5 of the top brain-related news stories of 2010

1. Brain training in urban schools: Funded by a grant for the National Science Foundation, a brain-training program (www.LearningRx.com) increased the cognitive skills of kids in some of the worst performing schools in Virginia. The pilot program was so successful that Dr. Oliver Hill, Jr. testified before a Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education hearing saying the program had “the potential to revolutionize education in general, and STEM education in particular.” Before the pilot brain-training studies, only one school in the district was accredited. Today, four of seven earned accreditation; the remaining three met 26 of the 29 indicators; and Petersburg High School earned its full accreditation in the State Standards of Learning tests for the very first time.                       

2. Children taking ADHD medication: According to a survey done by Consumer Reports National Research Center, 84 percent of kids diagnosed with ADHD take a prescription, despite the fact that many experience side effects from the stimulants.

3. Reversing age-related cognitive decline: A study from the Univ. of California, San Francisco showed that brain training actually reversed the damage to declining brains. The study (which was done on rats) found that after brain training, the brain cell health and myelin density both improved in the primary auditory brain regions to nearly the level seen in young rats. Post-mortem analysis found the rats that had gone through brain training also had more inhibitory neurons and more specialized cells (for sensory perception and brain plasticity).

4. The Army’s new blood test to detect Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): The Army has developed a blood test that shows biomarkers (the presence of certain proteins that are released into the bloodstream if the brain is jolted). The proteins are unique – and only appear in the blood when the brain cells are injured.

5. Preventing, slowing and treating Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) with brain training: Research suggests that the benefits of brain training reflect increases in cognitive reserve, which allows the brain to perform tasks even if there is damage to the pathways between brain cells. One study by showed that those with the highest cognitive reserves had a 46 percent reduced risk of developing dementia compared to those with lower reserves. In addition, brain training might be able to partially reverse dementia even after the symptoms are apparent.

 

NPR program about football players and brain injury

I recently posted something about giving your little (or big) football player Omega-3s to help prevent brain injury (like concussions). 

Well I just heard this program on NPR the other day about football players and brain injury. Even if you’re not interested in football (I’m not), you’ll find this interview interesting because it’s not about football but rather brain stuff!

For example: Former NFL players are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 19 times the normal rate of men ages 30 to 49.

The guy I heard in the interview (Chris Nowinski) was a former professional wrestler (as in WWE) and after he got several concussions, he started doing tons of research into brain injury. He even started a foundation and wrote a book about football players and brain injury.

Another interesting piece of info: 75% of hits happen at practice. Chris says if we keep the hits for the game instead, we’d reduce exposure to hits/concussions by 50%.

Here’s the link to the NPR piece:

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/20/133053436/brain-injuries-haunt-football-players-years-later?=

Watch videos about kids’ brains

I’m still going through all these, but they’re pretty fascinating. You can watch the videos online for free on topics like the correlation between brain skills and:

- emotions at home

- hearing

- reading

- math

-music

(among others)

These are put out by the University of Oregon’s Brain Development Lab.

Here’s an example of the video on emotion (10 minutes long): Kids who are neglected or abused or around parents who are depressed produce extra cortisol, which is damaging to the brain. Chronic stress and depression are literally TOXIC to a child’s brain!

www.changingbrains.org – click on “Watch Online”

Does your son play football? Give him Omega-3s

The February issue of “Neurosurgery” has a report about how taking DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid) might help protect against traumatic brain injury (TBI). Yes, that’s PROTECT – as in – TAKING DHA BEFORE THE INJURY EVEN OCCURS.

In the study, rats wre given DHA. After one month, the researchers induced TBI (I know, that part doesn’t sound nice). The rats taking the highest doses of DHA had a less TBI. (They had less expression of beta amyloid protein, which has been linked to Alzheimer’s.)

The rats that were given the most DHA had the least amount of brain cell death and performed better on spatial memory tests.

You can get DHA in supplement form, as well as by eating certain types of fish.

If further studies add to this conclusion, they may start giving DHA supplements to soldiers, athletes and people at risk of stroke.

DHA is a good thing to take for other reasons anyway, so why not add it to your list of vitamins and minerals?

Here’s the summary:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/213158.php

Jan. 29 is National Puzzle Day!

Puzzles are great toys for kids not only because they’re usually very affordable, but also because they help strengthen important brain skills, like attention, visual processing, planning and spatial reasoning. They’re especially important for younger children, because a foundation of strong cognitive skills makes learning easier later.

You can buy puzzles at the dollar store (or very cheap at places like Walmart and Target) and when your child gets bored with one puzzle, either swamp with a friend or add the stopwatch element to see how quickly they can finish the puzzle. Have them try to beat their own time. This will improve processing speed, which is an important cognitive tool – especially once they get to school and start taking timed tests.

Here are some cool puzzle facts:

• Jigsaw puzzles originated in the 1760s when maps were pasted onto wood and dissected.

• In 2008, more than 15,000 people in Ravensburg, Germany assembled a nearly 6,500-square-foot puzzle in town square. The puzzle had 1,141,800 pieces.

• In the 1930s, puzzle manufacturer Einson Freeman convinced a toothbrush company to give away a puzzle with every toothbrush purchase. More than one million toothbrushes sold.

 

Dr. Ken Gibson, author of “Unlock the Einstein Inside; Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart In Your Child” (free as an ebook at www.UnlockTheEinsteinInside.com) suggests watching your child do a puzzle in order to gain some insight into which brain skills are already strong, and which need to be strengthened. “And the cognitive skills needed to assemble an age-appropriate puzzle in a timely manner – like visual processing, logic and reasoning, attention and processing speed – need to be strong to avoid issues in science and math later.”

• Puzzle strategies: Here are 4 tips to help your child finish a puzzle:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Jigsaw-Puzzle-Strategy—4-Main-Routes-to-Finishing-That-Puzzle&id=3442806

 

• Free puzzles online: Lots of free jigsaw puzzles for all ages that kids can do online:

http://www.thekidzpage.com/onlinejigsawpuzzles/animals/index.html

• Free “Games for Skills” Chart: Find out which common, inexpensive games build certain cognitive skills at www.UnlockTheEinsteinInside.com.

Some brain-training centers are also offering free or discounted cognitive skills testing (normally like $200 I think) for National Puzzle Day in the weeks before the 29th. I’m not sure which ones are participating, but start by going to www.LearningRx.com and do a search by your zip code.

If they’re not participating in the free or reduced testing for National Puzzle Day, ask to be put on the email list. (March is Brain Awareness Month, which is another good time to catch discounted testing at brain-training centers.)

3 Things You Can Learn from Your Child’s Handwriting

Did you know that January 23, 2011 is National Handwriting Day? Some people don’t believe in the emotional evaluation of handwriting, but I’m guessing a lot fewer people would argue with the brain-related evaluation. Here are 3 examples:

1. Messy handwriting: Don’t assume your child is just being lazy. For younger kids, an inability to form letters correctly may be more about “motor dysgraphia,” or slow-developing motor skills. For school-age children and teens, writing illegibly may be a sign of dysgraphia (“problems with writing”), which is more about a lack of ability than effort – often due to weak cognitive skills like visual processing.
2. Misspelled words: Sometimes referred to as “dyslexic dysgraphia,” misspelling words when writing is often a sign that certain brain skills like phonemic awareness are weak. One quick way to evaluate the problem is to ask your child to copy written work from another sheet of paper. If the copied work has few or no mistakes, the issue may be less about poor handwriting and more about weak reading and spelling skills.
3. Extra, reversed or omitted letters; heavy pressure: A 2007 study (in Israel) found that students with attention deficits (like ADHD) were more likely to have dysgraphia. In addition to these graphemic buffer errors, writers with ADHD tended to write faster and exert “abnormally high levels of pen pressure.”

While analyzing your child’s handwriting is by no means a scientific means of determining a learning disorder, there are clues that may help parents recognize a need for professional cognitive skills evaluation.

About National Handwriting Day

The day was founded in 1977 by the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association to promote the use of pencils, pens and paper. January 23 is also the birthday of John Hancock, whose name is synonymous with the word “signature.”

 

Pregnant? Take iron (& folic acid) to have smarter babies

Most of us already knew to take folic acid when we were pregnant, but new research says that taking folic acid AND iron before and during pregnancy will make your kids smarter.

In the study, kids whose moms took folic acid and iron showed:

• higher reasoning skills

• stronger cognitive ability

• better motor skills

• enhanced inhibitory control (I’m guessing this means a lower chance of ADHD)

The theory is that iron deficiency during pregnancy can alter neurotransmitters in the baby’s brain, which ofen impacs how fast they can process information.

This is an important study, as perhaps 30% of American women are anemic by the end of their pregnancy.In developing countries, that number is closer to 50%.

One of the researchers said it’s even more important to take iron at the END of pregnancy (as opposed to folic acid, which is most important before and during the early months).

Here’s the study:

http://www.aolhealth.com/2010/12/22/moms-to-be-iron-folic-acid-smarter-babies/?icid=maing%7Cmain5%7Cdl3%7Csec2_lnk1%7C32897

 

 

Tricare won’t pay for TBI therapy for troops!

As someone whose husband is currently in Afghanistan, I will say that I am angry, sad and embarrassed by this. How can we send our soldiers into a war and then not pay for the most common, life-changing injury they sustain? Disgusting.

Official military stats say 115,000 traumatic brain injuries, though some estimate it being closer to 400,000.

So why won’t they pay? On the record, Tricare says it’s not about money but that there’s not enough proof that cognitive therapy works – even though there’s tons of evidence showing it does. One of their main standbys is that the treatment soldiers receive is “too individualized so it’s hard to pinpoint the results.” SERIOUSLY? If the treatments weren’t customized for each soldier they likely wouldn’t work as well! Some veterans might have memory issues, others might have issues with processing speed, some might have attention issues…you get the point. My guess is that if the care WASN’T personalized then Tricare would complain that the cognitive therapy was too general.

And despite the fact that TriCare says it’s not about money, someone who was in the actual meeting to decide said that cost definitely played a roll. Also, Robert Gates (Defense Secretary) has in the past said that the military is being “eaten alive” by skyrocketing medical bills.

Come on! I don’t care what party you’re affiliate with (or neither), you’ve got to admit that this is just shameful. We’re kicking sand in the faces of our troops – and they’ve had enough sand to last them a lifetime.

Here’s the article:

http://www.propublica.org/article/pentagon-health-plan-wont-cover-brain-damage-therapy-for-troops

Turmeric (in curry) shown to fight TBI and stroke

For the sake of full disclosure, let me say that I have become borderline obsessed with turmeric lately. The more I read about it the more I think it is one of the most powerful healers (and preventative spice) in nature.

I found out about it as I was researching natural treatments for MRSA (“Mersa”), which I had in my leg. (The doctor thinks I likely contracted it from the community center locker room because I swim every Friday night.) I started researching what people were doing for their MRSA (especially those who don’t sell any products) and many swore by turmeric.

In any case, I was reading about traumatic brain injury today and ran across this new study about turmeric “dramatically” improving the behavioral and molecular deficits (like those that cause memory problems) in animals with TBI and stroke.

(Sidenote: I didn’t realize that TBI is the leading cause of death and disability in both DIVILIANS and soldiers under 45!)

So how does it work? The ingredient in turmeric (called CNB-001 in this study) called “curcumin” maintains the connections between nerve cells that are often lost with stroke or TBI. It also maintains the pathways needed for nerve cell survival. In fact, the word they used is “reversed!” It reversed the behavioral deficits in movement and memory that come with a brain injury.

I still take Turmeric daily and want to point out that you need to get the whole spice (like from an Indian grocery store) or the capsules (like from Whole Foods) that have a high percentage of curcumin in them. (I think it was over 60% – ?)

Here’s the study:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/211621.php

 

New link between autism and traffic pollution

A new study published in the journal “Environmental Health Perspectives” shows that children who live near a freeway (not just a major road) have double the risk of autism. More specifically, the study says “children born to mothers living within 309 meters.” (If my math is correct, I think that’s about 1/5 of a mile.)

The researchers believe that both genetics and environment play a major role in increasing autism rates.

While plenty of studies have shown that air pollution can harm a developing fetus, more are starting to show that it can also harm infants during their first couple years – especially cognitive development delay.

And yes, the researchers made adjustments for things like gender, parents’ education levels, mother’s age, ethnicity and if the parents smoked.

So why would traffic pollution increase autism?

The pollutants cause inflammation and oxidative stress, which have both been shown to add to the development of autism.

Here’s the study:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/211959.php