Cognitive Labs

Which dinosaur was the smartest? The answer is the Troodon, related to the velociraptor but in fact, the dinosaur with the highest brain/body mass ratio - meaning that it was probably the most intelligent.

Thank you for participating in our poll! The web's top answer was the velociraptor.

Now, we are opening up a new poll.



I invite you to particpate and tell us what you think.

Speaking of longevity, we just had the opportunity to investigate at close quarters the bristlecone pine and the ancient bristlecone pine forest in the White Mountains of California. Adapted as it is to an environment of extreme aridity, just the needles alone have a lifespan of 30-40 years. Sprouts may take years to gain a foothold and tree rings indicate the circumference of the trees increases by just 1/100th of an inch per year. In fact, lying around on the ground is dead wood that science estimates to be 8,000 years old. One of the trees in the White Mountains is 4,750 years old, classified as the oldest living organism on Earth. When the boundary lines of the pyramid of Khufu were being plotted on the plateau of Giza

  
this Bristlecone pine was a sapling on the heights of White Mountain Peak.

Electromagnetism may play a role in detecting Alzheimer's - as one firm is reporting an 81% success rate in detection based on a study.

Unfortunately 81% accuracy in diagnostics would lead to a large number of false positives. The question really is who should be tested, and when. Should they be tested at age 29, 39, or 69?

The other consideration is cost of the test procedure. The cost-benefit must show significant savings or cost avoidance to justify a certain cost. By that standard, even one or two thousand dollars would not be too much since a savings of at least 10X could be achieved.

Changes in lifestyle that can be easily measured is the bearing point for cognitive labs, paving the way for other more expensive procedures. Without greater accuracy of result, however, the utilty of more expensive downstream procedures needs to be considered carefully

We were out for a couple of days over the weekend. Here's what we saw (Inyo Nat'l Forest) This was a rather close encounter with a bear that just had no fear of people. All the usual 'bear' tips didn't work. So we had to try a novel approach. We offered the bear a memory test, and that seemed to do it.

Researchers announced today (article published in the Journal of Neuroscience) that there could be unknown connections between the areas of our brains where "daydreams" occur and much later, formation of amyloid plaque...the implication is that even as early as childhood, there could be a foundation for the disease undetectably laid in certain cognitive regions.

The areas of the brain that young, healthy people use when daydreaming are the same areas that fail in people with Alzheimer's disease, new research reveals.

"The regions of the brain we tend to use in our default state when we are young are very similar to the regions where plaques form in older people with Alzheimer's disease," said study lead researcher Randy L. Buckner, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Washington University, St. Louis.

On the basis of this finding, researchers believe that Alzheimer's disease may be due to abnormalities in the regions of the brain that operate the "default state," the name given to the cognitive state people defer to when musing, daydreaming or thinking to themselves.

Buckner's team used five different medical imaging techniques on 764 people including Alzheimer's patients, those on the brink of dementia, and healthy individuals.

Reporting in the Aug. 24 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, they unexpectedly found that the regions of the brain that light up when you slip into comfortable patterns of thought are the same as those that later in life exhibit disabling clumps of plaque, a key characteristic of Alzheimer's.

That means dementia might be a consequence of the everyday function of the brain, said Buckner.

"This was not a relationship we had even considered," Buckner said. "The hypothesis is that the cascade of events that leads to Alzheimer's begins at young childhood."
--
This reminds us of some of Dr. Rich Haier's exploratory research using our cognitive testing in concert with MRI....

Take your pick: click

Here's a new poll. It is a little more diffcult than the WWII poll. Here's a hint: intelligence (and ostensibly memory) has something to do with relative size of brain and body...light and fast vs. big and dull.

Here are the results. Most of you picked the winner, Mt. Surabachi - the highest point on the island of Iwo Jima.

Pork Chop Hill was an important site during the Korean War, and featured US Army troops.

Mt. Mazama is (was) a volcano in Oregon now known as Crater Lake, after blowing its top about 6,000 years ago in a tremendous explosion that still lives on in native American legend.

Bunker Hill, in Boston, was a key site during the Revolutionary War - though most of the battle between Colonists and Redcoats took place on nearby Breed's Hill.

Hiragana is a name of a kind of Japanese writing, and Krakatoa is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the South Pacific. While this area saw much action, not the smoldering summit of Krakatoa.

Watch for our next poll, and in the meantime - test and track your cognitive performance with MemCheck.

Free One-time Memory Test

Subscribe - just 18 cents a day and now, 30 days free

What do you think? Who Thinks the Fastest?



Here are the results of our poll (so far) on age and reaction time. We asked at what age would your brain be the fastest:

19 to 24 was the top response with 25.37%

Age groups 1 to 6 and 55-64 came in second at just over 13% of the vote each, tying.

These three response groups took 51% of the popular vote....


You can still vote

World War II bissected the last century, ending the last unresolved vestiges of the 19th Century that did not end with the Armistice of 1918. After 1945, the Cold War, Space Race and the 'Technology' Revolution characterized the second half of the Century.

Starting today (just a few minutes ago, we will be offering a World War II Memory challenge, so stay tuned - the first quiz is right here. Can you name the mountain? Survey says: ????

It's a great way to exercise your brain and either move right into our memory testing; or as a way to wind down after your test or periodic check-up (once a month or so is popular with our members).

If you haven't signed up for one of our membership programs, it's a good time to do so. There's something special for you if you do.

// posted by neurofuture4:38 PM permanent link

tags:   

  tags: help build archive | brain games | more brain games

The polls have now closed. Over 80% of respondents correctly identified Mr. Reagan as the US President who had Alzheimer's Disease and who did so much to raise awareness for this disease.



This jelly-belly mosaic of Ronald Reagan hangs in the lobby of the Jelly Belly company of Fairfield, CA, which also offers tours. The story goes that Mr. Reagan took up jelly bellies when he quit smoking in the 1960's. The cordial correspondence between Mr. Reagan and the family owners of the Company is preserved for all to see at the Factory. Once Mr. Reagan became President, jelly bellies were shipped to the Oval Office.

Now, the company features a jelly belly mosaic of Governer Schwarzenegger

Marilyn Elias of USA Today writes on exercising our brains:



How to save your brain: Start immediately
By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
Knowing they'll need a nest egg for later years, sensible middle-aged adults may put their stockbroker on speed-dial and keep 401(k) updates handy.


Michelle Rubin changed her diet to improve memory


But how about building a "cognitive reserve" account their brain can draw on at older ages when memory problems are most serious?

It's more than just a clever idea. Animal studies and rapidly growing human evidence suggest that adults might be able to delay or prevent severe cognitive decline, says Molly Wagster, who directs research on normal brain aging at the National Institute on Aging. "There are no guarantees yet, but it's really looking like some of these things could work."

Possible resources for the brain include:

• Mental stimulation.

• Higher education.

• Leisure activities.

• Aerobic exercise.

• Antioxidant-rich foods such as blueberries and spinach.

There's also "overwhelming evidence" of a link between high blood pressure or diabetes and dementia, says Zaven Khachaturian, senior science adviser to the Alzheimer's Association.

Cutting-edge research on the payoffs of planning ahead for people who may live to be 80 or longer will be reported at the American Psychological Association meeting starting today in Washington, D.C.

"We've been surprised to find out how malleable the brain is," says psychologist Randy Buckner of Washington University in St. Louis.

The evidence that mentally challenging lives boost brain power comes from large, worldwide samples of people who have been followed over time. Scientists compare those who maintain good mental function with those who don't. Very few controlled clinical trials have been done, so conclusive evidence on preventing dementia does not exist.

However, animal research, some newer types of brain scans and human autopsy findings tend to support the population findings, Wagster says.

"What we have is fairly compelling and worth paying attention to now," says neurologist David Bennett of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "Don't wait till you're 80."

His long-running study of Catholic nuns, priests and brothers shows that the more formal education a person has, the more amyloid plaques — clumped protein fragments typical of Alzheimer's — it takes to produce a given level of memory impairment.

"This doesn't mean you should quit your job and go get a Ph.D," he says. "Education probably relates to how you use your brain throughout life — your job and leisure activities that stretch the mind."

Additionally, the more plaques seen at autopsy, the bigger the difference education made on the person's cognitive test scores.

Leisure pursuits also matter. Several studies have found that stimulating fare such as doing crossword puzzles, going to museums and reading helps to stave off memory problems.

Just keeping busy seems to tune the brain, suggests neuropsychologist Yaakov Stern of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Stern followed about 1,800 older adults for up to seven years. The more leisure pursuits they engaged in — even just visiting friends, playing cards or going to the movies — the lower their risk of developing Alzheimer's. From the start, he accounted for scores on memory tests, strokes, high blood pressure, diabetes and other health limitations to make sure poor health or memory weren't the causes.

Stern also conducted studies using PET brain scans of adults with the same cognitive ability scores and found greater physical changes linked to Alzheimer's disease in those with better educations. In other words, better-educated people can sustain more brain damage before they lose mental ability.

"I'm convinced they have resources that provide a reserve," Stern says.

Adults who lead stimulating lives may develop more neurons, more connections between neurons or more efficiency in using their brain cells so they need fewer, Bennett says. They also may create needed detours around brain blockages in response to the demands of daily life, much in the way a commuter is able to find quicker routes home. Bennett's team is now counting neurons and the links between neurons in brains of deceased study participants to shed more light on what's happening.

Exercise plays a role

MORE ON MEMORY
These Web sites and books offer more information on preventing memory loss:
www.alzheimers.org, and click on "Genes, Lifestyles and Crossword Puzzles."
www.centerforhealthyminds.org/index.html

The Memory Prescription, by Gary Small M.D. and Gigi Vorgan (Hyperion)

Keep Your Brain Young, by Guy McKhann and Marilyn Albert







Mental and social stimulation are not the whole story in preserving brain function. There's evidence that aerobic exercise is beneficial.

Walking 45 minutes three times a week for six months significantly improved mental ability of older adults with no dementia; a randomly selected control group that did stretching and toning had no change, says study leader Arthur Kramer, a psychologist at the University of Illinois.

Brain scans taken before and after show growth in two regions of the walkers' brains that typically shrink with aging and work less efficiently. "They looked two to three years younger in brain volume after six months," Kramer says.

Nobody knows exactly why aerobic exercise affects the brain. In animal studies, exercise increases proteins that multiply the connections between neurons and even prompt the birth of new brain cells. Aerobic activity also improves the functioning of chemicals that help neurons to communicate with each other, Kramer says.

And exercise helps brain function by reducing blood pressure and the risk of diabetes.

Add diet to the mix

Animal studies suggest that diet also can make a difference: antioxidant-rich foods apparently help. But a stimulating environment combined with antioxidants works even better, Wagster says.

At UCLA, psychiatrist Gary Small is betting a program combining nutrition with mental and physical exercise will improve memory. His two-week "boot camp" combines dietary changes with physical activity, mental "aerobic" exercises, memory strategies and stress relief techniques.

Brain scans taken before and after show participants have more efficient cell activity in a part of the brain that controls everyday, or "working" memory, Small says.

One of his success stories is 46-year-old Michele Rubin of Beverly Hills, who scored average on memory for her age at the start but scored average for a 20-year-old after the program.

Rubin, a former pharmacist, is raising three teenagers and doing hospital volunteer work.

"A few years ago, I started feeling like I wasn't as sharp as I used to be, she says. "I was forgetting things. I'm very busy, but I basically did nothing for myself — not reading, not taking care of my mind was just part of it."

Rubin calls last fall's program "life-altering." She started going to a gym, eating a lower-fat, more nutritious diet, using memory strategies and reading serious non-fiction. She's buying crossword puzzles at the airport now and forcing herself to help the children with algebra. "I feel like I'm stretching my mind, and I'm remembering more," she says.

Rubin also won't take phone calls at her busy home when many others are in the room and she's apt to be interrupted. She goes into her home office. "I wasn't concentrating, so I'd forget things ... I feared I was about to be committed to some old-age home. Now I feel much better about myself."

That sense of control alone could bode well for staying mentally fit. Adults who believe mental decline is not inevitable as they age are much more likely than fatalists to use helpful strategies on memory tests, says Margie Lachman, chairman of the psychology department at Brandeis University.

"Anybody who uses these strategies would do better," she says. Her lab tests adults 25 to 85 years old. "Over 40, beliefs make more of a difference in test scores. Older adults with negative beliefs just give up quicker, they don't persist, and they don't do as well."

Older brains 'can reorganize'

Even as many pine for their youthful brains, they may not be needed to function well at 70. Brain scan studies show that mentally sharp older people more often recruit different areas of their brains than younger adults to do the same mental task, says cognitive neuroscientist Roberto Cabeza of Duke University.

"The older brain can reorganize to cope with changes," he says.

It's not even hopeless for sedentary people in their 70s. University of Illinois psychologist Denise Park conducted an eight-week program teaching digital photography or quilting to elderly adults. On completion, they improved significantly on mental ability tests, compared with a control group that did nothing new.

The potential for preventing or delaying dementia by building brain reserve earlier in life is tantalizing, Park says.

Population studies show that 40% to 50% of people older than 85 have Alzheimer's disease, according to Rush University Medical Center epidemiologist Denis Evans, who specializes in the disease. About 76 million baby boomers are headed there.

"Even very modest delays of mental decline could have a huge impact on public welfare," Park says.

If you have been following our many posts on SpaceShip One and the prospect of consumer spaceflight, or our post on Visioneering at brainspeed.blogspot this may catch your interest...

A go-ahead was given last week by the U.S. Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) that clears the way for exchanges of technical information between Scaled Composites of Mojave, California and Virgin Galactic of the United Kingdom to build passenger-carrying suborbital spaceliners.

Among its duties, DDTC administers and enforces International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).


"Putting it in ITAR terms…this is one small step for ITAR, one big leap for Virgin Galactic," said Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic—the space tourism endeavor that is a subsidiary of British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.

“It allows us to activate all the parts of the project,” Whitehorn told SPACE.com in an exclusive phone interview, such as use of technology—SpaceShipOne’s reentry concept and hybrid rocket motor design, for example—that can be licensed through Paul Allen’s Mojave Aerospace Ventures.

Whitehorn said that the DDTC has approved a request for a Technical Assistance Agreement (TAA) between Scaled Composites LLC, Virgin Galactic LLC, and Virgin Management Ltd. This does not require the issuing of a license as such.

The request itself for the TAA was made by Scaled Composites on behalf of the three companies, Whitehorn said.

Because Scaled Composites is the deemed exporter of ‘technical’ information to Virgin—being a non-U.S. group—the request to enter into a Technical Assistance Agreement with Virgin had to be formally submitted to the DDTC by Scaled,” said Jonathan Peachey, Virgin’s Vice President of Finance and Business Development.

DDTC’s approval to the request by Scaled Composites allows all three parties to enter into a TAA under which the exchange of technical information will take place, Peachey told SPACE.com.

Allen, a Microsoft mogul and billionaire, bankrolled the development of the piloted SpaceShipOne—designed by Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites team—that repeatedly flew to the edge of space last year—snagging the $10 million Ansari X Prize in the process.

  


The scientific method is used to expound on the process of test taking; the art and science of UI design contributes to usability, something we strive to attain. At the end of the process we have output, here for example, is a plot of actual data in highly aggregated format from our database; therein, the cognitive snapshot or gestalt. The plots basically offer a comparative analysis of speed of processing and other facets of working memory, which, when combined with other observations, seem to be quite powerful

Just saw this in my Gmail account:

Dear Friends of The Redwood Neuroscience Institute:

There have been some major changes underway at RNI. On July 1, RNI moved from its current location in Menlo Park to a new home on the UC Berkeley campus. It will now take on a new name, The Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, and it will be administered through the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley.

Since its inception, RNI has had a strong connection with Berkeley. Bob Knight, who directs the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, has been a supporter of RNI and served on our scientific board. RNI staff members have taught classes at Berkeley. There have been numerous scientific exchanges between the two institutions. In addition to the students who have received fellowships from RNI, there are entering Berkeley graduate students this fall who have expressed explicit interest in working at RNI.

In its new home, the Redwood Center also will be closer to world class experimentalists, and the many advantages afforded by being located on a major university campus.

Bruno Olshausen will be the new director of the Redwood Center. Bruno has been at RNI from the beginning and has been a leader in creating the programs and research agenda here. I can't think of a better person to run the new Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at UC at Berkeley.

One of the reasons for moving RNI to Berkeley is that I have formed a new business to develop tools and applications based on the theory in my book, On Intelligence. Dileep George has extended this theory and shown how we can build practical systems that solve outstanding problems in computer vision and A.I. Along with Donna Dubinsky, Dileep is joining me as a co-founder of the new company, which is called Numenta. To learn more about Numenta, and to sign up for our newsletter, please
visit www.Numenta.com.

Our FastPoll on Alzheimer's, running over the weekend, shows Ronald Reagan leading the exit polls with 67% of the vote so far to the number 2 candidate, Bill Clinton, with 15% of the vote, and Harry Truman, with 12% of the vote.

It is surprising to see that so many believe Mr. Clinton, in fact, to be a candidate for Alzheimer's. The only presidential choice not to receive a "yea" vote so far is Lyndon Johnson.

Not to make light of a serious topic, but to again focus our attention on why it's important. Mr. Reagan, as time will tell, brought much-needed focus and concentration and a klieg light on the issue of memory loss and the need to detect cognitive decline earlier than it has traditionally been detected. The optimism and can-do spirit shall overcome. Now it looks like an array of sensitive technologies can be brought to bear earlier than ever before, giving much better chances for delaying onset. There is a role for healthy lifestyles such as the Alzheimer's Association's Ten tips for maintaining your brain; likewise, there is a roll for self-management and self awareness in maximizing your cognitive effectiveness.

Yahoo health has just launched celebrity health blogs, I happened to catch Sam Donaldson's and Fran Drescher's blog today...Fran's point was that it is our responsibility to take charge of our own health, in her case, to catch and treat a cancer before it became too enmeshed in the body and destructive. Through her dogged efforts, she was the catalyst in gaining a diagnosis in time to take action.

That's why taking charge of your cognitive health is so important and has moved into the realm of the possible, today.

Over the past few months we have been fortunate enough to give 53,000 full cognitive tests, more tests, given to more people, faster than ever before. Not only can you get it here at cognitivelabs.com now you can also get a variant at your local Walgreen's or GNC (in most shopping malls). When you buy a purple bottle of BrainSpeed from Natrol there is a nifty-shaped CD (so called "form factor") that is included in the package. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of these CD's have been shipped already, included in the package, which takes you directly to the brainspeed.com website where you can register for your test. Of course, if you want the CD with your bottle this will cost you $39.95 here in California (Walgreen's - University Avenue in Palo Alto and on El Camino Real in San Carlos) in Chicago on the Miracle Mile it is $41.88.

We hope to roll out our own retail CD as well - with the test....here is a sneak preview, probably to be priced at $9.95, matching our monthly charge on the web.





Stay Tuned.

There's nothing new under the sun, so said Cicero.

It turns out there is.

A 400-foot tumbling waterfall was recently discovered in Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, a forested domain of blue-green felt covering lava cliffs and domes dominated by the sleeping volcano of Mt. Shasta in the distance.

I don't know for sure, but I would guess it's only a few miles from Interstate-5, certainly no more than a score, proving that the most amazing things can exist right under our noses and not be recognized, or even, more poignantly, forgotten, while the engine of commerce rumbles on nearby.

Mirror of the Mind.

Pause and get the reflection of your mind as it exists at this moment, like an image on the surface of a springtime pool.

The travails that affect our cognitive ability are ripples that moil the cool, clear water.

Hot dry sand awaits.

For some Friday entertainment, take your best shot here on an old favorite.

You can even 'super size' the screen to make it easier to play - just click on the link at the bottom that says "super size me" and you're all set.

What are asteroids composed of:

1. Rock 2. Metal 3. Ice/Snowball of H2O 4. Ice/Snowball of Methane?

make Yourself heard

Now you will be able to express yourelf more as polling is coming to Cognitive Labs. For example, at what age is your mind primed to act the fastest?

Is it 14, 18, 28, or 88? Maybe it just depends on how well we maintain our cognitive equipment.

So, vote now - you can also see how the trends are changing.

VOTE

Repliee 1, the Japanese android that may have you thinking of the short story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (otherwise known as BladeRunner in its Hollywood format (before many of you were born, c.1984)is now covered on the front of Netscape's portal and headlined "Gadgets and Tech" there hardly could be a more ambitious gadget. Hmmm..

 

Joanna Glasner at Wired has written a piece called "Taking Stock of Life Extension" which touches on the real phenomenon of Life Extension through a view of biotech companies competing for investor dollars and mindshare and people such as Terry Grossman and Aubrey de Grey, experts in the emergent field...before we give you that, we have a few thoughts since this touches on the core of what we do.


The science of radical life extension has been popular and is only becoming more so. That is, as the population ages, the promise of a Fountain of Youth is more than a glimmer in the mind's eye.

Is there any basis for such claims?

On a pure statistical basis, Dr. Wes Ashford of the Stanford/VA Alzheimer's Center has pointed out there is a clear factual basis for increased longevity. Ever since records have been kept (beginning in the 1840's) a few years of life expectancy has been added every decade for both men and women.

In the early 1960's, scientists (and even the U.N.) declared that life expectancy had probably reached a practical limit...and we should only expect incremental improvement.

However, the slope of the upward curve has not changed since the early 1960's - meaning that life expectancy is increasing at a consistent rate - even in the era of public health and advanced medical care.

This tells us that something else is at work.

And now the Wired article:

By reaping the benefits of modern medicine and following the tenets of healthy living, most of us can expect to live substantially longer than our forefathers did. How much longer, however, is a matter of much debate.

Some optimists believe we can extend the human life span almost indefinitely over the next several decades with sufficient advancements in technologies like gene therapy and tissue engineering. Others claim we humans weren't built to last much beyond our 90s, and even the hardiest folk won't outlive 120 years.
Whomever one believes, it's clear we have already benefited from scientific progress. Americans born in 1959 had a life expectancy at birth of 70 years, while those born in 1999 are likely to stick around for 77 years, according to the Human Mortality Database. Many of the diseases that used to kill us now merely afflict us.

But plowing cash into companies pursuing remedies for the ravages of age isn't the safest prescription for investors' financial well-being. Biotechnology, the industry that promises the broadest potential for life-extending breakthroughs, is a notoriously risky investment play. To reduce risk, it's best to keep a few considerations in mind:

If you like profitable companies, try a different sector: Reading the press releases of publicity-seeking medical technology firms, it's easy to get the impression that scientists are on the verge of curing cancer, eliminating Alzheimer's disease and replacing ailing organs with genetically matched substitutes.

You can read more here.

Awareness and vigilance are the watchwords with regard to your health. If you can't monitor it, you can't take action. That's why we are hard at work on building a large collection of data from which inferences can be drawn.

Homer - Roman Copy of a Greek original


In the "did you know?" file

Literary Construct, or...

There is startling hypothesis regarding the Odyssey, Homer's epic celebration of heroic memory, composed between 1,000 B.C. and 800 B.C., in the form of an elegaic. Our current knowledge of botany suggests that the medicinal plant that Hermes, the messenger of the gods, gave to King Odysseus of Ithaca in the story to enable him to rescue his crew of sailors from the seductive spell cast upon them by the beautiful sorceress Circe was probably the snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), Circe's spell, in Homer's description of it, bore the earmarks of amnesia and hallucinatory delusions such as those caused by atropine, which is found in jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), a plant also known to the ancient Greeks.

The ideal antidote to such a drug would be an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, and Homer's description of Hermes' gift from the gods - small white flowers - points to the snowdrop, and thus galantamine, which was well suited to this purpose. (The snowdrop was known to the ancient Greeks as moly.)

This knowledge was apparently "forgotten" in the modern period but rediscovered in Bulgaria 50 years ago, where the snowdrop was used as an herbal remedy or supplement
for a wide variety of purposes.

Well brainspeed.com from Natrol (Nasdaq: NTOL) has officially 'launched.' We here at Cognitive Labs provide the testing and monitoring component for brainspeed.com. What is brainSpeed? Find out at their site. And purchase either online at Walgreens.com or Drugstore.com.

You can now purchase brainSpeed in stores, for example at Walgreen's on Chicago's "Miracle Mile" along North Michigan Avenue. Check for it at your local Walgreen's - the largest drugstore chain in the U.S.

When you buy a bottle of brainspeed you will see "the test" that is included. To take the test, just pop the enclosed CD-rom into your computer and you are sent right to where you can register online.
Other stores include:

The Vitamin Shoppe and GNC Stores

If you are taking care of yourself earlier, then you probably are on the right track.

Years before a person is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, there are early warning signs in the form of cognitive problems, new research suggests.

Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, reviewed the findings of 47 studies published between 1985 and 2003. The studies included over 1,200 people with preclinical Alzheimer's disease who later developed the degenerative brain disease and over 9,000 people who did not develop the disease.

Their analysis revealed that people with preclinical Alzheimer's show warning signs in a number of cognitive areas years before they're officially diagnosed with the disease. These signs included marked deficits in global cognitive ability, episodic memory, perceptual speed, and executive functioning. They also display smaller deficits in verbal ability, visuospatial skill and attention. There was no sign of preclinical problems in terms of primary memory.

The review authors noted that many of the cognitive deficits observed in people with preclinical Alzheimer's disease are quite similar to signs of normal aging. However, these problems are more apparent in people who are later diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

The findings appear in the July issue of the journal Neuropsychology.