BrainBlog

The British Psychological Society's (BPS) Research Digest blog has an interesting post about a study that concerns itself with giving route directions: link

de Jong LW, van der Hiele K, Veer IM, Houwing JJ, Westendorp RG, Bollen EL, de Bruin PW, Middelkoop HA, van Buchem MA, & van der Grond J. Strongly reduced volumes of putamen and thalamus in Alzheimer's disease: An MRI study. Brain. 2008 Nov 20. Department of Radiology, Section Neuropsychology of the Department of Neurology, Department of Medical Statistics, Department of Geriatrics and Department of Neurology of the Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands. Atrophy is regarded a sensitive marker of neurodegenerative pathology. In addition to confirming the well-known presence of decreased global grey matter and hippocampal volumes in Alzheimer's disease, this study investigated whether deep grey matter structure also suffer degeneration in Alzheimer's disease, and whether such degeneration is associated with cognitive deterioration. In this cross-sectional correlation study, two groups were compared on volumes of seven subcortical regions: 70 memory...

From an NIH press release earlier today: Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) Study Fails To Show Benefit in Preventing Dementia in the Elderly The dietary supplement Ginkgo biloba was found to be ineffective in reducing the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in older people, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association1. Researchers led by Stephen T. DeKosky, M.D., formerly of the University of Pittsburgh, vice president and dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, conducted the trial known as the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) study at four clinical sites over the course of 8 years. GEM is the largest clinical trial ever to evaluate ginkgo's effect on the occurrence of dementia. This research was co-funded by five components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH): National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM); National Institute on Aging (NIA); National Heart, Lu...

Pratt LA, Weeks JD, & Goulding MR. Measures of cognitive functioning in the 1994-2000 Second Longitudinal Study of Aging . National Health Statistics Reports. 2008 Jul 7; (2): 1-15. US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, MD 20782, USA. OBJECTIVES: This report describes in detail the measures of cognitive functioning administered in the Second Longitudinal Study of Aging (LSOA II) and proposes a three-category cognitive impairment variable for analysts' use that is derived from the individual measures. METHODS: LSOA II self-respondents completed an 11-question cognitive functioning measure based on the Telephone Interview of Cognitive Status (TICS) instrument. Proxy respondents answered nine questions drawn from the short Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE). Using cut points provided in the literature as a guide, a single three-level categorical...

"Neuroscience 2008" --- The 38th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience , is scheduled for 15-19 November 2008 in Washington, D.C. The location is the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Conference website .