Study iden­ti­fies brain cir­cuits enabling four-year-olds to “put them­selves in oth­er people’s shoes”

Monitoring and stimulating brain activity to achieve desired brain state: Key Neurotech Patent #10

by

brain state
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 6,488,617

Today we are shar­ing a 2002 patent describ­ing a sys­tem link­ing brain sig­nal detec­tion to brain stim­u­la­tion techniques.

U.S. Patent No. 6,488,617: Method and device for pro­duc­ing a desired brain state

  • Assignee(s): Uni­ver­sal Hedonics
  • Inventor(s): Bruce F. Katz
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Hybrid
  • Issue Date: Decem­ber 3, 2002

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘617 patent describes a sys­tem link­ing brain sig­nal detec­tion to brain stim­u­la­tion tech­niques with the pur­pose of achiev­ing a desired brain state. [Read more…] about Mon­i­tor­ing and stim­u­lat­ing brain activ­i­ty to achieve desired brain state: Key Neu­rotech Patent #10

The Mediterranean Diet seen to substantially reduce brain shrinkage among older adults

by

mediterraneandiet_brain

—–

Less shrink­age: This is your aging brain on the Mediter­ranean diet (Los Ange­les Times):

“The aging brain is a shrink­ing brain, and a shrink­ing brain is, gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, a brain whose per­for­mance and reac­tion time are declin­ing: That is a harsh real­i­ty of grow­ing older.

But new research shows that brain shrink­age is less pro­nounced in old­er folks whose diets [Read more…] about The Mediter­ranean Diet seen to sub­stan­tial­ly reduce brain shrink­age among old­er adults