People with ADD get a day, but brain damage gets the month of March. March seems like a good month for brain damage awareness. However long the winter feels, March is when spring starts to enter our minds. The first warmer breezes are not far off (if you’re in the northern hemisphere and you’re out of the more tropical regions). And indeed, for many of those recovering from brain damage it is a long winter, and the first hints of hope and recovery offer some welcome warmth. Read more →

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has a bad reputation, due in part to the graphic media portrayals we see in films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Beautiful Mind, and probably also in part to an innate distaste for the idea of receiving electrical shocks to the brain.

Despite the popular disgust for this treatment, ECT is still used in patients with psychiatric disorders that have not responded to other therapies, most commonly major depression and bipolar disorder. Read more →

A recent study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that marketing can have a significant effect on the neural mechanisms governing decision-making. The study measured the “experienced pleasantness” of three different wines, both by subjective reporting of the test subjects’ perceptions of the wines, and by measuring activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, a known “pleasure center” in the brain. Test results indicated that even when wines were identical, subjects’ levels of experienced pleasantness differed according to the reported price of the wine; the same wine tasted better when the subject believed that it was a sample from a $45 bottle of wine than when she was told it was from a $5 bottle. Read more →

A recent finding of the Nun Study identifies oral disease as a potential risk factor for dementia, with conclusions indicating that a low number of teeth — fewer than ten — may be an accurate predictor of dementia in later life. Furthermore, the study showed that subjects with the fewest number of teeth presented with the most severe incidence of dementia. Read more →

The old adage, “Don’t go grocery shopping on an empty stomach” has more validity than you may think. Researches have discovered at least some situations that trigger impulse buying — and not just at the grocery store. Since consumers are the virtual “dead animals on the street” to marketing vultures, it pays to be one step ahead of the game. The ScienceDaily article, “Aroma Of Chocolate Chip Cookies Prompts Splurging On Expensive Sweaters,” provides information that may keep you from the poor house. Read more →

Research in the field of dementia prevention and treatment is widespread, as people are living longer and thus developing dementia at a higher rate. Three recently published studies point to the importance of diet and exercise in the development of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, the two most common types seen in aging individuals. Read more →