The beta-amyloid plaques that kill the neural tissue of people with Alzheimer’s disease accumulate in retinal tissue before other parts of the brain.  These plaques usually develop in the brain before there are symptoms of cognitive decline.  Since there is no way to detect plaques in the brain, detection in the retinas would be the [...]

1. Loss of Smell May Predict Alzheimer’s
2. Brain Imaging and Lie Detection
3. Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month

There was a deeply jarring article in the New York Times earlier this week that told the story of an extended Colombian family with unprecedented rates of early-onset Alzheimer’s. How their incredible suffering might hold the key for discovering a cure for Alzheimer’s is the subject of the article. Young people in this family grow [...]

1. Kids, TV, Video Games, and Attention
2. Move Aside, Drugs: Non-invasive Brain Therapies
3. A Brain that Keeps on Teaching: H.M.’s Story

I’d like to share a great educational tool from the Alzheimer’s Association website. It’s a 16-slide Brain Tour that shows the differences between a healthy brain and one with Alzheimer’s. The tour has fantastic roll-over visuals that make it easy to understand what changes in the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient and how it affects [...]

1. Move Aside, Drugs: Non-invasive Brain Therapies
2. Chemobrain and cognitive training

Recently, I read an article about the promise of a nutritional drink called Souvenaid for Alzheimer’s treatment. (My co-worker wrote a great blog post about it a couple of weeks ago.) As reported in CNN, early studies showed the drink had the potential to improve certain types of memory in Alzheimer’s patients. Then I found [...]

1. Move Aside, Drugs: Non-invasive Brain Therapies
2. Live Blogging the SharpBrains Summit – Day 1
3. Misleading Science Claims: The Case of Baby Einstein

This week I’m posting a favorite brain-related TED video each day. In this eye-opening 4 minute talk from TED 2008, biochemist Gregory Petsko argues that between now and 2050, we’ll see an epidemic of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, as the world’s population ages. Daily TED Talk – Gregory Petsko on the Coming Neurological Epidemic [...]

1. Daily TED Talk – Helen Fisher on the Brain and Love
2. Daily TED Talk – Vilayanur Ramachandran on Your Mind
3. Daily TED Talk – Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight

A recent study in the Journal of Neuroscience has provided a new possibility for detecting Alzheimer’s disease (AD) early: loss of the ability to smell. The research used mice that were genetically engineered to develop the signature amyloid plaques that occur in AD. In the course of the research, the scientists noticed that the plaques [...]

1. New Early Detection Method for Alzheimer’s Disease
2. The Brain and Smell, Revisited
3. A Rose By Any Other Name… The Brain and Smell

Recently, scientists at MIT tested a specially-designed nutritional drink to see whether it could improve cognitive function in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease. (Here’s an article in CNN on the subject.) The drink includes three key nutrients: uridine, choline (part of the vitamin B family) and DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid). These are nutrients that [...]

1. Research and the Media – Reading Between the Lines
2. Bringing Brain Health To Your Thanksgiving Table
3. Optimizing Brain Function