A new PET imaging radiotracer could help researchers understand neurodegenerative disease and the aging brain. The study was featured in the October 2018 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. A release from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging explains that past studies have shown a reduced density of the α4β2 nicotinic acetylcholine… Continue reading New Nuclear Medicine Tracer Will Help Study the Aging Brain
Tag: aging brain
As We Age, Memory-Related Brain Activity Loses Cohesion
Groups of brain regions that synchronize their activity during memory tasks become smaller and more numerous as people age, according to a study published in November 2016 in PLOS Computational Biology. A release from the publisher explains that typically, research on brain activity relies on average brain measurements across entire groups of people. In the… Continue reading As We Age, Memory-Related Brain Activity Loses Cohesion
The Aging Brain Benefits from Distraction
As you age, you may find it more difficult to focus on certain tasks. But while distractions can be frustrating, they may not be as bad as we think. In a review published November 15th 2016 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, researchers at the University of Toronto and Harvard University suggest that there may be… Continue reading The Aging Brain Benefits from Distraction
We Are Meant to Live Long and Lucid Lives!
Humans (and certain whales) are unique among vertebrates in that we typically live long past our reproductive years, and most of us stay sharp well into old age. Now researchers at the University of California, San Diego have discovered the reason for this happy phenomenon. In a paper published November 30th 2015 in Proceedings of… Continue reading We Are Meant to Live Long and Lucid Lives!
Older People Are Getting Smarter, But Not Fitter
Older populations are scoring better on cognitive tests than people of the same age did in the past — a trend that could be linked to higher education rates and increased use of technology in our daily lives, say population researchers at International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. The study was published in August 2015… Continue reading Older People Are Getting Smarter, But Not Fitter
Brain Changes as We Age May Be Doing Us Good
As we age, the physical make up of our brains changes. This development includes changes in neural processing in grey matter, but also in the deterioration of structural connections in the brain that allow communication between distinct brain regions so the brain is able to work as a well-wired network system. Researchers at the Lifelong… Continue reading Brain Changes as We Age May Be Doing Us Good
Older Men Have More Senior Moments Than Women Do
A Mayo Clinic study of brain aging found that being male was associated with worse memory and lower hippocampal volume in people who were cognitively normal at baseline, while the gene APOE ?4, a risk factor for Alzheimer disease, was not, according to an article published online March 16 2015 by JAMA Neurology. A release… Continue reading Older Men Have More Senior Moments Than Women Do
Surprise! With Age, We Sometimes Learn More Than Younger People.
Older people can actually take in and learn from visual information more readily than younger people do, according to research done at Brown University and reported in the Cell Press journal “Current Biology” on November 26th 2014. This surprising discovery is explained by an apparent decline with age in the ability to filter out irrelevant… Continue reading Surprise! With Age, We Sometimes Learn More Than Younger People.