In the study, mice were repeatedly given extremely mild concussive impacts while anesthetized. The brain's response to a single concussion was compared with an injury received daily for 30 days and one received weekly over 30 weeks.
Mice with a single insult temporarily lost 10-15% of their neuronal connections (dendritic spines), but there was no inflammation or cell death. With three days rest, all neuronal connections were restored.
Brain scans of children who have moderate or severe obstructive sleep apnea have found significant reductions of gray matter across the brain.
The study compared brain scans from 16 children (aged 7-11) with obstructive sleep apnea to those from nine healthy children of the same age, gender, ethnicity and weight, who did not have apnea. The scans were also compared to 191 MRI scans of children who were part of an existing database.
A British study using data from 475,397 participants has shown that, on average, stronger people performed better across every test of brain functioning used. Tests looked at reaction speed, reasoning, visuospatial memory, prospective memory, and working memory (digit span). The relationship between muscular strength and brain function was consistently strong in both older and younger adults (those under 55 and those over), contradicting previous research showing it only in older adults.
A study involving epilepsy patients who had electrodes implanted into their brain has revealed that memory consolidation during sleep doesn’t simply involve reactivation of the new memories.
Data from the large, long-running U.S. Health and Retirement Study found that healthy cognition characterized most of the people with at least a college education into their late 80s, while those who didn’t complete high school had good cognition up until their 70s.
A 10-year study involving 19,887 middle-aged and older Americans, who completed surveys every two years about their health and lifestyle, has found that those who had a drink or two a day tended to show less cognitive decline, compared to non-drinkers.
Cognitive function was measured in a series of tests looking at their overall mental status, word recall and vocabulary. Their test results were combined to form a total cognitive score.
Age, smoking and education level were controlled for.
In this study, subjects were shown two sets of 12 color photographs of people’s faces (24 in total). Five minutes after seeing the last one, the subjects were then shown another 48 faces (one by one, as before) and had to say whether or not they had seen the face earlier. If so, they were asked whether they saw it in the first or second set of photographs. Half the subjects had been deprived of sleep for the previous 35 hours. Some of these had been given significant amounts of caffeine to offset their sleepiness.
A review and meta-analysis of all international studies that compared the effects of higher versus lower added sugar consumption on blood pressure and lipids (blood fats or cholesterol) has uncovered evidence that sugar has a direct effect on risk factors for heart disease, and is likely to impact on blood pressure, independent of weight gain.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-05/uoo-sii051414.php
A mouse study suggests that resveratrol—a compound abundant in red wine—may moderate some of a high-fat diet’s negative effects on the immune system.
The first detailed characterization of the molecular structures of amyloid-beta fibrils that develop in the brains of those with Alzheimer's disease suggests that different molecular structures of amyloid-beta fibrils may distinguish the brains of Alzheimer's patients with different clinical histories and degrees of brain damage.