Update on the aducanumab (Aduhelm) saga, retirement, financial advice, cognitive health, excessive worrying, neurotech, and more

By SharpBrains | June 30, 2021

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, pro­vid­ing this time a sum­ma­ry of the saga around the FDA approval of adu­canum­ab (Aduhelm) as a sup­posed treat­ment for Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, plus a range of time­ly research find­ings and resources for life­long brain health. First, below are some key reads to nav­i­gate “prob­a­bly the worst drug approval…

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Don’t worry, be happy: How excessive worrying may influence the rate of neurodegeneration

By SharpBrains | June 3, 2021

Wor­ry­ing and the Aging Brain (Dana Foun­da­tion): Over the past decade, sci­en­tists and clin­i­cians have not­ed a sig­nif­i­cant asso­ci­a­tion between com­mon men­tal health con­di­tions and accel­er­at­ed brain aging—the changes to brain struc­ture, phys­i­ol­o­gy, and func­tion that are thought to lead to lat­er cog­ni­tive decline. Both depres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, for exam­ple, are strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed with…

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Study: High Cognitive Reserve (CR) seen to significantly lower dementia risk even in the presence of high Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) neuropathology

By SharpBrains | October 5, 2020

Lifes­pan Cog­ni­tive Reserve—A Secret to Cop­ing With Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Pathol­o­gy (JAMA Neu­rol­o­gy edi­to­r­i­al): Giv­en the lim­it­ed suc­cess of ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tions for Alzheimer dis­ease, there is increased inter­est in under­stand­ing whether mod­i­fi­able fac­tors can help cope with or post­pone the appear­ance of brain pathol­o­gy. It is esti­mat­ed that about 35% of Alzheimer risk is mod­i­fi­able. Epi­demi­o­log­ic studies…

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Brain scans show lower accumulation of tau and amyloid pathology among cognitive “super-agers”

By SharpBrains | July 20, 2020

Super-Agers Show Resis­tance to Tau and Amy­loid Accu­mu­la­tion, Main­tain High Cog­ni­tive Func­tion (Soci­ety of Nuclear Med­i­cine and Mol­e­c­u­lar Imag­ing press release): Super-agers, or indi­vid­u­als whose cog­ni­tive skills are above the norm even at an advanced age, have been found to have increased resis­tance to tau and amy­loid pro­teins, accord­ing to research pre­sent­ed at the Society…

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

By SharpBrains | March 27, 2020

__ 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…

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News you can use: To improve memory, exercise brain and body at the same time

By SharpBrains | February 27, 2018

___ Time for Sharp­Brains’ eNewslet­ter  track­ing the lat­est think­ing, research and tools for brain health. This month we fea­ture five fas­ci­nat­ing inter­views at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­science and a recent study sug­gest­ing that “Per­form­ing mem­o­ry train­ing exer­cis­es at the same time as ped­al­ing a sta­tion­ary bike led to bet­ter gains in mem­o­ry than doing…

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