Offbeat brainwaves during sleep make older adults forget
To hit the save button on new memories, slow and speedy brainwaves must sync up at exactly the right moment
December 15, 2017
Science Daily/University of California - Berkeley
Like swinging a tennis racket during a ball toss to serve an ace, slow and speedy brainwaves during deep sleep must sync up at exactly the right moment to hit the save button on new memories, according to new research.
While these brain rhythms, occurring hundreds of times a night, move in perfect lockstep in young adults, findings published in the journal Neuron show that, in old age, slow waves during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep fail to make timely contact with speedy electrical bursts known as "spindles."
"The mistiming prevents older people from being able to effectively hit the save button on new memories, leading to overnight forgetting rather than remembering," said study senior author Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of neuroscience and psychology and director of the campus's Center for Human Sleep Science.
"As the brain ages, it cannot precisely coordinate these two deep-sleep brain waves," Walker added. "Like a tennis player who is off their game, they're swiping and missing."
In tennis lingo, for example, the slow brainwaves or oscillations represent the ball toss while the spindles symbolize the swing of the racket as it aims to make contact with the ball and serve an ace.
"Timing is everything. Only when the slow waves and spindles come together in a very narrow opportunity time window (approximately one-tenth of a second), can the brain effectively place new memories into its long-term storage," said study lead author Randolph Helfrich, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at UC Berkeley
Moreover, researchers found that the aging brain's failure to coordinate deep-sleep brainwaves is most likely due to degradation or atrophy of the medial frontal cortex, a key region of the brain's frontal lobe that generates the deep, restorative slumber that we enjoy in our youth.
"The worse the atrophy in this brain region of older adults, the more uncoordinated and poorly timed are their deep-sleep brainwaves," Walker said. "But there is a silver lining: Sleep is now a new target for potential therapeutic intervention."
To amplify slow waves and get them into optimal sync with spindles, researchers plan to apply electrical brain stimulation to the frontal lobe in future experiments.
"By electrically boosting these nighttime brainwaves, we hope to restore some degree of healthy deep sleep in the elderly and those with dementia, and in doing so, salvage aspects of their learning and memory," Walker said.
For the study, researchers compared the overnight memory of 20 healthy adults in their 20s to that of 32 healthy older adults, mostly in their 70s. Before going to bed for a full night's sleep, participants learned and were then tested on 120 word sets.
As they slept, researchers recorded their electrical brain-wave activity using scalp electroencephalography (EEG). The next morning, study participants were tested again on the word pairs, this time while undergoing functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.
The EEG results showed that in older people, the spindles consistently peaked early in the memory-consolidation cycle and missed syncing up with the slow waves.
Moreover, brain imaging showed grey matter atrophy in the medial frontal cortex of older adults, which suggests that deterioration within the frontal lobe prevents deep slow waves from perfectly syncing up with spindles.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171215094515.htm
Duration of sleep increases and sleeping difficulties decrease after retirement
December 7, 2017
Science Daily/University of Turku
When people retire from work life, they sleep approximately 20 minutes longer than before retirement. The quality of sleep also improves, as retired people experience less early morning awakenings or nonrestorative sleep, unlike in their last working years.
Researchers at the University of Turku, Finland, discovered in collaboration with the Finnish Institution of Occupational Health, University of Helsinki, and University College London Medical School that self-reported duration of sleep increased approximately 20 minutes after retirement, and stayed on the achieved level for years after retirement.
Duration of sleep increased especially for people who had had sleep difficulties or were heavy alcohol users prior to retirement. The duration of sleep increased the most for people who did not get enough sleep during their employment and they slept 45 minutes longer during their retirement.
- A sufficient amount of sleep is very important for our health and functioning. Individuals have different needs of sleep, but it is recommended for people over the age of 65 to sleep for 7-8 hours a night. Retiring enables people to sleep longer, as work schedules no longer determine the times for sleeping and waking up, states Doctoral Candidate Saana Myllyntausta from the University of Turku, whose dissertation research is part of the study.
During their last years of employment, different sleep difficulties were experienced by 30 percent of the people. After retiring, only 26 percent of the people were experiencing sleep difficulties. The researchers discovered that, of different kinds of sleep difficulties, people experienced a decrease especially in early morning awakenings and nonrestorative sleep, where a person experiences tiredness and fatigue after sleeping for a regular duration. Sleep difficulties decreased especially among people who experienced their work as stressful and their health as poor before retirement. Sleep difficulties decreased the most for people who experienced psychological distress before retirement.
- For example, work-related stress is known to disturb sleep. One reason for the decrease in sleeping difficulties during retirement could be the removal of work-related stress, says Myllyntausta.
The study followed approximately 5,800 people who participated in the Finnish Public Sector study by the Finnish Institution of Occupational Health and who retired on a statutory basis in 2000-2011. The participants estimated their sleep duration and the prevalence of different kinds of sleep difficulties in surveys before and after retiring. The research was funded by the Academy of Finland, Ministry of Education and Culture, and Juho Vainio Foundation.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171207095451.htm
Tai Chi improves brain metabolism and muscle energetics in older adults
April 19, 2018
Science Daily/Wiley
A new Journal of Neuroimaging study provides insights into the biochemical mechanisms by which Tai Chi -- a mind-body exercise -- may provide both physical and psychological benefits.
Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a non-invasive method of measuring brain and muscle chemistry using MRI machines, tests conducted in 6 older adults enrolled in a 12-week Tai Chi program revealed significant increases in a marker of neuronal health in the brain and significantly improved recovery rates of a metabolite involved in energy production in leg muscles.
"The benefits of Tai Chi have been well known anecdotally; however recent research such as our study can quantify these improvements using objective measures," said senior author Dr. Alexander Lin, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180419100204.htm
Meditate regularly for an improved attention span in old age
Extensive study finds that regular meditation sessions can have a long-lasting effect on a person's attention span and other cognitive abilities
March 28, 2018
Science Daily/Springer
Regular and intensive meditation sessions over the course of a lifetime could help a person remain attentive and focused well into old age. This is according to the most extensive longitudinal study to date examining a group of meditation practitioners. The research evaluates the benefits that people gained after three months of full-time meditation training and whether these benefits are maintained seven years later.
This study follows up on previous work by the same group of researchers at the University of California, Davis in 2011, which assessed the cognitive abilities of 30 people who regularly meditated before and after they went on a three-month-long retreat at the Shambhala Mountain meditation center in the US. At the center, they meditated daily using techniques designed to foster calm sustained attention on a chosen object and to generate aspirations such as compassion, loving-kindness, emphatic joy and equanimity among participants, for others and themselves. During this time, another group of 30 people who regularly meditated were also monitored. Other than traveling to the meditation center for a week-long assessment period, they carried on with their lives as normal. After the first group's initial retreat was over, the second group received similar intensive training at the Shambhala Mountain Center.
As part of this study, follow-up assessments were conducted six months, eighteen months and seven years after completion of the retreats. During the last appraisal, participants were asked to estimate how much time over the course of seven years they had spent meditating outside of formal retreat settings, such as through daily or non-intensive practice. The forty participants who had remained in the study all reported some form of continued meditation practice: 85 per cent attended at least one meditation retreat, and they practiced amounts on average that were comparable to an hour a day for seven years.
The participants again completed assessments designed to measure their reaction time and ability to pay attention to a task. Although these did not improve, the cognitive gains accrued after the 2011 training and assessment were partially maintained many years later. This was especially true for older participants who practiced a lot of meditation over the seven years. Compared to those who practiced less, they maintained cognitive gains and did not show typical patterns of age-related decline in sustained attention.
"This study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, with the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across a person's life," says Zanesco.
He is aware that participants' lifestyle or personality might have contributed to the observations. Zanesco therefore calls for further research into meditation as an intervention to improve brain functioning among older people.
He says the current findings also provide a sobering appraisal of whether short-term or non-intensive mindfulness interventions are helpful to improve sustained attention in a lasting manner. Participants practiced far more meditation than is feasible for shorter-term programs that might aim to help with cognitive aging, and despite practicing that much meditation, participants did not generally improve over years; these benefits instead plateaued. Zanesco believes this has broad implications for meditation and mindfulness-based approaches to cognitive training and raises important questions regarding how much meditation can, in fact, influence human cognition and the workings of the brain.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180328103708.htm
Aging: The natural stress reliever for many women
April 24, 2018
Science Daily/University of Michigan
While some research suggests that midlife is a dissatisfying time for women, other studies show that women report feeling less stressed and enjoy a higher quality of life during this period.
So, which is it? A recent University of Michigan study by Elizabeth Hedgeman, a doctoral graduate of the U-M School of Public Health, and colleagues found that perceived stress -- a measure of confidence, control and ability to cope with life's stressors -- did indeed decrease for most women over a 15-year span.
The study also found that menopausal status wasn't a factor, which challenges the notion that menopause is associated with higher stress and depression.
The results come from data collected from more than 3,000 women who were recruited between the ages of 42-53 for the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.
Hedgeman's goal was to assess the effects of age, menopausal status and sociodemographics on stress over time. She did the work while in the lab of Sioban Harlow, professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health.
By the end of the study period, the mean age was 62 and stress declined with age across nearly all sociodemographic categories. Compared to similar black, white and Chinese women, stress decreased in a more attenuated fashion for Japanese women. After adjusting for other sociodemographic variables, race and ethnicity was a significant predictor of increased stress only for Japanese women.
Women with less education and increased financial hardship consistently reported higher levels of stress compared to their peers, but this difference diminished over time.
"The results suggested that even women with less education or more financial hardship reported less perceived stress over the midlife," Hedgeman said. "And then there's menopause.
"Our perception of stress decreased even through the menopausal transition, which suggests that menopause isn't a great bugaboo, perhaps in relation to the other events or experiences that we're having in the midlife."
Education, employment and financial hardship were stronger predictors of perceived stress over midlife than the menopause transition, and this may suggest that women experience the menopausal transition as a series of acute stressors (hot flashes, sleep disturbances) that can be muted by chronic, socioeconomic-based life stressors.
The only groups that reported increased perceived stress over the study were Hispanic and white women from New Jersey, but Hedgeman said these are outlier results that needed to be replicated. Additionally, there were extenuating circumstances at the New Jersey site that may have contributed.
Despite reporting decreased levels of stress throughout life, women who reported higher stress at the start of midlife continued to report higher stress levels than their peers as they aged. This is important because stress is a known health risk.
The study did not specifically examine the reasons for this decrease in perceived stress, but Hedgeman said that there could be both circumstantial and neurological causes -- children have moved out, professional goals are being met, or women might have hit a sweet spot before the next life challenges arise, such as chronic health conditions or aging parents.
Existing research also suggests that aging helps us regulate our emotions. "Perhaps things just don't bother us as much as we age, whether due to emotional experience or neurochemical changes. It's all worth exploring," Hedgeman said. Overall, the findings are good news for women transitioning through midlife, she said.
"The neat thing is that for most of us, our perception of stress decreases as we age through the midlife -- perhaps life itself is becoming less stressful, or maybe we're finally feeling at the top of our game, or maybe things just don't bother us the way they did," Hedgeman said. "But whatever the root reason, we're reporting less perceived stress as we age through the midlife and menopause."
The primary limitation of the study was the inability to understand perceived stress among women reporting the highest levels over time. Also, a disruption of operations at the New Jersey site, limited the number of visits to five, not 13 as with the other sites. Also, New Jersey was the only site that recruited Hispanic women.
Co-authors include: Rebecca Hasson, assistant professor of kinesiology and nutritional sciences; Carrie Karvonen-Gutierrez, assistant professor of epidemiology; and William Herman, professor of internal medicine and epidemiology.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180424112834.htm
How to Help a Senior Through Chemotherapy
Going through chemotherapy is traumatic at any age, but seniors may face particular difficulties. They may have pre-existing medical conditions that already impact their independence. This is a time when support is essential, both practical and emotional. Here are a few things to consider to help a senior through this difficult time.
Prepare
Preparing for chemotherapy is not easy, and it can be upsetting. For a senior, there may be added complexities, but certain preparations should be considered regardless of age. If there is concern about hair loss, you could help the senior choose wigs to wear during treatment. Consider making the act of shaving hair an event that could be followed by a day out. Look to shop for comfortable clothes that are easy for a senior to put on, no matter how fatigued. In addition to fatigue, dry skin may become an issue, so advise them to use body lotion and lip balm to mitigate this. Make sure that the care team is aware of any non-cancer related medication to establish their safety. Additionally, consult with the team to develop a plan to maintain the senior's health through nutrition, mental stimulation, and physical activity.
Create a Support Network
No matter one's age, support is essential. Chemotherapy can be exhausting, stressful, and frightening, and it should not be faced alone. Support can alleviate some of the impact and give a senior an opportunity to rest. Basic acts of self-care can become daunting during chemo. This can itself become a source of anxiety. Delegating tasks to friends and loved ones, as well as to other caregivers, can be a way to reduce the strain. Organize rooms, prepare meals, clean, care for pets, and run errands. These tasks can become overwhelming if they accumulate. Emotional support will also be important. Being listened to and having someone to confide in can feel like a weight has been lifted. One way to maintain support is assembling a “phone team” to keep everyone up to date and aware when it's alright to contact and visit.
Promote Nutrition
Chemotherapy can adversely affect taste and smell, leading to reduced appetite. However, a diet of up to 8,000 calories may be necessary for a senior during treatment. A big breakfast could be a good approach to deal with appetite loss. Consider foods high in fiber and calories, such as fruits, yogurts, smoothies, and whole-grain cereals, as they can alleviate some of chemotherapy's physical side effects. Also, make food more appealing by adding flavor through safe spices. It may be a good idea to avoid meals that need to be heated to minimize smells that might inhibit appetite. Make sure that there is snacking between meals throughout the day. Fruits and vegetables are good choices, as are yogurt and peanut butter. Lastly, look to minimize chemo-related nausea through cold ginger tea and water.
Opioid Vigilance
Chemotherapy can cause painful side effects. This is common for all ages, but older patients may be more prone to it. Pain relief is something that may become necessary. If pain is experienced, don't hesitate to alert the senior's care team so they can assess if medication should be provided. Unfortunately, with concerns about an opioid epidemic, there is fear of addiction. However, when used responsibly and where there is no history of addiction, opioids can be taken safely. One precaution to take is mindfulness of behavioral changes. Have a conversation with the senior about symptoms, as awareness can prevent escalation. Symptoms can include taking an excessive dosage or using medication to manage stressful or upsetting situations. Any use of pain relief that seems irregular should be communicated to the care team. Remember, however, that everyone deserves relief from pain. Sometimes, upsetting symptoms do occur, especially after withdrawal, but that is normal and does not equate to addiction.
No one can be prepared for chemotherapy, nor for providing support to someone going through it. Thankfully, there is much that can be done to ease the strain. Whatever care is provided, you will, above all, be ensuring that they do not face cancer alone.
Author
Scott Sanders is the creator of CancerWell.org, which provides resources and support for anyone who has been affected by any form of cancer. He is also the author of the book Put Yourself First: A Guide to Self-care and Spiritual Wellness During and After Cancer Treatment, coming Summer 2018!
Cognitive training enhanced innovative thinking and brain networks in older adults
November 14, 2017
Science Daily/Center for BrainHealth, University of Texas
Researchers have demonstrated in a pilot study that cognitive training improves innovative thinking, along with corresponding positive brain changes, in healthy adults over the age of 55. The study reveals that a specific strategic cognitive training program enhanced innovation in healthy adults.
The study, published recently in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, reveals that a specific strategic cognitive training program enhanced innovation in healthy adults. Performance was measured by an individual's ability to synthesize complex information and generate a multitude of high-level interpretations.
"Middle-age to older adults should feel empowered that, in many circumstances, they can reverse decline and improve innovative thinking," said Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, Center for BrainHealth founder and chief director and lead author of the study. "Innovative cognition -- the kind of thinking that reinforces and preserves complex decision-making, intellect and psychological well-being -- does not need to decline with age. This study reveals that cognitive training may help enhance cognitive capacities and build resilience against decline in healthy older adults."
The SMART program -- Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Training -- was developed at the Center for BrainHealth. It focuses on learning strategies that foster attention, reasoning and broad-based perspective-taking.
Center for BrainHealth researchers conducted a randomized pilot trial and compared the effect of SMART to aerobic exercise training (known to be good for brain health) and control subjects on innovative cognition. The SMART program was conducted one hour per week for 12 weeks with 2 hours of homework each week. The 58 participants were assessed at baseline-, mid- and post-training using innovative cognition measures and functional MRI, a brain scanning technology that reveals brain activity.
"In addition to evaluating the effects of the cognitive training, this study also provided an opportunity to test a reliable assessment tool to measure innovative cognition, which has been relatively neglected due to the complexity of quantifying innovative thinking," Chapman said.
The 19 participants in the cognitive reasoning training group (SMART) showed significant gains pre- to post-training in high-quality innovation performance, improving their performance by an average of 27 percent from baseline to mid- and post-training periods on innovative cognition measures. The physical exercise and control groups did not show improvement. These positive gains in the reasoning training group corresponded to increased connectivity among brain cells in the central executive network of the brain, an area responsible for innovative thinking.
"Advances in the field of MRI are allowing us to measure different aspects of brain function," said Dr. Sina Aslan, an imaging specialist at the Center for BrainHealth. "Through this research, we are able to see that higher activity in the central executive network corresponded to improved innovation. These findings suggest that staying mentally active not only mitigates cognitive decline, but also has the potential to restore creative thinking, which is typically lost with aging."
While further research is needed to establish how to ensure the benefit persists, Chapman is encouraged by the results.
"Reasoning training offers a promising cost-effective intervention to enhance innovative cognition -- one of the most valued capacities and fruitful outputs of the human mind at any age."
The work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Health and by grants from the T. Boone Pickens Foundation, the Lyda Hill Foundation and Dee Wyly Distinguished University Endowment.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171114104219.htm
'Ridiculously healthy' elderly have the same gut microbiome as healthy 30-year-olds
October 11, 2017
Science Daily/University of Western Ontario
In one of the largest microbiota studies conducted in humans, researchers have shown a potential link between healthy aging and a healthy gut.
With the establishment of the China-Canada Institute, the researchers studied the gut bacteria in a cohort of more than 1,000 Chinese individuals in a variety of age-ranges from 3 to over 100 years-old who were self-selected to be extremely healthy with no known health issues and no family history of disease. The results showed a direct correlation between health and the microbes in the intestine.
"The aim is to bring novel microbiome diagnostic systems to populations, then use food and probiotics to try and improve biomarkers of health," said Gregor Reid, professor at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Scientist at Lawson Health Research Institute. "It begs the question -- if you can stay active and eat well, will you age better, or is healthy ageing predicated by the bacteria in your gut?"
The study, published this month in the journal mSphere, showed that the overall microbiota composition of the healthy elderly group was similar to that of people decades younger, and that the gut microbiota differed little between individuals from the ages of 30 to over 100.
"The main conclusion is that if you are ridiculously healthy and 90 years old, your gut microbiota is not that different from a healthy 30 year old in the same population," said Greg Gloor, the principal investigator on the study and also a professor at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Scientist at Lawson Health Research Institute. Whether this is cause or effect is unknown, but the study authors point out that it is the diversity of the gut microbiota that remained the same through their study group.
"This demonstrates that maintaining diversity of your gut as you age is a biomarker of healthy aging, just like low-cholesterol is a biomarker of a healthy circulatory system," Gloor said. The researchers suggest that resetting an elderly microbiota to that of a 30-year-old might help promote health.
"By studying healthy people, we hope to know what we are striving for when people get sick," said Reid.
The study also found a distinct anomaly in the group aged 19 to 24 that has not been observed in large-scale analyses of other populations and they suspect may be unique to this healthy cohort in China. The distinct gut microbiota of this group was a surprising finding and requires further study.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171011123728.htm
Eating protein three times a day could make our seniors stronger
Quebec researchers link protein distribution to greater mass and muscle strength in the elderly
August 30, 2017
Science Daily/McGill University Health Centre
Loss of muscle is an inevitable consequence of aging that can lead to frailty, falls or mobility problems. Eating enough protein is one way to remedy it, but it would seem that spreading protein equally among the three daily meals could be linked to greater mass and muscle strength in the elderly.
The results of the study, which were published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shed new light on the diet of people in an aging population.
"Many seniors, especially in North America, consume the majority of their daily protein intake at lunch and dinner. We wanted to see if people who added protein sources to breakfast, and therefore had balanced protein intake through the three meals, had greater muscle strength," says the lead author of the study, Dr. Stéphanie Chevalier, who is a scientist with the Metabolic Disorders and Complications Program at the RI-MUHC and an assistant professor at the School of Human Nutrition at McGill University.
A rich database of nutrition data
To achieve these results, Dr. Chevalier and her team collaborated with the Université de Sherbrooke and used the database from the Quebec longitudinal study on nutrition and aging called NuAge (Nutrition as a Determinant of Successful Aging).
RI-MUHC researchers analyzed data from the NuAge cohort, which included nearly 1,800 people who were followed for three years. They reviewed the protein consumption patterns of 827 healthy men and 914 healthy women aged 67 to 84 years, all residents of Quebec, trying to establish links with variables such as strength, muscle mass or mobility.
"The NuAge study is one of the few studies gathering such detailed data on food consumption among a large cohort of elderly people. We are proud that the NuAge study can contribute to relevant research of this magnitude in Quebec," says study co-author Dr. Hélène Payette of the Centre for Research on Aging and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Sherbrooke.
"We observed that participants of both sexes who consumed protein in a balanced way during the day had more muscle strength than those who consumed more during the evening meal and less at breakfast. However, the distribution of protein throughout the day was not associated with their mobility," explains the first author of the study, Dr. Samaneh Farsijani, a former PhD student at the RI-MUHC supervised by Dr. Chevalier.
A "boost" of amino acids
All body tissues, including the muscles, are composed of proteins, which consist of amino acids. If the protein intake decreases, the synthesis is not done correctly and this leads to a loss of muscle mass.
"Our research is based on scientific evidence demonstrating that older people need to consume more protein per meal because they need a greater boost of amino acids for protein synthesis," says Dr. Chevalier, adding that one of the essential amino acids known for protein renewal is leucine. "It would be interesting to look into protein sources and their amino acid composition in future studies to further our observations."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170830202131.htm
Nutrition has benefits for brain network organization
September 7, 2017
Science Daily/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Nutrition has been linked to cognitive performance, but researchers have not pinpointed what underlies the connection. A new study found that monounsaturated fatty acids -- a class of nutrients found in olive oils, nuts and avocados -- are linked to general intelligence, and that this relationship is driven by the correlation between MUFAs and the organization of the brain's attention network.
The study of 99 healthy older adults, recruited through Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, compared patterns of fatty acid nutrients found in blood samples, functional MRI data that measured the efficiency of brain networks, and results of a general intelligence test. The study was published in the journal NeuroImage.
"Our goal is to understand how nutrition might be used to support cognitive performance and to study the ways in which nutrition may influence the functional organization of the human brain," said study leader Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology. "This is important because if we want to develop nutritional interventions that are effective at enhancing cognitive performance, we need to understand the ways that these nutrients influence brain function."
"In this study, we examined the relationship between groups of fatty acids and brain networks that underlie general intelligence. In doing so, we sought to understand if brain network organization mediated the relationship between fatty acids and general intelligence," said Marta Zamroziewicz, a recent Ph.D. graduate of the neuroscience program at Illinois and lead author of the study.
Studies suggesting cognitive benefits of the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in MUFAs, inspired the researchers to focus on this group of fatty acids. They examined nutrients in participants' blood and found that the fatty acids clustered into two patterns: saturated fatty acids and MUFAs.
"Historically, the approach has been to focus on individual nutrients. But we know that dietary intake doesn't depend on any one specific nutrient; rather, it reflects broader dietary patterns," said Barbey, who also is affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois.
The researchers found that general intelligence was associated with the brain's dorsal attention network, which plays a central role in attention-demanding tasks and everyday problem solving. In particular, the researchers found that general intelligence was associated with how efficiently the dorsal attention network is functionally organized used a measure called small-world propensity, which describes how well the neural network is connected within locally clustered regions as well as across globally integrated systems.
In turn, they found that those with higher levels of MUFAs in their blood had greater small-world propensity in their dorsal attention network. Taken together with an observed correlation between higher levels of MUFAs and greater general intelligence, these findings suggest a pathway by which MUFAs affect cognition.
"Our findings provide novel evidence that MUFAs are related to a very specific brain network, the dorsal attentional network, and how optimal this network is functionally organized," Barbey said. "Our results suggest that if we want to understand the relationship between MUFAs and general intelligence, we need to take the dorsal attention network into account. It's part of the underlying mechanism that contributes to their relationship."
Barbey hopes these findings will guide further research into how nutrition affects cognition and intelligence. In particular, the next step is to run an interventional study over time to see whether long-term MUFA intake influences brain network organization and intelligence.
"Our ability to relate those beneficial cognitive effects to specific properties of brain networks is exciting," Barbey said. "This gives us evidence of the mechanisms by which nutrition affects intelligence and motivates promising new directions for future research in nutritional cognitive neuroscience."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170907112408.htm
Eat fat, live longer?
Mouse study shows a high fat diet increases longevity, strength
September 5, 2017
Science Daily/University of California - Davis
As more people live into their 80s and 90s, researchers have delved into the issues of health and quality of life during aging. A recent mouse study sheds light on those questions by demonstrating that a high fat, or ketogenic, diet not only increases longevity, but improves physical strength.
"The results surprised me a little," said nutritionist Jon Ramsey, senior author of the paper that appears in the September issue of Cell Metabolism. "We expected some differences, but I was impressed by the magnitude we observed -- a 13 percent increase in median life span for the mice on a high fat vs high carb diet. In humans, that would be seven to 10 years. But equally important, those mice retained quality of health in later life."
Ramsey has spent the past 20 years looking at the mechanics that lead to aging, a contributing factor to most major diseases that impact rodents and humans alike. While calorie restriction has been shown in several studies to slow aging in many animals, Ramsey was interested in how a high fat diet may impact the aging process.
Ketogenic diets have gained popularity for a variety of health benefit claims, but scientists are still teasing out what happens during ketosis, when carbohydrate intake is so low that the body shifts from using glucose as the main fuel source to fat burning and producing ketones for energy.
The study mice were split into three groups: a regular rodent high-carb diet, a low carb/high fat diet, and a ketogenic diet (89-90 percent of total calorie intake). Originally concerned that the high fat diet would increase weight and decrease life span, the researchers kept the calorie count of each diet the same.
"We designed the diet not to focus on weight loss, but to look at metabolism," Ramsey said. "What does that do to aging?"
In addition to significantly increasing the median life span of mice in the study, the ketogenic diet increased memory and motor function (strength and coordination), and prevented an increase in age-related markers of inflammation. It had an impact on the incidence of tumors as well.
"In this case, many of the things we're looking at aren't much different from humans," Ramsey said. "At a fundamental level, humans follow similar changes and experience a decrease in overall function of organs during aging. This study indicates that a ketogenic diet can have a major impact on life and health span without major weight loss or restriction of intake. It also opens a new avenue for possible dietary interventions that have an impact on aging."
A companion study published by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in the same issue of Cell Metabolism shows that a ketogenic diet extends longevity and improves memory in aging mice
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170905145551.htm
A Walk in the Park Gives Mental Boost to People with Depression
May 14, 2012 —
Science Daily/Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care
A walk in the park may have psychological benefits for people suffering from depression. In one of the first studies to examine the effect of nature walks on cognition and mood in people with major depression, researchers in Canada and the U.S. have found promising evidence that a walk in the park may provide some cognitive benefits.
The study was led by Marc Berman, a post-doctoral fellow at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, with partners from the University of Michigan and Stanford University. It is now published online, ahead of print publication, in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
"Our study showed that participants with clinical depression demonstrated improved memory performance after a walk in nature, compared to a walk in a busy urban environment," said Dr. Berman, who cautioned that such walks are not a replacement for existing and well-validated treatments for clinical depression, such as psychotherapy and drug treatment.
"Walking in nature may act to supplement or enhance existing treatments for clinical depression, but more research is needed to understand just how effective nature walks can be to help improve psychological functioning," he said. Dr. Berman's research is part of a cognitive science field known as Attention Restoration Theory (ART) which proposes that people concentrate better after spending time in nature or looking at scenes of nature. The reason, according to ART, is that people interacting with peaceful nature settings aren't bombarded with external distractions that relentlessly tax their working memory and attention systems. In nature settings, the brain can relax and enter a state of contemplativeness that helps to restore or refresh those cognitive capacities.
In a research paper he published in 2008 in Psychological Science, Dr. Berman showed that adults who were not diagnosed with any illness received a mental boost after an hour-long walk in a woodland park -- improving their performance on memory and attention tests by 20 percent -- compared to an hour-long stroll in a noisy urban environment. The findings were reported by The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and in the Pulitzer Prize finalist book by Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains.
In this latest study, Dr. Berman and his research team explored whether a nature walk would provide similar cognitive benefits, and also improve mood for people with clinical depression. Given that individuals with depression are characterized by high levels of rumination and negative thinking, the researchers were skeptical at the outset of the study that a solitary walk in the park would provide any benefit at all and may end up worsening memory and exacerbating depressed mood.
For the study, 20 individuals were recruited from the University of Michigan and surrounding Ann Arbor area; all had a diagnosis of clinical depression. The 12 females and eight males (average age 26) participated in a two-part experiment that involved walking in a quiet nature setting and in a noisy urban setting. Prior to the walks, participants completed baseline testing to determine their cognitive and mood status. Before beginning a walk, the participants were asked to think about an unresolved, painful autobiographical experience. They were then randomly assigned to go for an hour-long walk in the Ann Arbor Arboretum (woodland park) or traffic heavy portions of downtown Ann Arbor. They followed a prescribed route and wore a GPS watch to ensure compliance. After completing their walk, they completed a series of mental tests to measure their attention and short-term/working memory and were re-assessed for mood. A week later the participants repeated the entire procedure, walking in the location that was not visited in the first session.
Participants exhibited a 16 percent increase in attention and working memory after the nature walk relative to the urban walk. Interestingly, interacting with nature did not alleviate depressive mood to any noticeable degree over urban walks, as negative mood decreased and positive mood increased after both walks to a significant and equal extent. Dr. Berman says this suggests that separate brain mechanisms may underlie the cognitive and mood changes of interacting with nature.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120514134303.htm
Exercise Has Numerous Beneficial Effects on Brain Health and Cognition
July 25, 2011
Science Daily/American Physiological Society
A new article highlights the results of more than a hundred recent human and animal studies on how aerobic exercise and strength training play a vital role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life. Researchers also suggest questions remain in the field of exercise neuroscience -- including how exercise influences brain physiology and function and the relationship between human and animal studies.
It's no secret that exercise has numerous beneficial effects on the body. However, a bevy of recent research suggests that these positive effects also extend to the brain, influencing cognition. In a new review article highlighting the results of more than a hundred recent human and animal studies on this topic, Michelle W. Voss, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her colleagues show that both aerobic exercise and strength training play a vital role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life.
However, they also suggest that many unanswered questions remain in the field of exercise neuroscience -- including how various aspects of exercise influence brain physiology and function and how human and animal studies relate to each other -- and issue the call for further research to fill in these gaps.
The reviewed studies suggest that both aerobic exercise and strength training can have significant positive effects on brain health and function, but more research is needed to better elucidate these effects.
"It is increasingly prevalent in the print media, television, and the Internet to be bombarded with advertisements for products and programs to enhance mental and physical health in a relatively painless fashion through miracle elixirs, computer-based training, or gaming programs, or brief exercise programs," the authors say. "Although there is little convincing scientific evidence for such claims, there have been some promising developments in the scientific literature with regard to physical activity and exercise effects on cognitive and brain health."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110725132656.htm
Physical activity linked to lower rates of cognitive impairment
July 19, 2011
Science Daily/JAMA and Archives Journals
Engaging in regular physical activity is associated with less decline in cognitive function in older adults, according to two studies published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The articles are being released on July 19 to coincide with the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Paris and will be included in the July 25 print edition
In one article, Marie-Noël Vercambre, Ph.D., from the Foundation of Public Health, Mutuelle Generale de l'Education Nationale, Paris, and colleagues examined data from the Women's Antioxidant Cardiovascular Study, which included women who had either prevalent vascular disease or three or more coronary risk factors. The researchers determined patients' physical activity levels at baseline (1995 to 1996) and every two years thereafter. Between 1998 and 2000, they conducted telephone interviews with 2,809 women; the calls included tests of cognition, memory and category fluency, and followed up the tests three more times over the succeeding 5.4 years.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110719101755.htm
Brains evolved to need exercise
June 26, 2017
Science Daily/University of Arizona
Mounting scientific evidence shows that exercise is good not only for our bodies, but for our brains. Yet, exactly why physical activity benefits the brain is not well understood. Researchers suggest that the link between exercise and the brain is a product of our evolutionary history and our past as hunter-gatherers.
In a new article published in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, University of Arizona researchers suggest that the link between exercise and the brain is a product of our evolutionary history and our past as hunter-gatherers.
UA anthropologist David Raichlen and UA psychologist Gene Alexander, who together run a research program on exercise and the brain, propose an "adaptive capacity model" for understanding, from an evolutionary neuroscience perspective, how physical activity impacts brain structure and function.
Their argument: As humans transitioned from a relatively sedentary apelike existence to a more physically demanding hunter-gatherer lifestyle, starting around 2 million years ago, we began to engage in complex foraging tasks that were simultaneously physically and mentally demanding, and that may explain how physical activity and the brain came to be so connected.
"We think our physiology evolved to respond to those increases in physical activity levels, and those physiological adaptations go from your bones and your muscles, apparently all the way to your brain," said Raichlen, an associate professor in the UA School of Anthropology in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
"It's very odd to think that moving your body should affect your brain in this way -- that exercise should have some beneficial impact on brain structure and function -- but if you start thinking about it from an evolutionary perspective, you can start to piece together why that system would adaptively respond to exercise challenges and stresses," he said.
Having this underlying understanding of the exercise-brain connection could help researchers come up with ways to enhance the benefits of exercise even further, and to develop effective interventions for age-related cognitive decline or even neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.
Notably, the parts of the brain most taxed during a complex activity such as foraging -- areas that play a key role in memory and executive functions such as problem solving and planning -- are the same areas that seem to benefit from exercise in studies.
"Foraging is an incredibly complex cognitive behavior," Raichlen said. "You're moving on a landscape, you're using memory not only to know where to go but also to navigate your way back, you're paying attention to your surroundings. You're multitasking the entire time because you're making decisions while you're paying attention to the environment, while you are also monitoring your motor systems over complex terrain. Putting all that together creates a very complex multitasking effort."
The adaptive capacity model could help explain research findings such as those published by Raichlen and Alexander last year showing that runners' brains appear to be more connected than brains of non-runners.
The model also could help inform interventions for the cognitive decline that often accompanies aging -- in a period in life when physical activity levels tend to decline as well.
"What we're proposing is, if you're not sufficiently engaged in this kind of cognitively challenging aerobic activity, then this may be responsible for what we often see as healthy brain aging, where people start to show some diminished cognitive abilities," said Alexander, a UA professor of psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and physiological sciences. "So the natural aging process might really be part of a reduced capacity in response to not being engaged enough."
Reduced capacity refers to what can happen in organ systems throughout the body when they are deprived of exercise.
"Our organ systems adapt to the stresses they undergo," said Raichlen, an avid runner and expert on running. "For example, if you engage in exercise, your cardiovascular system has to adapt to expand capacity, be it through enlarging your heart or increasing your vasculature, and that takes energy. So if you're not challenging it in that way -- if you're not engaging in aerobic exercise -- to save energy, your body simply reduces that capacity."
In the case of the brain, if it is not being stressed enough it may begin to atrophy. This may be especially concerning, considering how much more sedentary humans' lifestyles have become.
"Our evolutionary history suggests that we are, fundamentally, cognitively engaged endurance athletes, and that if we don't remain active we're going to have this loss of capacity in response to that," said Alexander, who studies brain aging and Alzheimer's disease as a member of the UA's Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute. "So there really may be a mismatch between our relatively sedentary lifestyles of today and how we evolved."
Alexander and Raichlen say future research should look at how different levels of exercise intensity, as well as different types of exercise, or exercise paired specifically with cognitive tasks, affect the brain.
For example, exercising in a novel environment that poses a new mental challenge, may prove to be especially beneficial, Raichlen said.
"Most of the research in this area puts people in a cognitively impoverished environment. They put people in a lab and have them run on a treadmill or exercise bike, and you don't really have to do as much, so it's possible that we're missing something by not increasing novelty," he said.
Alexander and Raichlen say they hope the adaptive capacity model will help advance research on exercise and the brain.
"This evolutionary neuroscience perspective is something that's been generally lacking in the field," Alexander said. "And we think this might be helpful to advance research and help develop some new specific hypotheses and ways to identify more universally effective interventions that could be helpful to everyone."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170626155729.htm