Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

neuroplasticity

Large study finds that placebo works as well as vitamin D supplements to prevent depression and improve mood

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Large Study Con­firms Vit­a­min D Does Not Reduce Risk of Depres­sion in Adults (Mass Gen­er­al press release):

Vit­a­min D sup­ple­men­ta­tion does not pro­tect against depres­sion in mid­dle-age or old­er adult­hood accord­ing results from one of the largest ever stud­ies of its kind … “There was no sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit from the sup­ple­ment for this pur­pose. It did not pre­vent depres­sion or improve mood,” says Olivia I. Okereke, MD, MS, of the Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (MGH) Psy­chi­a­try Depart­ment.

[Read more…] about Large study finds that place­bo works as well as vit­a­min D sup­ple­ments to pre­vent depres­sion and improve mood

Webinar on Tuesday, June 16th: Harnessing neuroplasticity to transform brain rehabilitation

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Quick heads-up on an oppor­tu­ni­ty for clin­i­cians to learn about an inno­v­a­tive pro­gram trans­form­ing brain injury rehab up in Cana­da.

When: Tue, June 16, 2020. 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT [Read more…] about Webi­nar on Tues­day, June 16th: Har­ness­ing neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty to trans­form brain reha­bil­i­ta­tion

Study: Antidepressant vortioxetine combined with cognitive training may help delay cognitive decline

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Can Phar­ma­co­log­i­cal Aug­men­ta­tion of Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Reme­di­ate Age-Relat­ed Cog­ni­tive Decline? (The Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Psy­chi­a­try):

A grad­ual decline of cog­ni­tive func­tion and con­cur­rent loss of brain vol­ume is an expect­ed process even in healthy aging. What if, how­ev­er, this process could be delayed, reversed, or even pre­vent­ed? This ques­tion has become increas­ing­ly rel­e­vant as the aver­age expect­ed lifes­pan ris­es. Indeed, the num­ber of Amer­i­cans over age 65 is expect­ed to more than dou­ble from 40 mil­lion in 2010 to 89 mil­lion in 2050.

[Read more…] about Study: Anti­de­pres­sant vor­tiox­e­tine com­bined with cog­ni­tive train­ing may help delay cog­ni­tive decline

A limerick a day hopefully keeps the neurologist away

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– Hat tip to Bar­bara Arrow­smith-Young

Mark Rosenzweig’s classic 1996 paper on neuroplasticity:

Psy­chobi­ol­o­gy of plas­tic­i­ty: effects of train­ing and expe­ri­ence on brain and behav­ior (Behav­iour­al Brain Research):

Abstract: Sup­port­ing Heb­b’s 1949 hypoth­e­sis of use-induced plas­tic­i­ty of the ner­vous sys­tem, our group found in the 1960s that train­ing or dif­fer­en­tial expe­ri­ence induced neu­ro­chem­i­cal changes in cere­bral cor­tex of the rat and region­al changes in weight of cor­tex. Fur­ther stud­ies revealed changes in cor­ti­cal thick­ness [Read more…] about A lim­er­ick a day hope­ful­ly keeps the neu­rol­o­gist away

How to remember what you read: Eight tips to improve reading speed and cognitive ability

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You read a lot. Now, do you remem­ber much of what of you read?

Whether it is books, blog, mag­a­zines, or pro­fes­sion­al man­u­als, we still need to read. Now and in years ahead. And, much of it is non­fic­tion mate­r­i­al, where it’s cru­cial to first under­stand and then remem­ber what you are read­ing. [Read more…] about How to remem­ber what you read: Eight tips to improve read­ing speed and cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty

The NeuroGeneration and Humankind’s Quest to Enhance the Brain

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Some peo­ple may be uneasy with the idea of “brain enhance­ment,” but the quest to boost our brain­pow­er is noth­ing new; it is an essen­tial part of human nature. Ever since Homo sapi­ens emerged near­ly 200,000 years ago, we have been search­ing for ways to upgrade the hard­ware and wet­ware in our heads, and we’ve been cre­at­ing and using tools to help us do it—physical and cog­ni­tive tools that help us solve prob­lems and com­plete tasks more effi­cient­ly, tools that extend our nat­ur­al abil­i­ties and allow us to do things that weren’t pos­si­ble before. Lan­guage, num­bers, sci­ence, education—these are all tools we’ve devel­oped to improve our men­tal capac­i­ties.

Our most pow­er­ful tool for nav­i­gat­ing the ever-chang­ing world, how­ev­er, is the brain itself. [Read more…] about The Neu­ro­Gen­er­a­tion and Humankind’s Quest to Enhance the Brain