Latest Research News

Following on from previous studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, a study involving 14 older adults (average age 75) has found that after two days of eating a high-nitrate breakfast, which included 16 ounces of beet juice, blood flow to the white matter of the frontal lobes (especially between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex) had increased. This area is critical for executive functioning.

Poor blood flow in the brain is thought to be a factor in age-related cognitive decline and dementia.

No one is denying that boys are far more likely to be autistic than girls, but a new study has found that this perception of autism as a male disorder also means that girls are less likely to be diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) even when their symptoms are equally severe.

A meta-analysis of 242 articles assessing the math skills of 1,286,350 people found no difference between the two sexes. This was confirmed in an analysis of the data from several large surveys of American adolescents (the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress).

Carriers of the so-called ‘Alzheimer’s gene’ (apoE4) comprise 65% of all Alzheimer's cases. A new study helps us understand why that’s true. Genetically engineered mice reveal that apoE4 is associated with the loss of GABAergic interneurons in the hippocampus. This is consistent with low levels of GABA (produced by these neurons) typically found in Alzheimer’s brains. This loss was associated with cognitive impairment in the absence of amyloid beta accumulation, demonstrating it is an independent factor in the development of this disease.

Major surgery often produces cognitive dysfunction, usually temporary, but for some, long-lasting. It has been suggested that the problem might have to do with the immune system's inflammatory response. A new mouse study provides more evidence for this.

The study found that giving the mice a common inhibitor of the inflammatory response (anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antibody), before orthopedic surgery, decreased postoperative cognitive decline. It’s hoped human clinical testing of this approach will begin within a year.

In a study involving 15 young adults, a very small electrical current delivered to the scalp above the right anterior temporal lobe significantly improved their memory for the names of famous people (by 11%). Memory for famous landmarks was not affected. The findings support the idea that the anterior temporal lobes are critically involved in the retrieval of people's names.

Inflammation in the brain appears to be a key contributor to age-related memory problems, and it may be that this has to do with the dysregulation of microglia that, previous research has shown, occurs with age. As these specialized support cells in the brain do normally when there’s an infection, with age microglia start to produce excessive cytokines, some of which result in the typical behaviors that accompany illness (sleepiness, appetite loss, cognitive deficits and depression).

Data from 217 children from Inuit communities in Arctic Quebec (average age 11), of whom some had mothers that reported binge drinking during pregnancy, has revealed that the alcohol-exposed group, while similar to the control in accuracy and reaction time, showed a significant differences in their brains’ electrical activity while doing those tasks (a Go/No-go response inhibition task and a continuous recognition memory task).

Do retired people tend to perform more poorly on cognitive tests than working people because you’re more likely to retire if your mental skills are starting to decline, or because retirement dulls the brain?

A study involving 48 healthy adults aged 18-39 has found that extraverts who were deprived of sleep for 22 hours after spending 12 hours in group activities performed worse on a vigilance task that did those extraverts who engaged in the same activities on their own in a private room. Introverts were relatively unaffected by the degree of prior social interaction.