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Contains fulltext : 282473.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Observational studies suggest that nutritional factors have a potential cognitive benefit. However, systematic reviews of randomised trials of dietary and nutritional supplements have reported largely null effects on cognitive outcomes and have highlighted study inconsistencies and other limitations. In this Personal View, the Nutrition for Dementia Prevention Working Group presents what we consider to be limitations in the existing nutrition clinical trials for dementia prevention. On the basis of this evidence, we propose recommendations for incorporating dietary patterns and the use of genetic, and nutrition assessment tools, biomarkers, and novel clinical trial designs to guide future trial developments. Nutrition-based research has unique challenges that could require testing both more personalised interventions in targeted risk subgroups, identified by nutritional and other biomarkers, and large-scale and pragmatic study designs for more generalisable public health interventions across diverse populations.

Contains fulltext : 287792.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) As research and services in the Mediterranean region continue to increase, so do opportunities for global collaboration. To support such collaborations, the Alzheimer's Association was due to hold its seventh Alzheimer's Association International Conference Satellite Symposium in Athens, Greece in 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was held virtually, which enabled attendees from around the world to hear about research efforts in Greece and the surrounding Mediterranean countries. Research updates spanned understanding the biology of, treatments for, and care of people with Alzheimer's disease (AD_ and other dementias. Researchers in the Mediterranean region have outlined the local epidemiology of AD and dementia, and have identified regional populations that may expedite genetic studies. Development of biomarkers is expected to aid early and accurate diagnosis. Numerous efforts have been made to develop culturally specific interventions to both reduce risk of dementia, and to improve quality of life for people living with dementia.

Pinpointing where healthy brain aging leaves off and dementia begins is difficult. Is a slip in memory an expected outcome for a too-busy person or a warning of something else? If an empty-nester loses the motivation to cook, is it a sign that the person is enjoying retirement after a lifetime spent cooking or an early sign of a cognitive decline?

Cell phone chimes, sticky notes, even the proverbial string around a finger-these timehonored external cues help guard against our inevitable memory lapses. But some internal help to the brain itself may be on the way in the form of what's being called memory prosthetics. Once considered to be on the fringes of neuroscience, the idea of adding hardware to the brain to help with memory has gathered steam. In 2014, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made a US$30 million investment in memory prosthetic research as part of the Obama administration's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative. In August 2016, Kernel, a startup based in Los Angeles, California, announced its goal to develop a clinical memory device for those debilitated by neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

Over the past 30 years, robots have become standard fixtures in operating rooms. During brain surgery, a NeuroMate robot may guide a neurosurgeon to a target within the pulsing cortex. In orthopedics, a Mako robot sculpts and drills bone during knee and hip replacement surgery. Dominating the general surgery field is the da Vinci robot, a multiarmed device that allows surgeons to conduct precise movements of tools through small incisions that they could not manage with their own hands.

Electricity is the currency of our nervous systems. Thinking and planning, walking and talking, eating and sleeping-all our mental and physical activities are driven by electrical signals moving through the brain. This electrical traffic ebbs and flows in consistent patterns across different brain regions, carrying information from one neuron to the next.

Since the 1980s, stem cells' shape-shifting abilities have wowed scientists. With proper handling, a few growth factors, and some time, stem cells can be cooked up into specific cell types, including neurons, muscle, and skin.

The 2012 Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) Conference, held in Florence, Italy, attracted more than 1,600 attendees from 53 countries to the stately Firenze Fiera Conference Center from April 14-18, 2012. Providing four major plenary sessions, thirty-five symposia sessions and six workshops, this 3rd Biennial SIRS Conference was jointly sponsored by Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and SIRS. In conjunction with the Schizophrenia Research Forum, a Web project of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and with our thanks to the SIRS organizers and staff, we bring you the following report on the meeting's discussions concerning drug therapy development for schizophrenia, psychological and social treatment for schizophrenia, and the challenges of predicting psychosis with brain imaging.

Approaches to Prevention in Schizophrenia A number of presentations at the 2015 ICOSR addressed potential strategies for prevention in schizophrenia. These ranged from prenatal supplements to what constitutes an optimal maintenance therapy in schizophrenia. One of the most hotly debated sessions at the conference centered on whether patients with schizophrenia need maintenance antipsychotic treatment. Wolfgang Fleischhacker from Medical School Innsbruck in Austria argued that, although it is unclear which antipsychotics are most effec tive for maintenance treatment after the first episode of psy chosis, it has been consistently shown that in the short term antipsychotic use is associated with significantly reduced relapse rates. Robin Emsley from Stellenbosch University in South Africa showed that discontinuation of antipsychotic maintenance results in treatment failure of the next relapse in one out of six patients. However, the overwhelming majority of studies exploring the effectiveness of antipsychotic maintenance treatment are relatively short, with limited data available beyond three years after the first episode of psychosis. Lex Wunderink from Friesland Mental Health Services in the Netherlands presented the results of a first randomized clinical trial with a seven-year follow-up. Patients were randomly assigned to early antipsychotic dose reduction/discontinuation or to standard maintenance treatment groups. Wunderink’s findings suggest that relapse rates were initially higher in the dose reduction/discontinuation group but leveled at three years. At seven years of follow-up, patients in the dose reduction/discontinuation arm of the study showed a significantly better recovery rate and functional remission compared to patients in the maintenance treatment group (Wunderink et al., 2013). This study underscores the im portance of using longer follow-up periods in clinical trials of maintenance treatment and of including functional status, in addition to relapse rate, as an outcome evaluation. Although the findings of this study strongly indicate that guided dose reduction and, if possible, discontinuation may be a feasible strategy leading to better long-term functional outcome, Wunderink pointed out that additional studies are needed before such a strategy can become a general guideline in treating patients with first-episode psychosis.

Paying attention to risk factors and warning signs could avert some cases of schizophrenia — or at least better prepare people for what's to come.