neurology

Study: Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers

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Source: UAB researcher David Vance

Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve could pro­tect against mem­o­ry and think­ing decline, even with low child­hood cog­ni­tion scores (Alzheimer’s Research UK):

New research sug­gests that peo­ple who devel­op high ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ by the time they reach 69 years old may reduce their like­li­hood of mem­o­ry and think­ing decline, even with low child­hood cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. The study was pub­lished today in Neu­rol­o­gy, the med­ical jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Study: Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve helps delay mem­o­ry and think­ing decline regard­less of genet­ic or child­hood markers

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

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Fig­ure 2. Inci­dence Rates of Demen­tia per 1000 Per­son-Years by Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) Ter­tile and Brain Pathol­o­gy; adjust­ed for age, sex, smok­ing, alco­hol con­sump­tion, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, body mass index, heart dis­ease, hyper­ten­sion, cere­brovas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, and apolipopro­tein E e4. AD indi­cates Alzheimer dis­ease. Source: Xu H et al (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 have shown that life­time expo­sures to high­er edu­ca­tion, high­er occu­pa­tion­al attain­ment, and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties are asso­ci­at­ed with reduced risk of Alzheimer demen­tia. Autop­sy stud­ies have shown interindi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in the amount of brain pathol­o­gy peo­ple can tol­er­ate before man­i­fest­ing cog­ni­tive impair­ments, and autop­sied brains of about one-third of indi­vid­u­als who are cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal meet neu­ropatho­log­i­cal cri­te­ria for Alzheimer dis­ease. [Read more…] about Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

UCSF to open innovative neurology clinic to address “diagnostic odyssey”

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The new UCSF Jan Shrem and Maria Manet­ti Shrem Neu­rol­o­gy Clin­ic will be housed in the Joan and San­ford I. Weill Neu­ro­sciences Building.

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UCSF to Launch Unique Neu­rol­o­gy Clin­ic Spe­cial­iz­ing in Dif­fi­cult-to-Diag­nose Cas­es (press release):

“A pro­posed neu­rol­o­gy clin­ic at UCSF Med­ical Cen­ter at Mis­sion Bay aims to short­cut the “diag­nos­tic odyssey” faced by many patients with baf­fling brain symp­toms that do not meet the stan­dard cri­te­ria for any spe­cif­ic condition.

Patients with ambigu­ous neu­ro­log­i­cal symp­toms, but no diag­no­sis, fre­quent­ly [Read more…] about UCSF to open inno­v­a­tive neu­rol­o­gy clin­ic to address “diag­nos­tic odyssey”

Next in clinical practice: Automated real-time detection of seizures via wearable EMG devices

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(A) The wear­able device placed on the brachial biceps mus­cles. (B, C) The wear­able device, which is con­nect­ed to the self-adhe­sive patch, con­tain­ing the record­ing elec­trodes and the ground elec­trode. (D) Remote con­trol of the device. (Epilep­tic seizure Detec­tor Devel­oped by Ictal­Care). Cred­it: Neurology.

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Wear­able EMG Found to Detect Seizures (Neu­rol­o­gy Today):

“A new study demon­strates the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using a wear­able elec­tromyo­g­ra­phy device to detect ton­ic-clonic seizures…The Neu­rol­o­gy paper was among the first to demon­strate its results prospec­tive­ly, using a pre-spec­i­fied cut-off for deter­min­ing that a GTCS is occur­ring. And at nine sec­onds, its laten­cy in doing so (from the time of onset as mea­sured by an inde­pen­dent observ­er) is also among the fastest described so far, the study authors and inde­pen­dent experts not­ed… [Read more…] about Next in clin­i­cal prac­tice: Auto­mat­ed real-time detec­tion of seizures via wear­able EMG devices

For invasive cognitive enhancement to work, firms will need to validate both the “neuro” and the “tech”

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A Hard­ware Update for the Human Brain (The Wall Street Journal):

“The field that gave Emi­ly her life back is known as neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, or sim­ply neurotech—a mar­riage of neu­rol­o­gy, neu­ro­science, neu­ro­surgery and the kind of hard­ware that goes into smart­phones. Today, most neu­rotech com­pa­nies are focused on med­ical appli­ca­tions, which [Read more…] about For inva­sive cog­ni­tive enhance­ment to work, firms will need to val­i­date both the “neu­ro” and the “tech”

Empowering communities with better brain health tools and literacy

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What role should com­mu­ni­ty and care­givers play in brain health and men­tal health, and how can tech­nol­o­gy aid their efforts–for exam­ple in shar­ing rel­e­vant data with/ from doc­tors? How are we going to edu­cate and empow­er every­one with essen­tial knowl­edge and best practices?

  • Chair: Dr. Peter White­house, Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy at Case West­ern Reserve University
  • Dr. Eliz­a­beth Zelin­s­ki, Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Dig­i­tal Aging at the Davis School of Gerontology
  • Michael Meagher, Pres­i­dent of Cogniciti
  • Dr. Neal Cohen, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist at The Synapse System

These pre­sen­ta­tions took place at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Rein­vent­ing Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 6–8th, 2016).