MRI

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

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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?

Study: MRI scan technicians can experience negative neurocognitive effects

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MRI work­ers expe­ri­ence tran­sient neu­rocog­ni­tive effects (News Medical):

“Indi­vid­u­als work­ing in the vicin­i­ty of mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) machines may expe­ri­ence tran­sient neu­rocog­ni­tive effects when mov­ing their heads, research demonstrates…Study par­tic­i­pants who com­plet­ed stan­dard­ized [Read more…] about Study: MRI scan tech­ni­cians can expe­ri­ence neg­a­tive neu­rocog­ni­tive effects

Will EEG Data Analysis Help Diagnose Autism?

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Com­put­er analy­sis of EEG pat­terns sug­gests a poten­tial diag­nos­tic test for autism (Eure­ka Sci­ence News):

“Wide­ly avail­able EEG test­ing can dis­tin­guish chil­dren with autism from neu­rotyp­i­cal chil­dren as ear­ly as age 2, finds a study from Boston Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal. The study is the largest, most rig­or­ous study to date to inves­ti­gate EEGs as a poten­tial diag­nos­tic tool for autism, and offers hope for [Read more…] about Will EEG Data Analy­sis Help Diag­nose Autism?

Research on ‘Chemo Brain’: MRI Shows Brain Changes After Chemotherapy

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‘Chemo Brain’: MRI Shows Brain Changes After Chemother­a­py (Med­scape):

- “Breast can­cer sur­vivors who have been treat­ed with chemother­a­py show sig­nif­i­cant changes in brain activ­i­ty, mea­sured by func­tion­al mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (fMRI), accord­ing to a study pub­lished in the Novem­ber issue of the Archives of Neu­rol­o­gy.”

- “The find­ing val­i­dates patients’ claims of reduced cog­ni­tive func­tion after receiv­ing chemother­a­py, a phe­nom­e­non referred to as “chemo brain,” said lead author Shel­li R. Kesler, PhD, from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine in California.”

Link to study Pre­frontal Cor­tex and Exec­u­tive Func­tion Impair­ments in Pri­ma­ry Breast Can­cer (Archives of Neu­rol­o­gy): [Read more…] about Research on ‘Chemo Brain’: MRI Shows Brain Changes After Chemotherapy

Memory Problems? Perhaps you are Multi-tasking

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Today’s kids are into mul­ti-task­ing. This is the gen­er­a­tion hooked on iPods, IM’ing, video games — not to men­tion TV! Many peo­ple in my gen­er­a­tion think it is won­der­ful that kids can do all these things simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and are impressed with their competence.

Well, as a teacher of such kids when they reach col­lege, I am not impressed. Col­lege stu­dents these days have short atten­tion spans and have trou­ble con­cen­trat­ing. They got this way in sec­ondary school. I see this in the mid­dle-school out­reach pro­gram I help run. At this age kids are real­ly wrapped up in mul­ti-task­ing at the expense of focus.

Accord­ing to a Kaiser Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion study last year, school kids in all grades beyond the sec­ond grade com­mit­ted, on aver­age, more than six hours per day to TV or videos, music, video games, and com­put­ers. Almost one-third report­ed that “most of the time” they did their home­work while chat­ting on the phone, surf­ing the Web, send­ing instant mes­sages, watch­ing TV, or lis­ten­ing to music.

Kids think that this enter­tain­ment while study­ing helps their learn­ing. It prob­a­bly does make learn­ing less tedious, but it clear­ly makes learn­ing less effi­cient and less effec­tive. Mul­ti-task­ing vio­lates every­thing we know about how mem­o­ry works. Now we have objec­tive sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that [Read more…] about Mem­o­ry Prob­lems? Per­haps you are Multi-tasking

Understanding Brain Imaging

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Daniel Lende and Greg Downey run the though-pro­vok­ing Neu­roan­thro­pol­o­gy blog. Daniel also teach­es a class at Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame, and he asked his stu­dents to sub­mit group-based blog posts in lieu of the tra­di­tion­al final essays. He explains more on Why A Final Essay When We Can Do This?.

Below you have a spec­tac­u­lar post writ­ten by 4 of his stu­dents. They show how brain imag­ing is start­ing to pro­vide a win­dow into the plas­tic­i­ty (glos­sary here) of our brains, and how our very own actions impact them. For good and for bad.

Under­stand­ing Brain Imaging

— By Chris Dud­ley, Matt Gasperetti, Mikey Nar­vaez, and Sarah Walorski

Do you remem­ber the anti-drug pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment from the 1980s that showed an egg fry­ing in a hot pan which rep­re­sent­ed your brain on drugs?

[Read more…] about Under­stand­ing Brain Imaging