Latest Research News

Late-life depression is associated with an increased risk for all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and, most predominantly, vascular dementia, a new study shows.

A new meta-analysis extends previous research showing a link between depression and Alzheimer’s disease to late-life depression and dementia. The analysis of 23 studies concluded that those with late-life depression were significantly more likely to develop dementia (1.85 times more likely), and that the risk of developing vascular dementia was significantly greater than that of developing Alzheimer’s (2.52 vs 1.65).

A recent report from Autistica estimates that nearly a quarter (24%) of children with autism are non-verbal or minimally verbal — problems that can persist into adulthood.

A review of over 200 published papers and more than 60 different intervention studies has now concluded that:

A new study has found that errors in perceptual decisions occurred only when there was confused sensory input, not because of any ‘noise’ or randomness in the cognitive processing. The finding, if replicated across broader contexts, will change some of our fundamental assumptions about how the brain works.

I’ve been happily generous with cinnamon on my breakfast ever since the first hints came out that cinnamon might help protect against Alzheimer’s (it’s not like it’s an ordeal to add cinnamon!). Now a new study has revealed why. Two compounds found in cinnamon —cinnamaldehyde and epicatechin —appear to help prevent tau tangles (one of the characteristics of Alzheimer’s).

A humanoid robot has been designed, and shows promise, for teaching joint attention to children with ASD. Robots are particularly appealing to children, and even more so to those with ASD.

http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/interactive-robot-trains-kids-with-autism/

As many of you will know, I like nature-improves-mind stories. A new twist comes from a small Scottish study, in which participants were fitted up with a mobile EEG monitor that enabled their brainwaves to be recorded as they walked for 25 minutes through one of three different urban settings: an urban shopping street, a path through green space, or a street in a busy commercial district.

A study involving 67 college football players has found that a protein biomarker for traumatic brain injury (S100B) was present in varying degrees in the blood samples of all the players after every game, even though none of them suffered a concussion. This demonstrates that even the most routine hits have some impact on the blood-brain barrier and possibly the brain itself.

A new finding points to brain reorganization, rather than brain size, as the driver in primate brain evolution. Data from 17 anthropoid primate species (including humans) across 40 million years has found that around three quarters of differences between the brains of species of monkeys and apes are due to internal reorganization that is independent of size. The prefrontal cortex in particular appears to have played the biggest role in explaining the evolutionary changes in primate brains.

http://phys.org/news/2013-03-organisation-trumps-size-primate-brain.html

A study involving nearly 6,000 African American older adults has found those with a specific gene variant have almost double the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease compared with African Americans who lack the variant. The size of the effect is comparable to that of the ‘Alzheimer’s gene’, APOE-e4.

The gene (ABCA7) is involved in the production of cholesterol and lipids. It also affects the transport of several important proteins, including amyloid precursor protein, which is involved in the production of amyloid-beta.

Analysis of data from 418 older adults (70+) has found that carriers of the ‘Alzheimer’s gene’, APOEe4, were 58% more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment compared to non-carriers. However, ε4 carriers with MCI developed Alzheimer’s at the same rate as non-carriers. The finding turns prevailing thinking on its head: rather than the gene increasing the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, it appears that it increases the risk of MCI — and people with MCI are the main source of new Alzheimer’s diagnoses.