Update: A life of cognitive and physical exercise helps you stay sharp in your 70s and beyond

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 13 fas­ci­nat­ing brain research find­ings, use­ful resources–and a brain teas­er to test your atten­tion skills. #1. Good news of the month: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago #2. A dis­tinc­tion WITH a dif­fer­ence: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to…

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Update: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 14 research find­ings, resources and tips for brain health … and start­ing with this fas­ci­nat­ing study: #1. Wow. The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a place­bo #2. Beat­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease will require a com­bined physical/ men­tal approach: From the ten fac­tors found…

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What’s normal? When it comes to the brain, it’s hard to say, and that’s why we need to study global neurodiversity

In a small vil­lage in India—a place so remote it has no elec­tric­i­ty, no telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem, and no cars or buses—a research work­er pre­pares to place an EEG head­set on a female villager’s head. The woman, who earns $3.75 a day labor­ing in a near­by rice pad­dy and who has nev­er ven­tured out­side her vil­lage, eyes…

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Busy schedules linked to better memory and cognition among middle-aged and older adults

——- Being Super Busy May* Be Good For Your Brain (Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine): “There has­n’t been much sci­en­tif­ic research on busy­ness itself, although it’s some­thing that we talk about so often,” explains Sara Fes­ti­ni, a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­sci­en­tist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Dal­las Cen­ter for Vital Longevi­ty, a co-author of the new research pub­lished this week

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NIH outlines global research agenda to tackle brain disorders–from cognitive impairments to depression and dementia

Heads-up: There’s an excellent–and open-access– research sup­ple­ment in Nature, result of an NIH-led effort to advance the glob­al brain dis­or­ders research agen­da. Descrip­tion: Infants are starved of oxy­gen dur­ing dif­fi­cult births. Children’s cog­ni­tive func­tion is per­ma­nent­ly dam­aged due to mal­nu­tri­tion or expo­sure to infec­tions or tox­ins. Adults suf­fer from 

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