- Some athletes who experience sports-related concussions have reduced blood flow in parts of their brains even after clinical recovery.
Adding to evidence that the standard assessments are inadequate to determine whether concussed athletes are fit to return to action, an advanced MRI technique that detects blood flow in the brain shows that hat brain abnormalities persist beyond the point of clinical recovery after injury. |
- A brain imaging study reveals how working memory is impaired after traumatic brain injury.
Brain imaging while 11 individuals with traumatic brain injury and 15 healthy controls performed a |
- A small study found children who had experienced a sports-related concussion two years earlier still showed cognitive impairments, with younger children showing greater deficits.
A study involving 30 children (aged 8-10), of whom 15 had experienced a sports-related concussion two years earlier, and all of whom were athletically active, found that those with a history of concussion performed worse on tests of |
- A survey of US adults suggests worry about concussion goes hand in hand with a lack of understanding.
An online national survey of 2,012 adult Americans (of whom 948 were parents) has found that, while the vast majority (87%) don’t know the definition of a concussion and many don’t know the injury is treatable, there is a high level of concern and even fear across the country. |
- The Mediterranean diet is the diet most associated with cognitive and health benefits in older adults.
- A new study has found larger brain volumes among those following this sort of diet, equivalent to that of brains five years younger.
- Much of this was associated with two components of the diet in particular: eating fish regularly, and eating less meat.
Another study adds to the growing evidence that a Mediterranean diet is good for the aging brain. |
- A very small study points to three subtypes of Alzheimer's disease, each of which seems to be associated with:
- different physiological abnormalities
- different causes and risk factors
- different symptoms / progression
- different age-onsets .
- This suggests that effective treatments need to be tailored to the subtype.
A two-year study which involved metabolic testing of 50 people, suggests that Alzheimer's disease consists of three distinct subtypes, each one of which may need to be treated differently. The finding may help explain why it has been so hard to find effective treatments for the disease. |
- Mindfulness meditation is associated in many studies with cognitive benefits, especially in attention.
- In a new study, a brief guided meditation exercise increased students' false recognition of words as ones they had seen earlier.
- It may be that the non-judgmental mindset encouraged by mindfulness meditation reduces people's ability to clearly remember the source of a memory, thus making them more susceptible to false memories.
- Source memory also tends to be negatively affected by increasing age.
Mindfulness meditation is associated with various positive benefits, one of which is improved attention, but it might not be all good. A new study suggests that it may have negative cognitive consequences. |
- A large study found teenagers' grades suffered significantly and linearly, for each hour spent watching TV, using the internet or playing computer games.
- Of these activities, the most harmful was watching TV.
- Hours spent doing homework or reading for pleasure were each associated with a significant increase in GCSE grades.
- The amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity had no effect on grades.
A study involving 845 secondary school students has revealed that each hour per day spent watching TV, using the internet or playing computer games at average age 14.5 years was associated with poorer GCSE grades at age 16. |
- A stress hormone has been found to be associated with more amyloid-beta protein, in mice and human neurons.
- The finding helps explain why stress is a risk factor for Alzheimer's.
- A previous 38-year study supports this with the finding that women who scored highly in "neuroticism" in middle age, had a greater chance of later developing Alzheimer's.
- This link was largely accounted for by chronic stress experienced by these women over the four decades.
A study involving both mice and human cells adds to evidence that stress is a risk factor for Alzheimer's. |
- A large study shows stroke is associated not only with an immediate drop in cognitive ability, but also with faster declines in some cognitive functions.
- The finding points to a need for better long-term care.
Data from 23,572 Americans from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study has revealed that those who survived a stroke went on to have significantly faster rates of cognitive decline as they aged. |
- On average, older adults with low levels of vitamin D showed much faster decline in episodic memory and executive function.
- Older adults with dementia had significantly lower levels of vitamin D compared to those with MCI or normal cognition.
- Low vitamin D was more common in African-Americans and Hispanics, compared to whites.
A study involving 382 older adults (average age 75) followed for around five years, has found that those who don’t get enough vitamin D may experience cognitive decline at a much faster rate than people who have adequate vitamin D. |
- Type 2 diabetes is known to increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
- In a reasonably large study, diabetes was found to be linked with higher levels of tau protein, regardless of the presence of dementia.
- Diabetes was also linked with greater brain shrinkage.
- The finding adds to evidence that diabetes increases the risk of cognitive impairment in old age.
A study involving older adults has found that diabetes was associated with higher levels of tau protein and greater brain atrophy. |
- Difficulties in remembering past events and imagining future ones are often experienced by those with multiple sclerosis.
- A trial involving patients with MS has found that training in mentally visualizing imaginery scenarios can improve their ability to recall past events.
- Deficits in event memory and imagination have also been found in older adults, so this finding might have wider application.
Training in a mental imagery technique has been found to help multiple sclerosis patients in two memory domains often affected by the disease: autobiographical memory and episodic future thinking. |
- A large study links high levels of motor vehicle emissions around the home to poorer academic performance in children.
- The findings support other studies that found similar results looking at vehicle pollution around schools.
Data from 1,895 fourth and fifth grade children living in El Paso, Texas has found that those who were exposed to high levels of motor vehicle emissions had significantly lower GPAs, even when accounting for other factors known to influence school performance. |
Idiosyncratic brain activity among older people watching a thriller-type movie adds to evidence that:
- age may affect the ability to perceive and remember the order of events (explaining why older adults may find it harder to follow complex plots)
- age affects the ability to focus attention and not be distracted
- age affects the brain's connectivity — how well connected regions work together.
A study involving 218 participants aged 18-88 has looked at the effects of age on the brain activity of participants viewing an edited version of a 1961 Hitchcock TV episode (given that participants viewed the movie while in a MRI machine, the 25 minute episode was condensed to 8 minutes). |
- A correlation has been found between physical activity in healthy older adults and more variable resting-state brain activity.
- More variable resting-state activity in older adults has previously been linked to better cognition.
- No such correlation was found between cardiorespiratory fitness and resting-state brain activity.
- The finding supports previous evidence linking higher levels of physical activity in old age with better cognition and brain health.
A study involving 100 healthy older adults (aged 60-80) has found that those with higher levels of physical activity showed more variable spontaneous brain activity in certain brain regions (including the |
- A large study found that people who developed dementia started to lose awareness of memory problems some 2½ years before dementia onset.
- This loss of awareness was associated with three examples of neuropathology, including tau tangles and brain infarcts.
A ten-year study involving 2,092 older adults (average age 76) has found that people tended to lose awareness of memory problems two to three years before the onset of dementia. |
- A large study of older adults with age-related macular degeneration found no cognitive benefit from taking omega-3 supplements, or supplements of lutein and zeaxanthin.
A large, five-year study challenges the idea that omega-3 fatty acids can slow age-related cognitive decline. |
- A large study of older adults (70+) found no cognitive benefit from a regular exercise program, compared to another social & mental intervention.
- However, a subset of participants (those over 80, and those with poor physical function at the beginning of the study) did show improvement in executive function.
- Participants in both programs showed no cognitive decline over the two-year period, suggesting both interventions were helpful.
A large, two-year study challenges the evidence that regular exercise helps prevent age-related cognitive decline. |
- Foreign words are learned better when gestures or pictures are used.
- Imitating symbolic gestures is more beneficial than viewing illustrative pictures.
- These benefits correlate with activity in specific brain regions.
- The benefits are only found in translation tasks, not in free recall.
A small study using an artificial language adds to evidence that new vocabulary is learned more easily when the learner uses gestures. |
