E-newsletters

Published July 6, 2022 9:49 AM

The main findings of the Lifebrain project (so far) provide support for some established associations, but also challenge some tenets of lifespan cognitive neuroscience. For instance, while we acknowledge that education is associated with a long-lasting neurocognitive advantage, our longitudinal data challenge previous cross-sectional claims that higher education slows brain ageing.

Read more about our Key findings in the Lifebrain e-newsletter June 2022.

Published May 2, 2022 11:07 AM

In the largest survey ever done to investigate public perceptions of brain health globally, researchers from the Lifebrain consortium, including the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) found that most people are aware that their lifestyle and mental health can affect their brain health, women and more educated people being most aware.

Read more in the Lifebrain E-newsletter April 2022 here.

Published Mar. 29, 2022 12:22 PM

In an earlier Lifebrain newsletter we reported preliminary findings suggesting that loneliness may accelerate memory decline in older age. This time, Lifebrain researchers from the University of Barcelona have found nuances in these observations: some people feeling lonely over time may have declining verbal memory, and that it is closely linked to dementia. The study focused on whether loneliness was associated with memory performance and memory decline in three European cohorts.

Read more about the findings in the Lifebrain E-newsletter March 2022.

Published Nov. 2, 2021 10:41 AM

Our brain is changing most rapidly early in life. Even before we are born, almost all the 86 billion neurons we will ever have, are already in place. This forms the foundation of our brain. From the moment of conception, throughout life, the interaction between genes and the environment will impact the brain and cognitive functions such as memory and attention. The brain is especially vulnerable during pregnancy, and the environment in the womb plays a critical role for how the brain develops, with potential long-term effects on health. These early life factors may promote both positive and negative outcomes for the individual.  

Read more about the importance of early years in brain development in the Lifebrain E-newsletter October 2021.

 

Published Nov. 2, 2021 10:33 AM

Lifebrain researchers have published a report on "How to promote people`s brain health". People want clear, evidence-based information about exactly which lifestyle changes can improve their brain health. People also say they would need professional support and regular monitoring or follow-up to track the effect of such changes.

The report is based on answers from 27,590 respondents from 81 countries who took part in the Global Brain Health Survey, which asked the public what they would need in order to help improve or maintain their brain health. The survey is the largest worldwide study to date about public perceptions of brain health.

Read more about the key findings of the report in the Lifebrain e-newsletter August 2021. 

Published Oct. 1, 2021 11:45 AM

If you have been following our newsletters for a while, you may remember reading about effects of physical activity on brain health (link to previous newsletters below). Since then, studies have continued to provide evidence that physical activity is beneficial to the brain, both in terms of brain structure and brain function. However, quantifying the benefits of physical activity to the brain is challenging. One way to look at this is through brain age. A current Lifebrain study supports the view that physical fitness may maintain a younger brain later in life. 

Click here to read the Lifebrain September 2021 E-newsletter.

Published May 27, 2021 11:58 AM

Contrary to common belief, a new Lifebrain study finds that higher education does not slow brain aging. All brains shrink with age, and the dominant view has been that more education slows the rate of shrinking. However, the evidence has been inconclusive because studies have mostly been cross-sectional without following the rate of change over time. But thanks to Lifebrain data, we have been able to track brain changes in individuals over many years. The results were published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, USA (PNAS).

Read more in the Lifebrain e-newsletter April 2021.

Published Mar. 26, 2021 10:11 AM

Recent findings show that up to more than two-thirds of patients with covid-19 had neurological complications, and many develop a mental health problem within 90 days of contracting the virus. This has led the European Brain Council to consider covid-19 a brain disease. 

Read more about Covid-19 as a brain disease in the Lifebrain newsletter March 2021.

Published Mar. 24, 2021 9:43 AM

PhD candidate James Roe and his colleagues in Lifebrain recently published an influential paper in the journal Nature Communications, about how the brain ages. They found that parts of the brain decline faster from age 30, which may prove to be a marker for detecting Alzheimer’s Disease. The Lifebrain team used MRI scans to track changes occurring in the brain over time, in data that often spanned many years of a person’s life. The results were confirmed in no less than 4 Lifebrain sites.

Read the Lifebrain Newsletter February 2021 here.

Published Feb. 1, 2021 9:15 AM

There is a worry in society that too little sleep has strong negative effects on physical, mental and cognitive health. Some have even suggested that we are suffering an ‘epidemic of sleeplessness” in modern societies. Lack of sleep is also a concern for brain health, and we know that old people with sleep problems have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias.

So how much sleep is enough to take care of your brain? We did not find convincing evidence that how much people report to sleep is related to how their brain ages. However, results also show that we cannot exclude the possibility that sleeping very little (fewer than 5 hours) or a lot (mor e than 10 hours) is related to poorer brain health.

Read more about the findings in the Lifebrain E-newsletter January 2021.

Published Nov. 30, 2020 8:49 PM

Life expectancy is probably one of the best and most used measures we have for an objective quantification of health because it is a resultant of genetic and environmental factors of importance for life.

Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time a person is expected to live, based on year of birth, current age, sex, and other demographic factors. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth (LEB), which can be defined as the average number of years that a newborn is expected to live if current mortality rates continue to apply at a given year like 2020. 

Considering factors of importance for longevity, we notice a striking similarity to factors of importance for good brain functions (as outlined in some previous E-newsletters). 

Read more about the marked differences in life expectancy between different geographical areas and their underlying causes in the Lifebrain e-newsletter November 2020.

Published Oct. 1, 2020 2:42 PM

By taking a simple blood test, it is possible to get some information about the brain. This is because biomarkers in the blood can give an indication of the biological state of the brain.

Two types of biomarkers are relevant for brain health – general (for e.g. D vitamin, Omega 3 fatty acids, cholesterol etc.) and brain-specific (for e.g. tau protein and amyloid beta, which are linked to Alzheimer`s disease). Read more about the biomarkers of the brain in the latest Lifebrain newsletter September 2020.

 

Published June 30, 2020 3:31 PM

People make immensely valuable contributions to research. Mrs. A., the last of the 516 BASE participants, was one of them. This article is a tribute to her in gratitude for the time and engagement she has given to supporting research and allowing insights into her life.  

In December, Mrs. A., passed away at the age of 107. The Berlin Aging Study (BASE) is a multidisciplinary investigation of old people aged from 70 to over 100 years who lived in the former West-Berlin. The study covered their mental and physical health, psychological functioning and socio-economic status. Read more about her research participation and life in the Lifebrain e-newsletter June 2020.

Published May 29, 2020 11:27 AM

The brain is really something! Did you know that it contains about 75-80 % water (by weight), 10 % lipids, and 10 % proteins? Did you know that under normal conditions, the brain exclusively uses glucose as an energy source. However, the brain can also run on something called ketone bodies mostly produced by the liver from fat during long-term fasting. Have you thought about that without the brain, there is no conscious life?  Read more in the May 2020 Lifebrain e-newsletter and find out all you need to know about the brain!  

Published Apr. 30, 2020 9:12 PM

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) technology has developed markedly in recent years. Virtual experiences that used to be the domain of science fiction writers are now available for consumers. VR also makes it possible to design experiments that would otherwise be impossible. In the April edition of the Lifebrain newsletter you can read about how VR can be used to study how training people's navigation skills can affect their brain.

Published Mar. 18, 2020 5:56 PM

The rate at which we age vary greatly among people, and many age-related changes and disorders seem to have substantial  heritable components. What can genetic studies tell us about how we age? Read more in the latest issue of the Lifebrain newsletter.

Published Jan. 30, 2020 2:41 PM

Most people, (even scientists!) experience a marked barrier in the way information is presented in scientific papers. It is often so different and complicated that we´ll rather rely on somebody else to explain the main points. However, if you want to get first hand knowledge of a topic you have to go to the scientific articles describing the original observations. 

Have a look at our guide to scientific reading in the first Lifebrain newsletter of 2020!