Yet another reason not to overeat: According to a recent study from the Mayo Clinic, there is a link between memory loss and a high calorie diet. People over 70 who consumed more than 2,143 calories a day doubled their risk of memory loss and mild cognitive impairment—a stage of decline beyond normal age-related changes when memory, language, and thinking start slipping. “We observed a dose-response pattern, which simply means the higher the amount of calories consumed each day, the higher the risk of mild cognitive impairment," explained study author Yonas E. Geda, a neurologist and ... Read More
Researchers Crack Codes for Lithium, Electroshock
May 17, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
While they have been widely used for decades, no one knew exactly why two mainstays of psychiatric treatment—lithium chloride for bipolar disorder and electroconvulsive (or electroshock) therapy for major depression—worked. But new discoveries are illuminating how these treatments affect brain function, answering old questions and opening the door to new, more effective therapies that may have fewer side effects. Research fellow Qing-Jun Meng and a team at the University of Manchester found that lithium blocks the activity of an enzyme that affects the brain’s master ... Read More
PTSD Brain Studies Look at Hippocampus
July 6, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
“Hippocampal shrinkage,” of all the terrible-sounding human ailments, is a common condition among post-traumatic stress disorder patients. It means a vital part of the brain is too small. The shrinkage helps to explain flashbacks, but what hasn’t been clear until recently is whether a smaller hippocampus leaves a person predisposed to PTSD or whether shrinkage results from the stress (of, say, combat, or a rape, or a natural disaster). “The hippocampus plays a big role in storing memories, but it’s also important in recalling them,” says Ulrike Schmidt, a senior psychiatrist and ... Read More
Sensory Deprivation Boosts Musicians’ Skill Level
May 16, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Everybody knows the standard answer. But newly published research suggests that, after you’ve labored all day in the practice room, you might want to spend an hour in a flotation tank. Oshin Vartanian of the University of Toronto and Peter Suedfeld of the University of British Columbia report floating in an Epsom salt solution one hour per week for four weeks boosted the technical ability of a group of college music students. This suggests such periods of minimal sensory stimulation can improve performers’ perceptual-motor coordination. Don’t ... Read More
Religious Affiliation and Brain Shrinkage
May 10, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Aging baby boomers are using a variety of methods to remain mentally sharp, from brain fitness classes to simply staying social. Newly published research suggests another, admittedly unorthodox approach to promoting brain-cell survival: Changing your religious affiliation. A study published in the online journal PLoS ONE found a key part of the brain atrophied more rapidly in Catholics and born-again Protestants than it did in mainline Protestants. This accelerated shrinkage was also found in people who reported a life-changing religious experience, as well as those with no ... Read More
The Brain That Gave Us ‘Purple Haze’
February 23, 2010 • By • 2 Comments
The late guitarist Jimi Hendrix is an icon of the 1960s counterculture, an energetic emblem of creative rebelliousness. A newly published paper suggests he also represents something else entirely: the imaginative power that is unleashed when the two hemispheres of the brain work together. Writing in the journal Laterality, University of Toledo psychologist Stephen Christman notes that Hendrix was “mixed-handed:” He wrote and ate with his right hand, but combed his hair and played the guitar with his left. Several previous studies — including one we reported on last fall — have ... Read More
Sexy Impulses: Treating Multiple Sclerosis with Hormones
September 9, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
When it comes to the brain, hormonal influences are the butt of many tactless jokes and at the heart of Rhonda Voskuhl's seminal findings regarding neurodegenerative disease and protection. Speeding down the length of the axon, nerve cell impulses, taking a fraction of a second to travel from head to toe, orchestrate choreographed muscle movements. This process is so in sync with our will that most of us can take our ability to walk, see and swallow for granted. But when it breaks down, as it does with the disease multiple sclerosis, unwieldy symptoms emerge. Paralysis, tingling, ... Read More
