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Quick heads-up about a great event next month for those based in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area.

• When: Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 17, 2019 / 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM PDT
• Where: Pauley Ball­room, UC Berke­ley
• What: 2019 UC Berke­ley Aging Research & Tech­nol­o­gy Sum­mit: Dis­rupt­ing Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Dis­eases

Alzheimer’s and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases are Read the rest of this entry »

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An impaired sense of smell can sig­nal cog­ni­tive decline, but ‘smell train­ing’ could help (The Con­ver­sa­tion):

“As we age, we often have prob­lems with our abil­i­ty to smell (called olfac­to­ry dys­func­tion). Old­er peo­ple might not be able to iden­ti­fy an odour or dif­fer­en­ti­ate one odour from anoth­er. In some cas­es they might not be able to detect an odour at all.

Odour iden­ti­fi­ca­tion dif­fi­cul­ties are com­mon in peo­ple with neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases, includ­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease Read the rest of this entry »

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Prac­tice Imper­fect: Repeat­ed Cog­ni­tive Test­ing Can Obscure Ear­ly Signs of Demen­tia (UC San Diego Health press release):

“Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) is a pro­gres­sive, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tion that often begins with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or MCI, mak­ing ear­ly and repeat­ed assess­ments of cog­ni­tive change cru­cial to diag­no­sis and treat­ment.

But in a paper pub­lished online in the jour­nal Alzheimer’s & Demen­tia: Diag­no­sis, Assess­ment & Dis­ease Mon­i­tor­ing, a team of researchers led by sci­en­tists at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego School of Med­i­cine found that repeat­ed test­ing of mid­dle-age men pro­duced a “prac­tice effect” which obscured true cog­ni­tive decline and Read the rest of this entry »

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Why I’m Dig­ging Deep Into Alzheimer’s (Bill Gates):

“In every part of the world, peo­ple are liv­ing longer than they used to. Thanks to sci­en­tif­ic advance­ments, few­er peo­ple die young from heart dis­ease, can­cer, and infec­tious dis­eases. It’s no longer unusu­al for a per­son to live well into their 80s and beyond. My dad will cel­e­brate his 92nd birth­day in a cou­ple weeks, a mile­stone that was prac­ti­cal­ly unimag­in­able when he was born.

This fact—that peo­ple are liv­ing longer than ever before—should always be a won­der­ful thing. But what hap­pens when it’s not? Read the rest of this entry »

– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 8,121,694

Today we are shar­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing patent from Medtron­ic.  (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing 50 foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patents, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 8,121,694: Therapy control based on a patient movement state

• Assignee(s): Medtron­ic, Inc.
• Inventor(s): Gre­go­ry F. Mol­nar, Steven S. Gill, Kei­th A, Miesel, Mark S. Lent, Tim­o­thy J. Deni­son, Eric J. Panken, Carl D. Wahlstrand, Jonathan C. Werder
• Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neu­ro-mon­i­tor­ing
• Issue Date: Feb­ru­ary 21, 2012

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘694 patent dis­clos­es meth­ods to treat patients afflict­ed with move­ment or oth­er neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­or­ders through brain-sig­nal feed­back. Read the rest of this entry »