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physiology

Higher body mass index (BMI) linked to lower blood supply to the brain in large neuroimaging study

August 7, 2020 by SharpBrains

Fig­ure 6 from the study, show­ing 3‑D ren­der­ings of cere­bral per­fu­sion aver­aged across nor­mal BMI (23), over­weight (29), and obese (37) 40-year-old men

Body weight has sur­pris­ing, alarm­ing impact on brain func­tion (Sci­ence Daily):

As a per­son­’s weight goes up, all regions of the brain go down in activ­i­ty and blood flow, accord­ing to a new brain imag­ing study in the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease … sci­en­tists ana­lyzed over 35,000 func­tion­al neu­roimag­ing scans using sin­gle-pho­ton emis­sion com­put­er­ized tomog­ra­phy (SPECT) from more than 17,000 indi­vid­u­als to mea­sure blood flow and brain activ­i­ty. [Read more…] about High­er body mass index (BMI) linked to low­er blood sup­ply to the brain in large neu­roimag­ing study

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: AD pathology, adults, Alzheimer’s Disease, blood supply, BMI, body mass index, brain, brain regions, brain scans, brain-function, cerebral perfusion, cognitive-ability, hippocampus, lifestyle, obesity, physiology, risk factor, SPECT

“I am excited”: Making Stress Work for You, Instead of Against You

April 17, 2017 by Dan Lerner & Dr. Alan Schlechter

Image: The Yerkes-Dod­son Law (YDL)

—

How much stress is good for you?

In 1908, Robert Mearns Yerkes and John Dilling­ham Dod­son designed an exper­i­ment that would begin to tack­le the ques­tion, “How much stress is good for you?” 

The researchers tracked mice to see how stress would affect their abil­i­ty to learn. Simple—yet painful, because how do you stress out mice? [Read more…] about “I am excit­ed”: Mak­ing Stress Work for You, Instead of Against You

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance Tagged With: ability, ability to learn, alertness, anxiety, learn, mind, performance, physiology, Stress, work, Yerkes-Dodson Law

Study: Mastering a new language can promote neural flexibility and increase learning speed

September 7, 2016 by SharpBrains

language learningEEG record­ings prove learn­ing for­eign lan­guages can sharp­en our minds (Sci­ence Daily):

“Sci­en­tists from the High­er School of Eco­nom­ics (HSE) togeth­er with col­leagues from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki have dis­cov­ered that learn­ing for­eign lan­guages enhances the our brain’s elas­tic­i­ty and its abil­i­ty to code infor­ma­tion [Read more…] about Study: Mas­ter­ing a new lan­guage can pro­mote neur­al flex­i­bil­i­ty and increase learn­ing speed

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: bilingual, brain, brain elasticity, EEG, foreign language, physiology

Next phase in the brain health revolution: Objective, physiological, and widespread measures of brain function

June 9, 2016 by SharpBrains

-- Credit: Marianne Meadahl, SFU
– Cred­it: Mar­i­anne Meadahl, SFU

Brain­waves could be the next health vital sign (Sci­enceDai­ly):

“Simon Fras­er Uni­ver­si­ty researchers hope that a brain vital-sign test becomes as rou­tine dur­ing a doc­tor’s check-up as tak­ing a blood pres­sure or heart rate mea­sure­ment [Read more…] about Next phase in the brain health rev­o­lu­tion: Objec­tive, phys­i­o­log­i­cal, and wide­spread mea­sures of brain function

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain diseases, brain disorders, brain vital signs, brainwaves, check-up, healthy, monitor brain health, neuroscience, physiology

First Book Review is in…Two Stethoscopes Up!

June 8, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

The San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle brings two great pieces today — includ­ing an excel­lent review of our new Book!

Is Your Brain A Couch Pota­to? (online book review)

“At 165 pages, we’re talk­ing a short, sweet, enter­tain­ing read of a com­plex top­ic, with time­ly (writ­ten in 1/09) reviews of 21 top tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts, as well as informed and expert pre­dic­tions of where this bur­geon­ing brain-fit­ness field is head­ed. More impor­tant­ly, after you read it, you’ll have a good, detailed sense of where you, per­son­al­ly, can act to improve your own couch-pota­to brain — and how to keep it fit and flex­i­ble your whole life. The Sharp­Brains Guide To Brain Fit­ness reminds of us all why books (and not just googling a top­ic) can be well worth your time and mon­ey. Two Stetho­scopes Up — check it out.”

Soft­ware designed to make old­er dri­vers sharp­er (arti­cle in print version)

- “All­state is exper­i­ment­ing with the soft­ware because it wants its cus­tomers who are over 50 to become bet­ter dri­vers so they have few­er acci­dents and can dri­ve longer, per­haps in return for low­er pre­mi­ums, said Tom War­den, an assis­tant vice pres­i­dent in All­state’s research and plan­ning center.”

- “All­state found Posit after the insur­ance com­pa­ny’s own sci­en­tists, who were work­ing on the phys­i­ol­o­gy and psy­chol­o­gy of good dri­vers, dis­cov­ered research done by Visu­al Aware­ness, a com­pa­ny in Alaba­ma that has worked with State Farm and var­i­ous state motor vehi­cle depart­ments on expand­ing dri­vers’ fields of view. Posit acquired Visu­al Aware­ness last year.”

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Allstate, book, brain, Brain-Fitness, brain-training-products, brain-training-software, coach-potato, insurance, motor-vehicle-departments, physiology, Posit-Science, Psychology, software, State-Farm, technology, Tom-Warden, Visual-Awareness

Brain Evolution and Why it is Meaningful Today to Improve Our Brain Health

December 27, 2007 by Alvaro Fernandez

Over the last months, thanks to the traf­fic growth of SharpBrains.com (over 100,000 unique vis­i­tors per month these days, THANK YOU for vis­it­ing today and please come back!), a num­ber of proac­tive book agents, pub­lish­ers and authors have con­tact­ed us to inform us of their lat­est brain-relat­ed books. We have tak­en a look at many books, wrote reviews of The Dana Guide to Brain Health book review‚ and Best of the Brain from Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, and inter­viewed sci­en­tists such as Judith Beck, Robert Emmons and James Zull.

Brain Trust ProgramNow we are launch­ing a new Author Speaks Series to pro­vide a plat­form for lead­ing sci­en­tists and experts writ­ing high-qual­i­ty brain-relat­ed books to reach a wide audi­ence. We are hon­ored to start the series with an arti­cle by Lar­ry McCleary, M.D, for­mer act­ing Chief of Pedi­atric Neu­ro­surgery at Den­ver Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal, and author of The Brain Trust Pro­gram: A Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Based Three-Part Plan to Improve Mem­o­ry, Ele­vate Mood, Enhance Atten­tion, Alle­vi­ate Migraine and Menopausal Symp­toms, and Boost Men­tal Ener­gy (Perigee Trade, 2007).

With­out fur­ther ado, let’s enjoy Dr. McCleary’s article:

Brain Evo­lu­tion and Why it is Mean­ing­ful Today to Improve Our Brain Health

You may feel over­whelmed by the stream of seem­ing­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry sug­ges­tions regard­ing the best way to main­tain men­tal clar­i­ty as you age. Based on an analy­sis of sem­i­nal fac­tors in the devel­op­ment of mod­ern brain anato­my, I believe it is pos­si­ble to make some very com­pelling rec­om­men­da­tions for grow­ing big brains, enhanc­ing their func­tion, and mak­ing them resis­tant to the aging process. These may be loose­ly cat­e­go­rized as fac­tors per­tain­ing to the men­tal or phys­i­cal attrib­ut­es of the brain. Although they are not tru­ly inde­pen­dent enti­ties, such a con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion pro­vides a basis for the gen­er­a­tion of brain healthy pre­scrip­tions. Diet, phys­i­cal exer­cise, and stress reduc­tion enhance neu­ronal resilience. Sleep and men­tal stim­u­la­tion are vital for cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty, learn­ing, and memory.

Diet: Fol­low a mod­ern shore-based/­ma­rine diet includ­ing seafood in its most gen­er­al sense, non-starchy veg­eta­bles of all col­ors, berries, and eggs. Oth­er sources of lean pro­tein con­tain­ing long-chain omega 3 fat­ty acids such as free range beef, chick­en, bison, or elk are nutri­tious alternatives.

Phys­i­cal exer­cise (Think fight or flight — activ­i­ty.): Include all types. Aer­o­bic activ­i­ties such as swim­ming, bicy­cling, walk­ing, or hik­ing for pro­mo­tion of vas­cu­lar health and weight con­trol; resis­tance train­ing for pro­mo­tion of neu­rotroph­ic fac­tors, nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring com­pounds that make brain cells more resis­tant to aging, such as IGF‑1 (Insulin-like growth factor‑1) and BDNF (Brain-derived neu­rotroph­ic fac­tor); and bal­ance, coor­di­na­tion, and agili­ty train­ing such as ping-pong, bal­ance beam, tram­po­line, and jump­ing rope to enhance cog­ni­tive speed and motor skills.

Stress Con­trol: From an evo­lu­tion­ary per­spec­tive, stres­sors (such as meet­ing a cave bear) and intense phys­i­cal activ­i­ty (run­ning or fight­ing) were brief in dura­tion and usu­al­ly occurred togeth­er. Mod­ern stres­sors (psy­cho­log­i­cal or emo­tion­al stress) tend to be unremit­ting and are gen­er­al­ly uncou­pled from the phys­i­cal (fight or flight) com­po­nent, mean­ing stress devel­ops with­out any asso­ci­at­ed phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. Such intense phys­i­cal pur­suits are now called exer­cise. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, exer­cise is a per­fect phys­i­o­log­ic anti­dote for stress due to its ben­e­fi­cial impact on cor­ti­sol (the stress hor­mone) and blood pres­sure and should be incor­po­rat­ed into any pro­gram of stress reduction.

Ade­quate sleep: The body needs rest, but the brain requires sleep. Acute or chron­ic sleep depri­va­tion caus­es dev­as­tat­ing short and long-term con­se­quences to brain anato­my (synap­tic loss) and func­tion (mem­o­ry and learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties). Off-line infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing and mem­o­ry con­sol­i­da­tion are addi­tion­al sleep-relat­ed benefits.

Men­tal stim­u­la­tion: Brain-train­ing, a cog­ni­tive­ly chal­leng­ing lifestyle, nov­el­ty, and social­iza­tion are vital for the pro­mo­tion of neu­ronal plas­tic­i­ty and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (the for­ma­tion of new nerve cells and neu­ronal con­nec­tions), the enhance­ment of spe­cif­ic brain func­tions such as mem­o­ry, and the devel­op­ment of cog­ni­tive reserve — addi­tion­al men­tal pro­cess­ing poten­tial that may be brought online when needed.

The com­bi­na­tion of these rec­om­men­da­tions, each of which was instru­men­tal in the trans­for­ma­tion from prim­i­tive to mod­ern ner­vous sys­tems, pro­vides a tem­plate for the most log­i­cal approach for enhanc­ing men­tal func­tion and resist­ing neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion as we trav­el through life.

The Evo­lu­tion­ary Rationale

The human brain clear­ly has the genet­ic poten­tial for dra­mat­ic expan­sion. This was illus­trat­ed about [Read more…] about Brain Evo­lu­tion and Why it is Mean­ing­ful Today to Improve Our Brain Health

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: aging, Author Speaks Series, Best-of-the-Brain, book, book-agent, book-promotion, book-publishing, boost-mental-energy, brain-building-diet, brain-evolution, Brain-health, Brain-Training, Brain-Trust-Program, cognitive-reserve, Dana-Press, Denver-Children-Hospital, diet, frontal-lobes, genetic, improve-brain-health, improve-memory, James-Zull, Judith-Beck, Larry-McCleary, Learning, mental-stimulation, metabolism, neurodegeneration, Neurogenesis, omega-3, Pediatric-Neurosurgery, Physical-Exercise, physiology, Plasticity, Robert-Emmons, sleep, socialization, stress-reduction, synapses

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