I can remember Mrs. Viola Jones who was my Mother's godmother and my functional grandmother. She was a pillar of the church when I was coming up in a Baptist Missionary environ. It was she that suggested that Christ Jesus was the way, so I joined the church and was baptized about 55 years ago,
It was she that after the death of her husband, and daughters while in a nursing home that I would see with dementia, still leading the prayer service remembering the Word and quoting scripture in prayer. She would be called upon by the nurses to do this.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Age Related Memory Loss
Age-related memory decline may be reversed with high doses of naturally occurring cocoa flavanols, US researchers have discovered in findings that establish the dentate gyrus as central to cognitive decline.
"Together, these results provide evidence that age-related changes in the DG [dentate gyrus] observed in aging humans underlie and drive a hippocampal-dependent component of cognitive aging," the investigators write.
Discussing the motivation for the study, lead researcher Scott Small, MD, Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in the Taub Institute at Columbia University Medical Center, in New York City, told Medscape Medical News: "Over the last 10 years or so, there have been a lot of observational studies that have suggested that the dentate gyrus, which is a region within the hippocampus, is linked to aging and age-related memory decline."
However, he noted: "That's just been correlational, so the real motivation here was to rely on flavanols, which previous mouse studies have established increase function selectively in the dentate gyrus, and see if we could show that [effect] in humans, in an effort to establish a causal link between the dentate gyrus and aging."
The study was published online October 26 in Nature Neuroscience.
Significant Impact
For the study, the team developed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique that utilized steady-state contrast enhancement to create isolated cerebral blood volume (CBV) maps of the hippocampus. This allows the data to be combined into a single, three-dimensional snapshot, rather than as slices.
Comparing the precise patterns observed in 35 healthy individuals aged 21 to 65 years with those recorded from patients in the preclinical stages of Alzheimer's disease, they were able to develop a precise pattern of age-related dentate gyrus function.
They then combined a computerized modification of the Benton Visual Retention Test, termed ModBent, for use in healthy individuals with a specifically designed task that built on previous research indicating that the dentate gyrus is involved in the pattern separation of visually similar objects.
In a series of experiments with healthy volunteers, the researchers were able to confirm that task performance declined with normal aging, and through use of CBV-fMRI, that this cognitive task's function was localized to the site of age-related dentate gyrus dysfunction.
In the second part of the study, 41 healthy but sedentary individuals aged 50 to 69 years were randomly assigned to either a high flavanol intake of 900 mg cocoa flavanols and 138 mg of (–)- epicatechin per day, with or without aerobic exercise, or a low flavanol intake of 10 mg cocoa flavanols and <2 mg (–)-epicatechin per day, with or without aerobic exercise.
The dietary intervention, which was developed specifically for research purpose by Mars, Inc, using a proprietary process to extract flavanols from cocoa beans, was administered for 3 months. A battery of neuropsychological tests, including the ModBent, and an MRI scan were administered before and after the intervention.
Analysis revealed that, independent of exercise, ModBent performance improved significantly among individuals randomly assigned to the high-flavanol intervention, at a reaction time of 1997 ms vs 2627 ms in the low-flavanol group (P = .038). The high-flavanol intervention was associated with a mean improved cognitive performance of 630 ms.
High-flavanol recipients also had a significant increase in
CBV in the dentate gyrus compared with individuals assigned to the low-flavanol
intervention. This increase was associated with changes in performance on the
ModBent.
Exercise, unexpectedly, had no impact on the outcomes.
Not in a Candy Bar
Commenting on the findings for Medscape Medical News,
Keith Fargo, PhD, director of scientific programs and outreach at the
Alzheimer's Association, was keen to stress that the study was not about
consuming flavanols from chocolate, despite the investigators having used a
cocoa derivative. He said: "You are not going to go down to your
supermarket and get this in a candy bar!"
Dr Fargo added: "The other thing that's really
important about this article to remember is that it's not about Alzheimer's
disease either. This is specifically about cognitive decline in normal
aging."
"Alzheimer’s disease is not just memory problems, it is
a fatal brain disease, and the Alzheimer's Association is very interested in
making sure that the scientific community has the tools that they need to
properly understand the difference between Alzheimer's disease and normal
cognitive decline.... From that standpoint, we think it's an interesting and
informative study," he said.
Dr Fargo also emphasized that it is too early to be able to
draw firm conclusions from the study findings. Describing it as "extremely
preliminary," he noted that it is based on a small sample size and focuses
on answering a specific question with a specific cognitive test.
"This cognitive test is not a test of overall cognitive
function," he said. "It's not a test of memory. It's a test that is
very specifically calibrated to look at the function of the dentate
gyrus."
He noted: "Even though this study was designed as a
clinical trial in a technical sense of the term, it's not really designed to
show that this kind of intervention would be useful in cognitive aging in the
general population."
Dr Fargo continued: "This study is really designed to
answer a very specific question, which is: If you can boost the activity in the
dentate gyrus, will you see increases in the cognitive functions that are
served by the dentate gyrus?"
Dr Small and colleagues are keen to investigate further the
impact of flavanols on dentate gyrus function. "We are gearing up to
another study, not just to replicate in a larger sample but also to understand
what's the minimum amount of these flavanols you need."
"Perhaps in a future study, we can show that 200 mg are
enough, and not necessarily chocolate but maybe a dietician could think of a
combination of vegetables and teas and mixes that can be effective," he
added.
"That's one way that I think that might work. Another
way is that companies like Mars and others might come up with a formulation
that is commercially available."
The cocoa flavanol–containing test drink was produced by the
food company Mars, Inc, which also partly supported the research. Dr Small and
Dr Fargo report no relevant financial relationships.
Nat Neurosci.
Published online October 26, 2014. Abstract
Monday, October 13, 2014
Exercise enhances memory in ONE SESSION
This is an article from the other Physician's on Line
Strength Training Boosts Memory in a Single Session
Drug & Reference Information
A single, brief session of resistance exercise done immediately after a visual learning task enhances episodic memory by about 10%, new research shows.
Lisa Weinberg, a psychology graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, and colleagues found that a resistance workout lasting as little as 20 minutes improved recall of a series of photos shown to participants 48 hours earlier.
"Our study indicates that people don't have to dedicate large amounts of time to give their brain a boost," Weinberg said in a statement.
"We're not trying to replace long-term [aerobic] interventions ― they are great and do all sorts of amazing things for you," coinvestigator Audrey Duarte, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, told Medscape Medical News.
"But what hasn't been shown before is that the benefit we are seeing occurs after doing a really easy task that anyone could do at home when injured or even after a hip replacement. Since we are studying aging in my lab, I find this particularly compelling because of its application to aging."
The study was published in the October issue of Acta Psychologica.
The study began with a total of 46 participants who looked at a series of 90 photos on a computer screen. Images were evenly split between positive images, such as children on a water slide; negative images, such as mutilated bodies; and neutral images, such as pictures of clocks.
Everyone then sat down at a leg extension resistance exercise machine, but only half of the group were asked to use the machine by extending and contracting each leg at their personal maximum effort of 50 times.
The other half just sat in the chair and let the machine or the researchers move their legs.
During the session, blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of markers linked to stress were measured in both groups.
Forty-eight hours later, participants returned to the laboratory and were exposed to the same 90 images that they were exposed to during the first session, as well as 90 new images.
All participants remembered positive and negative images better than neutral images (P < .001), and there was no difference in recognition rates between positive and negative images.
However, when participants were distinguished on the basis of high or low response to resistance testing, those with the highest physiologic responses did not do as well recognizing neutral items as the individuals who were classified as low responders to the same intervention.
"These results are consistent with the theory that acute stress during consolidation can be beneficial to memory for emotional but not neutral information," the researchers write.
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Other research has linked enhancement of memory to acute stress responses, usually psychological stress, such as public speaking.
Studies have also linked the release of specific hormones and norepinephrine in rodent brains to better memory.
"Even without doing expensive functional MRI scans, our results give us an idea of what areas of the brain might be supporting these exercise-induced memory benefits," study coinvestigator Audrey Duarte, PhD, said in a statement.
"And findings are encouraging because they are consistent with rodent literature that pinpoints exactly the parts of the brain that play a role in stress-induced memory benefits caused by exercise," she added.
The study was supported in part by a grant from the Clinical and Translational Science Awards program, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Center for Research Resource. The authors report no relevant financial relationships.
Acta Psychol. 2014;153:13-19. Abstract
Lisa Weinberg, a psychology graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, and colleagues found that a resistance workout lasting as little as 20 minutes improved recall of a series of photos shown to participants 48 hours earlier.
"Our study indicates that people don't have to dedicate large amounts of time to give their brain a boost," Weinberg said in a statement.
"We're not trying to replace long-term [aerobic] interventions ― they are great and do all sorts of amazing things for you," coinvestigator Audrey Duarte, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology, told Medscape Medical News.
"But what hasn't been shown before is that the benefit we are seeing occurs after doing a really easy task that anyone could do at home when injured or even after a hip replacement. Since we are studying aging in my lab, I find this particularly compelling because of its application to aging."
The study was published in the October issue of Acta Psychologica.
The study began with a total of 46 participants who looked at a series of 90 photos on a computer screen. Images were evenly split between positive images, such as children on a water slide; negative images, such as mutilated bodies; and neutral images, such as pictures of clocks.
Everyone then sat down at a leg extension resistance exercise machine, but only half of the group were asked to use the machine by extending and contracting each leg at their personal maximum effort of 50 times.
The other half just sat in the chair and let the machine or the researchers move their legs.
During the session, blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of markers linked to stress were measured in both groups.
Forty-eight hours later, participants returned to the laboratory and were exposed to the same 90 images that they were exposed to during the first session, as well as 90 new images.
All participants remembered positive and negative images better than neutral images (P < .001), and there was no difference in recognition rates between positive and negative images.
However, when participants were distinguished on the basis of high or low response to resistance testing, those with the highest physiologic responses did not do as well recognizing neutral items as the individuals who were classified as low responders to the same intervention.
"These results are consistent with the theory that acute stress during consolidation can be beneficial to memory for emotional but not neutral information," the researchers write.
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*A cure refers to sustained virologic response (SVR). This means there is no detectable HCV in the blood at 12 or more weeks after therapy is complete.
UNBP0804 07/14
Information from Industry
Studies have also linked the release of specific hormones and norepinephrine in rodent brains to better memory.
"Even without doing expensive functional MRI scans, our results give us an idea of what areas of the brain might be supporting these exercise-induced memory benefits," study coinvestigator Audrey Duarte, PhD, said in a statement.
"And findings are encouraging because they are consistent with rodent literature that pinpoints exactly the parts of the brain that play a role in stress-induced memory benefits caused by exercise," she added.
The study was supported in part by a grant from the Clinical and Translational Science Awards program, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Center for Research Resource. The authors report no relevant financial relationships.
Acta Psychol. 2014;153:13-19. Abstract
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