The Neurotechnology Industry Organization (NIO) just announced the top ten emerging areas of neuroscience that will “impact the future of treatments for brain and nervous system”: Top 10 Neuroscience Trends in 2007.

It provides superb food for thought. And some of them will sound familiar to readers of this blog:

* 6. Normal brain aging gets more attention: More research and development is being focused on thinking impairments that only partially limit independence and quality of life for senior citizens, adults and school aged children. Neurosoftware will penetrate nursing homes and schools, as brain fitness software becomes new first-line treatment strategy.
* 8. Prevention evidence grows: You are what you eat; smoking is as bad as we thought; and new studies reveal the effects of environmental substances on Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and others.
* 9. Emotional disorders research advances:  New research continues to link neurogenesis to treatment of depression.  A better understanding of PTSD should lead to new treatment regimes.

Want to read probably the best overview of the neurosoftware/ brain fitness software market? Check this article, fresh from the oven: Thank Boomers for Buffing Up Brain Market.

To clarify the numbers mentioned: we project $225m in the US alone (growing from $70m in 2003), broken-down as follows: $80m for the Consumer segment, $60m in K12 Education, $50m in Clinical applications, and $35m in the Corporate segment. The Consumer segment, with a healthy aging value proposition, is the most recent one but the most rapidly growing.

Update: we now have an in-depth interview with Yaakov Stern, leading advocate of the cognitive reserve theory, and one of the authors of the paper we review below: click on Build Your Cognitive Reserve-Yaakov Stern. 

————————

In honor of the Week of Science presented at Just Science from Monday, February 5, through Sunday, February 11, we will be writing about “just science” this week. We thought we would take this time to discuss more deeply some of the key scientific publications in brain fitness.

Today, we will highlight the key points in an excellent review of cognitive reserve: Scarmeas, Nikolaos and Stern, Yaakov. Cognitive reserve and lifestyle. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. 2003;25:625-33.

What is Cognitive Reserve?
The concept of a cognitive reserve has been around since 1998 when a post mortem analysis of 137 people with Alzheimer’s Disease showed that the patients exhibited fewer clinical symptoms than their actual pathology suggested. (Katzman et al. 1988) They also showed higher brain weights and greater number of neurons when compared to age-matched controls. The investigators hypothesized that the patients had a larger “reserve” of neurons and abilities that offset the losses caused by Alzheimer’s. Since then the concept of cognitive reserve has been defined as the ability of an individual to tolerate progressive brain pathology without demonstrating clinical cognitive symptoms.
Read the rest of this entry »