More evidence that vascular disease plays a crucial role in age-related cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s comes from data from participants in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.
A simple new cognitive assessment tool with only 16 items appears potentially useful for identifying problems in thinking, learning and memory among older adults. The Sweet 16 scale is scored from zero to 16 (with 16 representing the best score) and includes questions that address orientation (identification of person, place, time and situation), registration, digit spans (tests of verbal memory) and recall. The test requires no props (not even pencil and paper) and is easy to administer with a minimum of training. It only takes an average of 2 minutes to complete.
There have been mixed findings about the benefits of DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid), but in a study involving 485 older adults (55+) with age-related cognitive impairment, those randomly assigned to take DHA for six months improved the score on a visuospatial learning and episodic memory test. Higher levels of DHA in the blood correlated with better scores on the paired associate learning task. DHA supplementation was also associated with better verbal recognition, but not better working memory or executive function.
A study involving young (average age 22) and older adults (average age 77) showed participants pictures of overlapping faces and places (houses and buildings) and asked them to identify the gender of the person. While the young adults showed activity in the brain region for processing faces (fusiform face area) but not in the brain region for processing places (parahippocampal place area), both regions were active in the older adults.
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?
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.
I love cognitive studies on bees. The whole notion that those teeny-tiny brains are capable of the navigation and communication feats bees demonstrate is so wonderful. Now a new study finds that, just like us, aging bees find it hard to remember the location of a new home.
Following on from earlier research suggesting that simply talking helps keep your mind sharp at all ages, a new study involving 192 undergraduates indicates that the type of talking makes a difference. Engaging in brief (10 minute) conversations in which participants were simply instructed to get to know another person resulted in boosts to their executive function (the processes involved in working memory, planning, decision-making, and so on).
A long-running study involving 299 older adults (average age 78) has found that those who walked at least 72 blocks during a week of recorded activity (around six to nine miles) had greater gray matter volume nine years later. Gray matter does shrink as we get older, so this is not about growth so much as counteracting decline. Walking more than 72 blocks didn’t appear to confer any additional benefit (in terms of gray matter volume).
Beginning in 1971, healthy older adults in Gothenburg, Sweden, have been participating in a longitudinal study of their cognitive health. The first H70 study started in 1971 with 381 residents of Gothenburg who were 70 years old; a new one began in 2000 with 551 residents and is still ongoing. For the first cohort (born in 1901-02), low scores on non-memory tests turned out to be a good predictor of dementia; however, these tests were not predictive for the generation born in 1930.