Some Cognitive Skills Are Easier to Train Later

PsychologicalScience: Older adolescents and adults can learn certain thinking skills, including non-verbal reasoning, more effectively than younger people, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study highlights the fact that non-verbal reasoning skills can be readily trained and do not represent an innate, fixed ability.

Omega-3 fatty acids enhance cognitive flexibility in at-risk older adults

Illinois: A study of older adults at risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease found that those who consumed more omega-3 fatty acids did better than their peers on tests of cognitive flexibility – the ability to efficiently switch between tasks – and had a bigger anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region known to contribute to cognitive flexibility. The analysis suggests, but does not prove, that consuming DHA and EPA, two omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, enhanced cognitive flexibility in these adults in part by beefing up the anterior cingulate cortex, the researchers report in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Loss of Brain Tissue in Older Women May Be Linked to Air Pollution

Wake Forest: Researchers may have discovered a link between the loss of brain tissue and air pollution. Their research appears in the June 15 issue of the Annals of Neurology. The findings could help explain how the brain ages and functions in older women who lived in regions with greater airborne levels of coarse particles.

Fat, sugar cause bacterial changes that may relate to loss of cognitive function

Oregon: A study at Oregon State University indicates that both a high-fat and a high-sugar diet, compared to a normal diet, cause changes in gut bacteria that appear related to a significant loss of “cognitive flexibility,” or the power to adapt and adjust to changing situations. This effect was most serious on the high-sugar diet, which also showed an impairment of early learning for both long-term and short-term memory.

Key behaviours can preserve and improve cognitive functioning as people age

Scimex: In a new study by researchers at the ARC Centre for Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), participants reported high awareness of the benefits of key behaviours that can preserve and improve cognitive functioning as they age, although their actual intention to take up these activities is low. Australians identify – but don't necessarily intend to follow – behaviours that they know can lead to improved brain health throughout their lives.

Cognitive Costs of Crossing the Street Increase with Age

Psychological Science: On average, a pedestrian in the US is killed in a car-related accident every 2 hours and injured every 7 minutes, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But children aren’t the ones at greatest risk of a deadly collision with a car– seniors are. A CDC analysis of pedestrian traffic deaths from 2001-2010 concluded that the risk of death actually increases with age. Children under age 15 had the lowest risk of dying as the result of a collision with a vehicle; people over the age of 75 were more than twice as likely to be killed by a car compared to pedestrians overall.

Impact of environmental exposure to insecticides on the cognitive development of 6 year old children

INSERM: In an article published in the journal Environment International, researchers from Inserm (Inserm Unit 1085 – IRSET, the Institute of Research in Environmental and Occupational Health, Rennes), in association with the Laboratory for Developmental and Educational Psychology, LPDE (Rennes 2 University), provide new evidence of neurotoxicity in humans from pyrethroid insecticides, which are found in a wide variety of products and uses. An increase in the urinary levels of two pyrethroid metabolites (3-PBA and cis-DBCA) in children is associated with a significant decrease in their cognitive performances, particularly verbal comprehension and working memory. This study was carried out on nearly 300 mother and child pairs from the PELAGIE cohort (Brittany). 

Study Examines Association Between Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs, Memory Impairment

JAMA: Both statin and nonstatin cholesterol-lowering drugs were associated with memory loss in the first 30 days after patients started taking the medications when compared with nonusers, but researchers suggest the association may have resulted because patients using the medications may have more contact with their physicians and therefore be more likely to detect any memory loss, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Sleep and intelligence in children

Montreal: One night of poor sleep significantly decreases performance on intelligence tests in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and also in neurotypical children (without ASD). This is the conclusion made by researchers at the Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies, affiliated with the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and Université de Montréal. For a paper published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology, the researchers observed the EEG measures of 13 autistic children and 13 neurotypical children (children with a mean age of 10 years old without an intellectual deficiency or sleep problem and who were not on medication) and found that disruptions in protective brain waves during sleep are associated with lower results on verbal IQ tests.

Can Leadership Potential be Predicted at Age 10?

PsychologicalScience: New research concludes that the foundations of leadership may be laid early in life, suggesting that our cognitive abilities as children strongly influence our odds of moving up the corporate ladder as adults. Analyzing data from almost 17,000 working individuals in the UK collected in two major studies over a span of 4 decades, psychological scientists Michael Daly, Mark Egan, and Fionnuala O’Reilly of Stirling University found that high scores for cognitive abilities at age 10 dramatically improved the odds of becoming the boss by age 50.

Links found between blood type and risk of cognitive decline

Sheffield: A pioneering study conducted by leading researchers at the University of Sheffield has revealed blood types play a role in the development of the nervous system and may cause a higher risk of developing cognitive decline. The research, carried out in collaboration with the IRCCS San Camillo Hospital Foundation in Venice, shows that people with an ‘O’ blood type have more grey matter in their brain, which helps to protect against diseases such as Alzheimer’s, than those with ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘AB’ blood types.

Association of Genetic Variants with Cognitive Impairment

JAMA: Individually rare but collectively common intermediate-size copy number variations may be negatively associated with educational attainment, according to a study in the May 26 issue of JAMA. Copy number variations (CNVs) are regions of the genome that differ in the number of segments of DNA.
The Database of Genomic Variants catalogs approximately 2.4 million DNA CNVs. Some of them have been previously implicated as causal of a wide variety of traits and conditions. According to background information in the article large (defined as larger than 500 kb), recurrent CNVs have been particularly associated with developmental delay and intellectual disability (characterized by limited intellectual functioning and impaired adaptive behavior in everyday life) in symptomatic individuals ascertained in clinical settings.

No proof orange juice boosts brain power

NHS: "Drinking orange juice every day could improve brain power in the elderly, research shows," the Mail Online reports. Despite the encouraging words from the media, the small study this headline is based on does not provide strong evidence that an older person would see any noticeable difference in their brain power if they drink orange juice for two months. The study involved 37 healthy older adults, who were given orange juice or orange squash daily for eight weeks before switching to the other drink for the same amount of time. The 100% orange juice contains more flavonoids, a type of plant compound that has been suggested to have various health benefits.

When Clothing Style Influences Cognitive Style

Psychological Science: It’s common knowledge that clothes have a strong influence over the way other people perceive us; you may be talented and qualified, but sweatpants at a job interview probably won’t communicate your ambition to a potential boss. But clothes don’t just shape the way other people see us. New research from a team of psychological scientists from California State University, Northridge and Columbia University finds that the clothes we wear can also influence the way we think. Across five experiments, study authors Michael Slepian, Simon Ferber, Joshua Gold, and Abraham Rutchick found that dressing to impress enhanced people’s ability to engage in abstract thinking.

No evidence that aerobic exercise improves cognitive function in older people without cognitive impairment:

Cochrane: Aerobic exercise is beneficial for healthy ageing. It has been suggested that the increased fitness brought about by aerobic exercise may help to maintain good cognitive function in older age. We looked for randomised controlled trials of aerobic exercise programmes for people over the age of 55 years, without pre-existing cognitive problems, which measured effects on both fitness and cognition. The aerobic exercise programmes could be compared with no intervention (e.g. being on a waiting list for the exercise group) or with other kinds of activity (including non-aerobic exercises such as strength or balance exercises, or social activities).

Cancer diagnosis affects cognitive function

Munich: Breast cancer patients often display mild cognitive defects even before the initiation of chemotherapy. A new study by LMU researchers now attributes the syndrome to post-traumatic stress induced by diagnosis of the disease. A large number of studies have shown that cancer patients very often exhibit mild deficits of attention, memory and other basic cognitive functions. The phenomenon has generally been attributed to putative side-effects of chemotherapeutic drugs on the brain, and the condition is therefore popularly referred to as chemobrain. – However, more recent investigations have detected symptoms of chemobrain in patients who had not yet embarked on a course of chemotherapy. Now a research has shown that, in breast cancer patients, pretreatment cognitive impairment is most probably due to posttraumatic stress induced by diagnosis of the malignancy itself.

Association between Traffic-Related Air Pollution in Schools and Cognitive Development in Primary School Children

Plos: Human brain development is a complex and lengthy process. During pregnancy, the basic structures of the brain are formed, and the neural circuits that will eventually control movement, speech, memory, and other cognitive (thinking) functions, as well as the function of many organs, begin to be established. By the time of birth, the brain is about a quarter of its adult size, and the neural circuits that control vital bodily functions such as breathing are well developed.

Do stimulant drugs make us smarter?

Auckland University. New-Zealand: A visiting expert will be discussing whether stimulant drugs make us smarter, at a public talk at the University of Auckland next month. Professor Wayne Hall is an expert in ‘neuroethics’ and over the past 20 years has led research in addiction, mental health and public health.

New study assesses premature babies at 2.5 years old

Lund Univeristy. Sweden: Extremely premature babies that reach the age of two and a half demonstrate significantly poorer cognition, language and motor skills than children born at full term. The new study from Lund University in Sweden is one of few to study children born prematurely at such a young age. The results could be used to provide help at the right time.

Researchers Identify Key Mechanisms Underlying HIV-Associated Cognitive Disorders

UCSD. US: While antiretroviral therapies have significantly improved and extended the lives of many HIV patients, another insidious and little discussed threat looms for aging sufferers – HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). The disorders, which strike more often in HIV patients over age 50, can result in cognitive impairment, mild to severe, making everyday tasks a challenge.