New Service for
TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com readers...roll mouse over, click on
highlighted links in stories to review items from Amazon
Brain network identified that may prevent
or slow Alzheimer’s
Newswise — Columbia
University Medical Center researchers have
identified a brain network within the
frontal lobe that is associated with
cognitive reserve, the process that allows
individuals to maintain function despite
brain function decline due to aging or
Alzheimer’s disease.
This finding may
provide a hint about how higher levels of
cognitive reserve – which is believed to
build by regularly engaging in
mentally-stimulating activities such as
taking classes, gardening and volunteering,
provides protection against Alzheimer’s
disease or dementia by “exercising” the
brain.
The study was led by
principal investigator Yaakov Stern, Ph.D.,
a professor at the Taub Institute for the
Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the
Aging Brain and director of the Cognitive
Neuroscience Division of the Gertrude H.
Sergievsky Center at Columbia University
Medical Center. It is published in the
current issue of Cerebral Cortex.
To obtain the data
evaluated in the study, participants,
categorized as young (between 18-30 years of
age) and elderly (between 65-80 years of
age), were given one of two different memory
tasks – one involving a series of letters
and a second involving a series of
nonsensical shapes, to complete while
undergoing functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI).
The tasks were designed
with increasing difficulty to allow the
research team to observe the participants’
brain activation as tasks got progressively
harder. This activation is known to
correlate with IQ level and educational
background, which Dr. Stern and his team
have determined to be measures of cognitive
reserve, with higher levels corresponding
with higher levels of cognitive reserve.
Findings demonstrated
that participants with higher levels of
cognitive reserve were able to activate this
network in the brain while working on more
difficult tasks, while participants with
lower levels of reserve were not able to tap
into this particular network.
“With the
identification of this brain network –
located within the frontal lobe – that is
active during the performance both of these
verbal and spatial tasks and probably other
types of tasks as well, we believe we have
accomplished an important first step towards
improving our understanding of how cognitive
reserve is expressed within the brain,” said
Dr. Stern, who is a professor of clinical
neuropsychology in the Departments of
Neurology, Psychiatry, and Psychology at the
Columbia University College of Physicians
and Surgeons.
Dr. Stern’s hope is
that with this new understanding, he and
other experts can continue working towards
developing interventions to increase
cognitive reserve and prevent or delay the
onset of Alzheimer’s disease or other
age-related memory conditions.
“Interestingly, the
network was found more often in younger
participants, signifying that the network
may degrade during the natural aging
process,” said Dr. Stern. “If this
degradation process can be slowed or halted,
it may benefit the millions of people living
with devastating memory decline.”
For more information
about cognitive reserve and the role it is
believed to play in the prevention or slowed
progression of Alzheimer’s disease, please
click here to read an interview with Dr.
Yaakov Stern in InVivo, the Columbia
University Medical Center newsletter:
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news/in-vivo/Vol3_Iss11_nov_dec_04/.
Columbia University
Medical Center provides international
leadership in basic, pre-clinical and
clinical research, in medical and health
sciences education, and in patient care. The
medical center trains future leaders and
includes the dedicated work of many
physicians, scientists, nurses, dentists,
and public health professionals at the
College of Physicians & Surgeons, the
Mailman School of Public Health, the College
of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing,
the biomedical departments of the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences, and allied
research centers and institutions.
www.cumc.columbia.edu
...
...
...