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Category: brain health

Dropping acid (LSD) helps alcoholics stop drinking

One dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD could help alcoholics give up drinking, according to an analysis of studies performed in the 1960s. A study, presented in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, looked at data from six trials and more than 500 patients. It said there was a “significant beneficial effect” on more »

Lack of sleep can lead to Alzheimer’s

The poorer your sleep, the more likely you may be to develop Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study. “We found that if people had a lot of awakenings during the night, more than five awakenings in an hour, they are more likely to have preclinical Alzheimer’s disease,” says researcher more »

Big meals linked to memory loss

A link between memory loss and a high calorie diet has been suggested by researchers in the US. They were investigating mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which can be an early sign of dementia. Research, presented at a conference, claimed a high calorie diet was linked to having twice the risk more »

Cure to Alzheimer’s could be on the horizon

Destructive plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients have been rapidly cleared by researchers testing a cancer drug on mice. The US study, published in the journal Science, reported the plaques were broken down at “unprecedented” speed. Tests also showed an improvement in some brain function. Specialists said the results more »

Smoking in men speeds up mental decline

Men who smoke tend to have a more rapid mental decline than men who do not smoke, a new study shows. But the findings did not reveal a similar link between smoking and mental decline in female smokers. Although the exact reason for the sex difference is unclear, one possibility more »

Healthy brain aging & cognitive function promoted by exercise

The benefits of exercise are attributed to several mechanisms, many which highlight its neuroprotective role via actions that enhance neurogenesis, neuronal morphology and/or neurotrophin release. However, the brain is also composed of glial and vascular elements, and comparatively less is known regarding the effects of exercise on these components in the aging brain. more »

Brain Oddities: Reading Rainbow

Yesterday, a coworker showed me an interesting internet phenomenon that I’d seen some years before but had completely forgotten. You may recognize it from when it began circulating via email in 2003 (you know, those chain emails that threatened horrible things if you didn’t forward them): Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch more »