As the population of the United States ages, the incidence and prevalence of age-related disorders, including dementia, are on the rise. Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, affects more than 5 million Americans and leads to disability and, often, long-term care placement. For years, research has focused on ways to treat and prevent this devastating disease, and Ginkgo biloba extract has been in the spotlight. But now, a large study puts an end to the debate and declares that Ginkgo is not effective in preventing dementia in older adults. Read more →

Memantine (Namenda) is approved to treat Alzheimer’s disease, but may also be effective in treating binge eating disorder. A new study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders demonstrates memantine’s effectiveness in a small group of patients with binge eating disorder.

Binge eating is a relatively newly recognized psychiatric disorder that involves recurrent episodes of binge eating without extreme behaviors to lose weight. Binge eating is the most common eating disorder, affecting up to 3% of American adults. It is most often seen in people aged 46 to 55 years. Read more →

The possibility of fusing a mechanical device with the human brain becomes a reality.

Ladies and gentleman, I would like to introduce you to a new piece of technology. Lo and behold, the brain prosthesis. Wait. Did I just say brain prosthesis, as in an artificial replacement of the mind? Yes, that’s right; the brain prosthesis is going to be used to replace the damaged parts of our brain.

Hundreds of individuals who have lost their body parts due to traumatic injuries or congenital defects have already chosen to get artificial replacements. Read more →

Welcome to the thirty-fourth edition of Brain Blogging. In this round, we cover a range of methods to improve cognition, memory, and brain power — from eating celery to meditation.

If you were left out, just leave a comment with your blog entry. Don’t worry, we’ll format it to match the blog carnival (or even include it in the main post). Read more →

In an attempt to localize the part of the brain responsible for hunger, surgeons in Toronto inadvertently identified and stimulated a portion of the brain involving in memory and learning. This finding may lead researchers to develop new techniques for improving brain function in dementia.

The surgeon was attempting to implant a deep brain stimulator into the hypothalamus of an obese man, in order to curb his appetite by stimulating brain cells that suppress hunger. Read more →

Researchers are grappling with findings that people living with diabetes are less likely to have migraines, and vice versa. While the data has been made public about populations in several regions for quite some time now, for the first time a series of systematic studies and reviews conclude that these findings are not just a fluke. An entire region in Norway was sent a questionnaire. The 1,499 people who self reported to be living with any form of diabetes were found to have a significantly lower rate of migraines than those reporting to be non-diabetics. Read more →