Bingo, a popular activity in nursing homes, senior centers and assisted-living facilities, has benefits that extend well beyond socializing. Researchers found high-contrast, large bingo cards boost thinking and playing skills for people with cognitive difficulties and visual perception problems produced by Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD).
Brain
West Orange, NJ -- Researchers at Kessler Foundation and Seton Hall University report findings in the early diagnosis of acute spatial neglect, a hidden disability that is a common complication of stroke. In the weeks after stroke, 30-50% of stroke survivors cannot reliably report or respond to external events that take place in the space opposite the side of their brain injury. Called spatial neglect, this disorder is a problem with attention and action rather than vision.
Physician Oskar Hansson and his research group are studying biomarkers – substances present in spinal fluid and linked to Alzheimer's disease. The group has studied close to 140 people with mild memory impairment, showing that a certain combination of markers (low levels of the substance beta-amyloid and high levels of the substance tau) indicate a high risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in the future.
ATLANTA–A new study shows that deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a safe and effective intervention for treatment-resistant depression in patients with either unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar ll disorder (BP). The study was published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
In the first study of its kind, researchers at Queens College and Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that low socioeconomic status (SES) and maternal gestational diabetes together may cause a 14-fold increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in six year olds. The data are published in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
CHICAGO – Adolescents diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses appear to show greater decreases in gray matter volume and increases in cerebrospinal fluid in the frontal lobe compared to healthy adolescents without a diagnosis of psychosis, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
CHICAGO – A systematic review of previous studies suggests that there may be a positive relationship between physical activity and the academic performance of children, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
CHICAGO – Different ingredients in marijuana appear to affect regions of the brain differently during brain processing functions involving responses to certain visual stimuli and tasks, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Humble people are more likely to offer time to someone in need than arrogant people are, according to findings by Baylor University researchers published online in the Journal of Positive Psychology.
Glia cells, named for the Greek word for "glue," hold the brain's neurons together and protect the cells that determine our thoughts and behaviors, but scientists have long puzzled over their prominence in the activities of the brain dedicated to learning and memory. Now Tel Aviv University researchers say that glia cells are central to the brain's plasticity — how the brain adapts, learns, and stores information.
For decades, science has suggested that when people make decisions, they tend to ignore logic and go with the gut. But Wim De Neys, a psychological scientist at the University of Toulouse in France, has a new suggestion: Maybe thinking about logic is also intuitive. He writes about this idea in the January issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Psychologists have partly based their conclusions about reasoning and decision-making on questions like this one:
ST. PAUL, Minn. – People with diets high in several vitamins or in omega 3 fatty acids are less likely to have the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer's disease than people whose diets are not high in those nutrients, according to a new study published in the December 28, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – New research has found that elderly people with higher levels of several vitamins and omega 3 fatty acids in their blood had better performance on mental acuity tests and less of the brain shrinkage typical of Alzheimer's disease – while "junk food" diets produced just the opposite result.
ST. PAUL, Minn. – New research links 'silent strokes,' or small spots of dead brain cells, found in about one out of four older adults to memory loss in the elderly. The study is published in the January 3, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
LA JOLLA, CA – December 27, 2011 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered that DNA stays too tightly wound in certain brain cells of schizophrenic subjects.
The findings suggest that drugs already in development for other diseases might eventually offer hope as a treatment for schizophrenia and related conditions in the elderly.