Every Mon­day dur­ing the next 10 weeks we’ll dis­cuss here what lead­ing indus­try, sci­ence and pol­icy experts –all of whom will speak at the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (March 30th — April 1st, 2011)– have to say about emerg­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges to address, over the next 10 years, the grow­ing brain-related soci­etal demands.

With­out fur­ther ado, here you have what four Sum­mit Speak­ers say…

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Alvaro Pascual-Leone is the Direc­tor of the Berenson-Allen Cen­ter for Non-Invasive Brain Stim­u­la­tion at Har­vard Med­ical School.

1. How would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fit­ness”?

Phys­i­cal fit­ness can refer to an over­all or gen­eral state of health and well-being. How­ever, it is also often used more specif­i­cally to refer to the abil­ity to per­form a given activ­ity, occu­pa­tion, or sport.

Sim­i­larly brain fit­ness might be used to refer to a gen­eral state of healthy, opti­mized brain func­tion, or a more spe­cific brain-based abil­ity to process cer­tain, spe­cific infor­ma­tion, enable cer­tain motor actions, or sup­port cer­tain cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Impor­tantly though, I would argue Read the rest of this entry »

It is not easy to take care of some­one suf­fer­ing from Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. Qual­ity of life for both patients and care­givers usu­ally dete­ri­o­rate as the dis­ease pro­gresses. This issue also has an eco­nomic side: the care pro­vided by fam­ily mem­bers is val­ued at nearly $144 bil­lion. What would hap­pen if care­givers could not carry on any­more? As this arti­cle from the Huff­in­g­ton post reminds us, there is no pill to help fam­i­lies stay together longer, and have hap­pier lives. How­ever there are a grow­ing num­ber of non-pharmacologic inter­ven­tions that could achieve this. Read the rest of this entry »

An inter­est­ing arti­cle in Nature Reviews last month reviewed sev­eral stud­ies show­ing that cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tion can be ben­e­fi­cial even for indi­vid­u­als already diag­nosed with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (Buschert et al., 2010).

The arti­cle shows that patients with mild-to-moderate demen­tia can ben­e­fit from a range of cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions: from train­ing of par­tially spared cog­ni­tive func­tions to train­ing on activ­i­ties of daily liv­ing. Results sug­gest that such inter­ven­tions can improve global cog­ni­tion, abil­i­ties of daily liv­ing and qual­ity of life in these patients.

Patients with moderate-to-severe demen­tia seem to ben­e­fit from gen­eral engage­ment in activ­i­ties that enhance cog­ni­tive and social func­tion­ing in a non-specific manner.

In gen­eral, for patients diag­nosed with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, the reviewed stud­ies sug­gest that pro­grams focus­ing on global cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion are more effec­tive than pro­grams that train spe­cific cog­ni­tive functions.

The oppo­site seems true for peo­ple diag­nosed with Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (MCI). As you may remem­ber, MCI diag­no­sis is made upon objec­tive mem­ory deficits that do not inter­fere with activ­i­ties of daily liv­ing. 5 to 10% of peo­ple with MCI develop demen­tia within 1 year after being diagnosed.

It is inter­est­ing to see that the type of cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tion one may ben­e­fit from changes over the years, depend­ing on one’s cog­ni­tive sta­tus. This shows once again that there is no gen­eral magic pill in terms of brain fit­ness: Some inter­ven­tions or pro­grams work because they meet the needs of some spe­cific indi­vid­u­als. No pro­gram can work for everybody.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Editor’s Note: what fol­lows is an excerpt from Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan’s new book, The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head: A Psychiatrist’s Sto­ries of His Most Bizarre Cases)

CHAPTER TEN

Brain Fog

Sum­mer 1990

Gigi and I had moved to Stu­dio City, about a forty-minute com­mute to UCLA. On week­ends, we often went to the movies at Uni­ver­sal City­Walk, a repli­ca­tion of Los Ange­les within Los Ange­les. Why peo­ple couldn’t just walk down the real streets of Los Ange­les made no sense to me, yet there we were, on a Fri­day evening, eat­ing ice cream and strolling down a sim­u­lated street.

We had just seen Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new sci­encefic­tion film about a con­struc­tion worker who under­goes a false mem­ory trans­plant that takes him on an imag­i­nary trip to Mars. But things go wrong, and when he comes out of it, he can’t tell what’s real and what’s imagined.

“When he first got back from Mars, there were so many signs that he was from the future that I believed it,” I said.
“But honey, before he had that mem­ory implant done, he was per­fectly happy liv­ing in the present—on Earth. Then he got all para­noid.”
“Of course he did. How do you know what’s real­ity if you can’t trust your mem­ory?” I asked.
“I don’t know; you’re the mem­ory expert. I want to go into this shop for a minute.” Gigi dis­ap­peared into a record store.

As I ate my ice cream and watched the crowds, I kept think­ing about those ques­tions. If two real­i­ties seem equally true, how would you know which ver­sion to believe? Many of my patients strug­gled with sim­i­lar issues, whether they were psy­chotic, demented, or sim­ply hav­ing mem­ory problems.

Over the past few years, I had begun to con­cen­trate a large part of my prac­tice on mem­ory issues—not just in older patients with Alzheimer’s dis­ease but in middle-aged peo­ple who were wor­ried about their increas­ing for­get­ful­ness. My research was also focus­ing on early detec­tion of demen­tia and age-related mem­ory decline, and I was devel­op­ing brain imag­ing as a diag­nos­tic tool.

Gigi came back with a bag of CDs and said Read the rest of this entry »

You may find that too much media cov­er­age on how to take good care of our brains is con­fus­ing, if not poten­tially mis­lead­ing. In The True Story — is men­tal exer­cise good, bad, or irrel­e­vant, Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon dis­sects for you a recent large study which was largely reported as bad news when in fact it brings good news (no mir­a­cles, but good news).  We hope you enjoy her insight­ful analy­sis — and all the excel­lent arti­cles that fol­low in the Sep­tem­ber edi­tion of our monthly eNewslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can use the box in the right col­umn to sub­scribe and receive this newslet­ter via email.

Do you Mind

Dear sapi­ens sapi­ens, do you mind: Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man encour­ages you to ask your­self the tough ques­tions: Do you mind your brain? Do you know your nog­gin’? Can you claim cere­bral own­er­ship or is your men­tal a rental? Plus, why we need a new lex­i­con for pos­i­tive cog­ni­tion interventions.

Time for a Cog­ni­tive Reserve Day: with 36 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide with demen­tia today and related care costs around 1 per­cent of the world’s gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP), and grow­ing fast, may it be time to com­ple­ment World Alzheimer’s Day with Word Cog­ni­tive Reserve’s Day?

Food for Thought

Debunk­ing learn­ing styles: a recent arti­cle in The New York Times debunks many old myths about learn­ing and learn­ing styles, sum­ma­riz­ing emerg­ing cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science findings.

Sci­ence for the Peo­ple: quick now — think of a ques­tion, any ques­tion, that comes to mind. Chances are some one in the excel­lent ros­ter of 28 sci­ence blog­gers who took part in Sharp­Brains’ edi­tion of Sci­en­tia Pro Pub­lica blog car­ni­val answered it.

Food for Thought — II

‘West­ern’ Style Diet Increases Risk of ADHD: Dr. David Rabiner reports how, on the one hand, a recent large study track­ing 1172 Aus­tralian ado­les­cents and their par­ents found that dietary fac­tors can play an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of atten­tion deficits, at least for some children.

A Con­trolled Trial of Herbal Treat­ment for ADHD: on the other hand, Dr. Rabiner adds, a recent randomized-controlled trial sup­ports the idea that appro­pri­ately pre­pared and tar­geted herbal com­pounds have the poten­tial to be ther­a­peu­tic and reduce atten­tion deficit symptoms.

Shap­ing the Future

Q&A about the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion: we have received many good ques­tions about the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil … here you are our answers.

Meet the Experts: since 2006 we have inter­viewed dozens of experts on the future of cog­ni­tive enhance­ment and men­tal health, build­ing up the foun­da­tion for the type of inno­va­tion the Sharp­Brains Coun­cil wants to fos­ter. Here you can find what 26 leading-edge sci­en­tists and experts believe and why.

Get­ting ther­apy through your iPhone: The Daily Beast (a great new media out­let) just pub­lished this excel­lent arti­cle on an emerg­ing “small rev­o­lu­tion” in men­tal health care.

Brain Teaser

Brain Teaser: are you ready to test your men­tal rota­tion skills?

Please feel free to share this monthly eNewslet­ter to friends and col­leagues. Have a great month of October!

We have received many good ques­tions about the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion — below you have some answers.

Ques­tion: We are based in Asia/ Australia/ Europe. Will time dif­fer­ences pre­vent us from par­tic­i­pat­ing in monthly brief­ings and ben­e­fit­ing from the Council?

Answer: We will do our best to facil­i­tate a truly global com­mu­nity and exchange. Please con­sider that…

1. we will sched­ule monthly brief­ings at 2 sep­a­rate times, one at 9am US Pacific Time, the other at 4pm US Pacific Time, both cov­er­ing the same topic (but per­haps with dif­fer­ent guest speak­ers). And brief­ings will be recorded.
2. most activ­i­ties and resources are asyn­chro­nous any­way. Our mar­ket intel­li­gence reports and other mate­ri­als are avail­able via this members-only online com­mu­nity 24/7, same as online dis­cus­sion forums, focused groups to track/ dis­cuss spe­cific top­ics, the abil­ity to ask ques­tions to and con­nect with other members…

Ques­tion: Will some­thing change regard­ing SharpBrains.com blog and monthly newslet­ter, which are great free resources?

Answer: We plan to  main­tain those free resources, focus­ing on con­tent of a gen­eral inter­est for every­one with a brain. The Council’s pur­pose is to cre­ate a new valu­able in-depth resource and com­mu­nity for pro­fes­sion­als and orga­ni­za­tions active with brain fit­ness ini­tia­tives, so we can all learn and share dur­ing the year, and help the field mature. That will include Read the rest of this entry »

Today is World Alzheimer’s Day. To raise aware­ness and funds, asso­ci­a­tions world­wide orga­nize mul­ti­ple activ­i­ties includ­ing impor­tant Mem­ory Walks, and a new report helps quan­tify the grow­ing per­sonal and eco­nomic bur­den of the disease.

Among the report findings:

• Close to 36 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide have demen­tia today
• Demen­tia care costs around 1 per­cent of the world’s gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP), or 604 bil­lion US dol­lars. Of these, 252 bil­lion rep­re­sent indi­rect costs of care, while annual direct med­ical costs account for 96 bil­lion, and direct non-medical costs for 256 billion
• By 2030, world­wide soci­etal costs will increase by over 85 percent

The good news?

• That the num­ber 1 rea­son for the bad news is sim­ple: we live longer than ever before
• That, while there is noth­ing we can do today to pre­vent Alzheimer’s pathol­ogy, there is much we can do, as indi­vid­u­als and as a soci­ety, to build up Cog­ni­tive Reserve and sig­nif­i­cantly delay cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s symptoms

Which is why there is so much ongo­ing inno­va­tion to develop tools to effi­ciently mea­sure and enhance cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing and reserve and to fos­ter active aging.

Time per­haps for a World Cog­ni­tive Reserve’s Day?

Inter­est­ing arti­cle on The Dana Foun­da­tion web­site on how to mon­i­tor cog­ni­tive decline in the brain in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s: Func­tional MRI May Be Use­ful for Mon­i­tor­ing Cog­ni­tive Decline in the Elderly (Dana Foundation)

Alzheimer’s researchers have long wanted to find bet­ter ways not only to diag­nose the dis­ease but also to mon­i­tor its pro­gres­sion from the ear­li­est stages.

A new study sug­gests that func­tional mag­netic res­o­nance imag­ing (fMRI), a tech­nique cur­rently used mainly for neu­ro­science research or to guide brain surgery, could be use­ful in this clin­i­cal role.

[…] an ele­gant and thought-provoking study.

(Editor’s Note: you may have read all the con­fus­ing –if not out­right mis­lead­ing– recent media cov­er­age on the effect of men­tal stim­u­la­tion on cog­ni­tive health and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. To help clar­ify mat­ters, please find below part of the ongo­ing dis­cus­sion at Sharp­Brains’ group in LinkedIn, and keep tuned since in a few days we’ll be pub­lish­ing an analy­sis of the sci­en­tific study that, while bring­ing largely Good News, has been largely reported as Ter­ri­ble News.)

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Stu­art • I just came across this arti­cle in Med­ical News…Mental Stim­u­la­tion Delays The Decline In Think­ing Skills, But May Accel­er­ate Demen­tia Later On.…
It’s the first time I have seen an arti­cle talk­ing about the poten­tial down side of men­tal stim­u­la­tion in later life…I would be inter­ested in the views of the more qual­i­fied than myself in this area…http://tinyurl.com/22ovdfv

Jenny • I wouldn’t say I was more qual­i­fied. How­ever hav­ing read this arti­cle although ini­tially it would seem a dis­ap­point­ment that hav­ing done all that men­tally stim­u­lat­ing activ­ity to build one’s cog­ni­tive reserve to then be sub­ject to a rapid down­hill decline. But in fact I think the study is good news. Firstly it sup­ports the notion that by being engaged in men­tally stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties we can main­tain our cog­ni­tion as we age. Sec­ondly we may be on the way to devel­op­ing demen­tia but isn’t it bet­ter to delay or defer the onset fro as long as pos­si­ble? It may be by the time the symp­toms man­i­fest them­selves we have mean­while being enjoy­ing con­tin­u­ing to live normally.

In the Nun study the autop­sies of some of the nuns brains showed they were full of Alzheimer’s dis­ease yet clin­i­cally had shown no out­ward sign. I believe this study is very impor­tant in rein­forc­ing the mes­sage that we all ben­e­fit from keep­ing men­tally fit.

The other key point is that by defer­ring the onset of symp­toms the eco­nomic and social sav­ings to the health sys­tem and soci­ety will be huge.

And lastly. If I had the choice between liv­ing for longer symp­tom free of demen­tia and then going into a rapid decline I think I would choose that any day over the pos­si­bil­ity of devel­op­ing symp­toms ear­lier and liv­ing longer with the disease.

So I don’t see this arti­cle as hav­ing a down side. Being men­tally engaged and hav­ing a big­ger cog­ni­tive reserve, does not con­fer immu­nity against demen­tia and I don’t believe has ever pur­ported to do so. Maybe that has just been Read the rest of this entry »

In late April 2010, an inde­pen­dent expert panel orga­nized by the NIH released a thought­ful report on the state of the sci­ence for pre­ven­tion of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and cog­ni­tive decline*. The report sum­ma­rizes the panel’s review of the sci­en­tific lit­er­a­ture by saying:

“Firm con­clu­sions can­not be drawn about the asso­ci­a­tion of mod­i­fi­able risk fac­tors with cog­ni­tive decline or Alzheimer’s disease.”

Which was basi­cally reported as “noth­ing can pre­vent Alzheimer’s Disease.”

Which is very true. And also very dif­fer­ent from what most read­ers may assume it means.

Note: You can keep read­ing the arti­cle What the recent NIH Expert Panel on Alzheimer’s Pre­ven­tion Means – and Doesn’t Mean in the web­site of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Aging (arti­cle link opens PDF). ASA recently asked me to write a cou­ple of arti­cles on lat­est brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health trends for their Min­dAlert ini­tia­tive, and this is the first of two.