Brain health

Have you ever felt so stressed out and overwhelmed that you can’t think straight? We now know that prolonged stress or trauma is associated with decreased volume in areas of the human brain responsible for regulating thoughts and feelings, enhancing self-control, and creating new memories. A new research study, published in today’s issue of Nature Medicine, is a first step in uncovering the genetic mechanism underlying these brain changes.

Via Maggie Rouman

"A study of 6,000 people conducted by the NeuroLeadership Group in collaboration with a large healthcare firm asked respondents questions about where, when, and how people did their best thinking. Only 10 percent said it happened at work. At the NeuroLeadership Institute, we've been looking at ways to bring more of that deep thinking into the workplace. More specifically, we've been conducting research into what brain science shows us about how leaders think, develop, and perform, and recently we've been studying the role of the unconscious mind.

We've identified three particularly promising techniques, backed up by research, than can help you think more deeply.."

 

Via Maggie Rouman

Big three of life: Chocolate, coffee and unconditional love. News? Chocolate could sharpen the aging brain:http://t.co/2aBuHnmq...)...

Renowned academic, author, and director of the Mindsight Institute Dan Siegel, visits the RSA to reveal an extremely rare thing -- a working definition of the mind.

Via Xaos, Maggie Rouman

“I know they say there is no cure for Alzheimer’s… But I was wondering if there’s any development in a cure you know about?” I was asked after my lecture on PET imaging of dementia this past summer. A number of technologists gathered around me, far more eager to hear my response to this question than they were to hear me speak on the continuing education topics.

 

The woman asking the question told us an emotional story of living with her father who had Alzheimer’s dementia, which meant she interacted everyday with somebody who had no idea who she was or appreciated all the things she had been doing for him in his old age.

 

Everybody knows Alzheimer’s robs a person of memory, feelings and personality, but we forget that it also robs the people taking care of that person of happiness, too. Another technologist told us about his favorite teacher who he lost touch with because of the disease. He asked if there was something that could reverse it. “As far as I know, the answer is sadly no.”

 

While waiting for my airplane back, I became curious if there was something in our food that could prevent Alzheimer’s, which is by far the most common dementia in the United States. When I got home, I scoured the literature. Curcumin (the bioactive component of turmeric, used in day-to-day cooking and Ayurvedic medicine for centuries) kept popping up in my research. Studies on mice seemed to show that curcumin actually reversed a cause of the disease.

 

The current consensus is that there are probably two causes of Alzheimer's dementia. One cause is an increased production and accumulation of a protein called amyloid-beta 42 around brain cells. The other cause is accumulation of a different protein called tau tangles in brain cells. Both causes trigger inflammation, which is the direct cause of these brain cells dying.

 

A UCLA researcher named Dr. Gary Cole has shown in both in vitro (meaning outside a living organism, such cultured cells growing in petri dishes) and in vivo experiments (using mice) that curcumin fights the amyloid that accumulates in the brain in Alzheimer's in 3 ways: (1) breaking down accumulation of amyloid-beta plaques, (2) preventing amyloid from forming in the first place, and (3) helping reduce how much cholesterol is available in the brain. (High cholesterol levels have been linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s dementia.)

Via Electric Car