New Study Means the Age of Dementia Prevention Begins Now
New results from a large, 20-year, NIH-funded study (the ACTIVE Study) show it’s possible to prevent a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and related dementias.
Dr. Merzenich has published more than 150 articles in leading peer-reviewed journals (such as Science and Nature), received numerous awards and prizes (including the Russ Prize, Ipsen Prize, Zülch Prize, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award and Purkinje Medal), and been granted nearly 100 patents for his work. He and his work have been highlighted in hundreds of books about the brain, learning, rehabilitation, and plasticity.
New Research Suggests We Can Train Years Off Our Brains
A recent breakthrough neuroimaging study offers new hope for more effectively addressing the neurological deterioration underlying age-related cognitive loss, pre-dementia, and dementia, as well as other conditions
How Seasonal Time Changes Mess With Our Brains
Unraveling the neurological effects of springing forward and falling back.
The Season of Fear
We are in a season of fear. We are facing election fears just five days after Halloween. The quadrennial political election has become a quadrennial battle that seemingly threatens our existence.
Red red wine
One of the most interesting efforts targeting the development of anti-aging drugs stems from research conducted at Harvard that led to the identication of the compound in red wine (resveratrol) that accounts for its anti-aging properties. This compound is believed to activate a gene called SIRT-1, which appears to have a role in regulating lifespan…
How long-lived was your dad?
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences led by a UCSF scientist Wen-Chi Hsueh has very interestingly revisited the subject of the genetics of human longevity. As you may know, a prominent UCSF colleague, Elizabeth Blackburn, has been in the forefront of a beatiful series of studies that have shown…
When brain injury hits home
Because my research has focused on the neuroscience of rehabilitation for several decades, I have received hundreds of email messages, letters and telephone calls from parents and grand-parents desperately seeking help for their brain-damaged or developmentally-impaired child or grand-child. Because the losses suffered from brain injury and developmental disabilities expressed in this correspondence is usually…
Special Challenges Of Adolescence
We haven’t spent much time at this site discussing the neurological parallels of human adolescence. Let’s begin by reflecting on some basic aspects of its neurology and sociology. Think of life in the beaver lodge as the kids are growing up. They have it pretty good there, being taken care of by mom and dad.…
Marsupials and Beavers and Gliders, Oh My!
I’m in Evans Head, a beautiful small town on the north coast of New South Wales in Australia this morning, visiting an old friend Lindsay Aitkin, a retired research comrade. Professor Aitkin is still THE world’s authority on the hearing brains of marsupials – among his many other considerable accomplishments. Up to this very moment,…