Update: Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) Alzheimer’s pathology

By SharpBrains | June 25, 2020

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this month 13 research find­ings, resources and brain teasers for life­long brain and men­tal health. #1. “We found that peo­ple who exhib­it­ed high­er repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing pat­terns expe­ri­enced more cog­ni­tive decline over a four-year peri­od. They also had spe­cif­ic declines in mem­o­ry (which is an ear­ly sign…

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Reading science fiction can help children build critical thinking and resilience

By The Conversation | June 9, 2020

Young peo­ple who are hooked on watch­ing fan­ta­sy or read­ing sci­ence fic­tion may be on to some­thing. Con­trary to a com­mon mis­per­cep­tion that read­ing this genre is an unwor­thy prac­tice, read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy may help young peo­ple cope, espe­cial­ly with the stress and anx­i­ety of liv­ing through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. I am a…

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Request for proposals to help astronauts combat behavioral health challenges such as stress and isolation

By SharpBrains | June 1, 2020

Heads-up: The Trans­la­tion­al Research Insti­tute for Space Health (TRISH) at Bay­lor Col­lege of Med­i­cine is award­ing from $100,000 to $500,000 to select­ed com­pa­nies ready to con­front behav­ioral health chal­lenges astro­nauts will face on a future jour­ney to Mars. The award is intend­ed to sup­port one year’s work to advance the tech­nol­o­gy. Full pro­pos­als are due by 5…

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Update: The latest research and noninvasive neurotechnologies for brain health and mental fitness

By SharpBrains | May 29, 2020

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter! 1. Food for (non­par­ti­san) Thought: Should heads of state and can­di­dates to high office pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test? 2. A school psy­chol­o­gist shares good tips to sup­port our kids and, yes, man­age our own stress. Three Ss to reduce the stress of “home­school­ing” our kids: Sim­pli­fy, Structure,…

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Update: Moderate lifetime drinking may lead to lower Alzheimer-related beta amyloid deposits in the brain

By SharpBrains | April 24, 2020

__ Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter. #1. First of all, it’s not all bad news this month. Study finds that mod­er­ate life­time drink­ing may lead to low­er Alzheimer-relat­ed beta amy­loid deposits in the brain #2. And, talk about per­son­al­ized med­i­cine! This fas­ci­nat­ing study show­ing how brain imag­ing (fMRI) + machine learn­ing + inten­sive, non-invasive…

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On World Health Day 2020, let’s discuss the stress response and the General Adaptation Syndrome (2/3)

By Dr. Jerome Schultz | April 7, 2020

_______ [Editor’s note: Con­tin­ued from yes­ter­day’s Explor­ing the human brain and how it responds to stress (1/3)] Stress was put on the map, so to speak, by a Hun­gar­i­an — born Cana­di­an endocri­nol­o­gist named Hans Hugo Bruno Selye (ZEL — yeh) in 1950, when he pre­sent­ed his research on rats at the annu­al con­ven­tion of…

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