For decades, scientists have been trying to find a pill to cure dementia. But, with some 150-300 drug trial failures, experts have been looking more closely at behavioral changes that showed promising results for dementia prevention. That’s part of the reason there’s a pivot underway, with more research and funding going into the prevention of dementia—and brain training is a potential pillar in that effort.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article on this new direction, highlighting the BrainHQ exercise Double Decision, which you can read here. (This link may require a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.) My co-founder Dr. Mike Merzenich also wrote a recent column on this pivot for Medscape, which you can find here.
Of course, we still hope that helpful drugs will be found! I was heartened by this week’s encouraging results from the drug trial of lecanemab, which noted a slowing of decline in late-stage Alzheimer’s patients. |
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 Best regards, Jeff Zimman
Co-founder
Posit Science |
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| | | Video: “How an Addicted Brain Works” This article from Neuroscience News features a short whiteboard video explaining how the brain changes as a result of addiction. Check it out if you’d like an informative, easy-to-understand primer on addiction in the brain. View now.
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Did One Gene Mutation Determine the Future of Humanity? Our species co-existed for hundreds of thousands of years with other species of humans. But they eventually died out—while we did not. New research says that we might have triumphed due to a gene mutation that led to a higher number of neurons in the brain’s neocortex. Learn more. |
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Musical Memory: Why We Remember Old Songs Have you ever had the experience of hearing a song you haven’t heard for years—yet somehow you still know every beat or lyric? Our brains are particularly good at remembering music because music is processed across many brain systems, giving the brain multiple reference points. In this 13-minute podcast from NPR, you can learn all about how everything from emotional response to muscle memory helps us keep those old tunes in mind. Listen now. |
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COVID and the Brain: One Year Later A new study followed people who had a COVID diagnosis and people who did not for a year, and found that COVID survivors were much more likely to experience brain-related issues during that year. Brain fog, ischemic strokes, and seizures top the list. Learn more. |
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A Surprising New Finding on Multivitamins A large study recently compared the effects on cognition in older adults of taking a daily multivitamin, cocoa extract, or a placebo. The researchers hypothesized that the cocoa extract would positively affect cognition—but found it was the multivitamin, instead. More research is needed, but it is an encouraging finding. Learn more. |
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An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (2022)
By Ed Yong
Animals experience the world through their senses in wildly different ways that we humans do. In this bestseller that the Wall Street Journal calls “dazzling,” Ed Yong takes us outside our own sensory limitations to give us a glimpse of a wider, richer sensory world. From songbirds to crocodiles to beetles, learning about these animal senses can help us uncover “hidden realms” of our planet. Learn more. |
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