Debunking four myths about decision-making capacity to keep Britney Spears and others safe

Brit­ney Spears’ impas­sioned remarks in court have raised many ques­tions about con­ser­va­tor­ships, includ­ing when they’re nec­es­sary and whether they effec­tive­ly pro­tect someone’s best inter­ests. When one los­es the capac­i­ty to make deci­sions for one­self the court appoints a guardian, or con­ser­va­tor, to make those deci­sions. Appoint­ing some­one to make deci­sions about per­son­al and finan­cial matters…

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Update: Should candidates to high office should pass a cognitive/ mental fitness test?

Wow, that was a cou­ple of very insight­ful dis­cus­sions, via social media no less. #1. The first one was about whether heads of state and can­di­dates to high office should pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test. Click HERE to read and dis­cuss some of the sharpest com­ments, such as… “I won­der what brought this up.” “Def­i­nite­ly. We rou­tine­ly screen…

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Update: Trained older brains can outperform untrained younger ones at demanding cognitive tasks

_______________ Time for Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing the lat­est research, tools and think­ing for life­long brain health and men­tal well-being — and a cou­ple fun brain teasers :-) New brain research: Can trained old­er brains out­per­form untrained younger ones at demand­ing cog­ni­tive tasks? Quick answer: YES Sep­tem­ber 17th @ UC Berke­ley: Dis­rupt­ing neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases New neu­rotech and…

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10-year study finds that the higher the blood sugar level, the faster the cognitive decline over time — regardless of diabetic status

___ The Star­tling Link Between Sug­ar and Alzheimer’s (The Atlantic): “A lon­gi­tu­di­nal study, pub­lished Thurs­day in the jour­nal Dia­betolo­gia, fol­lowed 5,189 peo­ple over 10 years and found that peo­ple with high blood sug­ar had a faster rate of cog­ni­tive decline than those with nor­mal blood sugar—whether or not their blood-sug­­ar lev­el tech­ni­cal­ly made them diabetic.…

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Photobiomodulation: A new and promising way to enhance brain function

___ As is increas­ing­ly evi­dent, there are mul­ti­ple meth­ods aimed at enhanc­ing brain func­tion. Brain train­ing and mind­ful­ness prac­tices are com­mon­ly used. Sub­­s­tance-based meth­ods are pop­u­lar too, includ­ing hal­lu­cino­gens in the form of plant extracts, and drugs. Same as tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) and tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion (TMS): All of these are promis­ing but…

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Executive Functions in Health and Disease: New book to help integrate Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

__________ Neu­ro­science used to be the monop­oly of a few elite uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in a hand­ful of coun­tries. Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy used to be a quaint niche dis­ci­pline rel­a­tive­ly uncon­nect­ed to the larg­er world of neu­ro­science and con­tent in its meth­ods with paper-and-pen­­cil tests. 

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