Strong Education Blunts Effects of Alzheimer's Disease, Study Suggests

piggy submitted, created time 1 month 3 weeks (www.sciencedaily.com)

A test that reveals brain changes believed to be at the heart of Alzheimer's disease has bolstered the theory that education can delay the onset of the dementia and cognitive decline that are characteristic of the disorder.

Scientists at the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that some study participants who appeared to have the brain plaques long associated with Alzheimer's disease still received high scores on tests of their cognitive ability

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Drinking and the Shrinking Brain

sea-maid submitted, created time 2 months 3 weeks (voices.washingtonpost.com)

Some researchers went looking for evidence that low to moderate alcohol consumption could stave off brain problems. That is not what they found.

Nobody wants to think about their brain's shrinking. But our brains do so as we
age, by about two percent every ten year. According to a new article in the Annals of Neurology, that figure is higher for people who drink.

The authors request that people remember that the correlation that was found is between drinking and decreases in brain size, not brain function.

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Protein chaperone bulwark against nerve degeneration

jane2007 submitted, created time 9 months 3 weeks (www.bcm.edu)

A protein called NMNAT (NAD synthase nicotinamide mononucleotide adenylyltransferase) protects nerve cells from degeneration by acting as a "chaperone," a molecule that helps other proteins fold into an active state.

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Brain electrode therapy designed for obseity found to improve memory; will be tried on Alzheimer's patients

jane2007 submitted, created time 11 months 1 week (www.nature.com)

Memory-prompting abilities of brain stimulation discovered by accident. Electrodes implanted into the brain of a patient undergoing an experimental treatment for obesity have surprisingly improved his memory skills. It will suppress appetite too.

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New gene mutation identified in common type of dementia

bianjie submitted, created time 1 year 5 months (www.eurekalert.org)

Researchers have identified a new gene mutation linked to frontotemporal dementia, according to a study published in the July 10, 2007 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Methematician turns digital detective -- has a point

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 10 months (www.nature.com)

In this article, a mathematician describes his work identifying doctored pictures -- digital media that have been altered. One of his key clues is the point of light reflected in each person's eye, the angle, the color, the size. I once listened to a neuroscientist use that same clue -- the point of light -- to demonstrate that that many of our greatest visual artists, from Andy Worhol to Rembrandt, may have had casts to their eyes (eyes look out in different directions), implying that they literally don't see the world the same way. From artist to scientist to mathematician to art

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