Cognitive Labs

Here is an update on the popular debate between human and machine that energizes the tension between characters in some of the world's favorite stories of recent decades - in literature and film. One could even argue that the upcoming Star Wars III will in essence be a referendum in the debate between man and machine, as have, for example, Governor Shwarznenegger's Terminator films.

What do you think?


Teaching computers to read no simple task
Creating algorithms to convert text so machines can learn

Jim McKnight / AP
Down the road, professor Selmer Bringsjord believes artificial intelligence, or A.I., machines might be able to read military plans or manuals and adjust on the fly in the heat of battle.

The Associated Press
Updated: 9:34 a.m. ET Jan. 31, 2005 TROY, N.Y. - Among the handiest villains in science fiction are Computers That Know Too Much. Think of the dream-weaving despots of "The Matrix" or murderous HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey." But in reality, even the most super supercomputer lacks the reasoning capacity of a child engrossed in a Dr. Seuss book. Computers can't read the way we do. They can't learn or reason like us.

Narrowing that cognitive gap between humans and machines - creating a computer that can read and learn at a sophisticated level - is a big goal of artificial intelligence researchers.

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, granted a contract worth at least $400,000 last fall to two Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professors who are trying to build a machine that can learn by reading.

The academics hope to create a machine that can read sections of textbooks and answer questions based on the material. Down the road, professor Selmer Bringsjord believes such artificial intelligence, or A.I., machines might be able to read military plans or manuals and adjust on the fly in the heat of battle.

"We have such a complex military now, it's so high tech, we need A.I. to help us," said Bringsjord, director of RPI's Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning lab. "There's no going back."

A.I. is already ingrained in our lives, from programs used by banks in evaluating potential borrowers' credit ratings to software that suggests corrected spellings for unrecognized words to investigative programs that mine databases seeking non-obvious relationships.

But reading is difficult for machines. Sentences must be converted into formal logic equations or other computer-friendly formats. Computers can do this on a modest scale. What has proved more elusive, however, is software that can make heads or tails of the verbal thicket contained in sentences like this one.

"Natural language is very ambiguous," said Boris Katz of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. "If you go beyond sentences like 'John loves Mary,' to something like a paragraph from The Wall Street Journal...there are some pretty complex phenomena in language that are pretty hard to represent."

Bringsjord and fellow RPI professor Konstantine Arkoudas want to create algorithms, or mathematical formulas, that allow their "Poised-for-Learning" machine to convert sentences into formal logic. The next step would be to create an additional set of algorithms that would allow the machine to use the information it takes in to figure things out. To reason, in other words.

For example, if the machine reads up on the planets, it should be poised to answer the question "What is the largest planet?" even if the text never explicitly states that Jupiter is the sun's most voluminous satellite.

The DARPA grant is for a year, with options to extend it into a three-year $1.2 million contract. Bringsjord hopes to have the Poised-for-Learning machine reading some basic texts, like algebra and astronomy, in three years.

AI on the battlefield

DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker said the RPI grant is not tied to any particular Pentagon program but part of the agency's larger interest in cognitive systems. Ronald Brachman, director of DARPA's Information Processing Technology Office, has talked openly about the military's "computer-permeated future."

"In order to succeed, we'll need systems that can remember where they've been and what they've seen and improve themselves over time," Brachman told researchers at a conference last year.

The interwoven connection between soldier and computer - battlefield laptops control backpack-sized aerial surveillance drones and other computers let combat troops see the location of friendly units on digital displays - is expected to tighten considerably in the coming years.

A downside to the heavy reliance on technology, at least as it exists now, is that machines that might be asked to help make battle-related decisions can't adjust to quickly changing conditions in the field, Bringsjord said.

Bringsjord envisions A.I. robots of the future taking in information in real time, by either reading or listening to spoken instructions. He said that once a machine has vacuumed up all the relevant cultural, historical, geographical data about an area, an officer could say, "Here's the current situation in Fallujah. Go scout it out."

It all might sound like science fiction, but it's not that far-fetched. Machines can already be considered cognitive, depending on your definition of the word.

In Austin, Texas, Cycorp Inc. has been building a "knowledge base" called Cyc (pronounced "psych") with the goal of becoming a repository of human knowledge that can make intelligent decisions.

Cycorp vice president of research Michael Witbrock said Cyc can reason based on the 2.5 million assertions in its system, such as inferring what sort of salary you're likely to have based on your job.

Machines already exist that understand spoken words, recognize faces and make inferences based on experience, says Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Tom Mitchell. But Mitchell, past president of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence, offers a big caveat: Even though researchers have made a lot of progress in different areas of cognition, there is still a big mystery about how the pieces go together.

In other words, worries about an all-knowing computer might be premature. Katz believes a computer that can reason at the level of even a toddler is far off. "I'm still looking for that common sense these 3-year-olds have," Katz said. "And we don't have it yet."

With 272 people registering yesterday , we approached 1,000,000 members. Now that Monday has begun...51 people have registered already today, putting us over the 1 million mark. We will be able to involve all of you in (1) research for new products, (2) concept-development of new products, (3) creating a new kind of organization that focuses on the needs of those concerned with memory loss, spouses, children, and families, and (4) enhancing and upgrading our web dashboard service that you are using to track and monitor and improve your cognitive ability. You can already test yourself, get a detailed bar graph showing where you stand based on your age, gender, and education, and track yourself over time through testing and using MemWatch, which you also get when you get a paid subscription, which lets you monitor your cognitive performance and keep track of all your scores right on your web page - you don't have to write them down. How often should you do this? Maybe once a month or once a quarter; astronauts on the ISS do a cognitive check up every 30 days, maybe that's a useful guidleine here on spaceship earth as well.

What's new? Well, many companies developing pharmaceuticals and other compounds are approaching us about serving as a kind of benchmark so when you buy a product, you can track your cognitive performance. Also, if you go on a new diet or exercise program you could do the same thing; test whether or not walking 5 miles a day affects your cognitive ability - we provide a standardized and convenient way to do that all in one place, with no post-it pads, notebooks, pencils, or any thing else that can get lost. Since we are not stored on your PC, similarly you can't lose your records if there is a virus or Trojan problem with your PC, all to common these days.

All I can say is I am continually surprised and encouraged by the response...and feedback. I usually hear from 30 to 50 people per day. Drop us a line with questions, comments, feedback. Thanks again for your support.

TV of the future, from the past



TV and Alzheimer's. Certainly the former doesn't cause the latter.

This article is attached to our last post...but we thought we would wait a day or two to share it with you. As the writer suggests, conventional TV watching to the nth degree might be related to memory impairment...mainly as an indicator of an inactive lifestyle. But, who knows, maybe TV can be part of the solution when it serves as a focus point for the busy family.

Television doesn't help

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY

A middle-aged person who flops on the couch for several hours of television night after night actually might increase his risk of developing Alzheimer's, a new study says.
Activities that stimulate the mind or body may protect against Alzheimer's, studies have found. But the new report suggests that a passive approach to life might increase that risk.

The risk of Alzheimer's rose by 30% for each hour per day watched, says Robert Friedland at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Friedland presented the study last summer at the 9th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association.

"We don't think that television causes Alzheimer's," he says. "We think that is a marker of an inactive lifestyle." People who watch a lot of TV probably do so at the expense of other hobbies or interests, he says.

TV might shut down the brain's natural curiosity and zest for learning, key attributes of activities that seem to offer an Alzheimer's shield, Friedland says.

Cognitive Labs



Now we are back...thanks for helping us close the gap on the first million, we're right there and could break through as early as Friday (tomorrow) so keep your fingers crossed, and be sure to tell a friend...This piece ran in USA Today and does an excellent job of describing the lifestyle changes that people can make to help avert the impact of memory loss...it covers what an exec. at software company Intuit in Mountain View (also the home of Cognitive Labs) does to fight memory loss - the first step is to get and keep the body moving, followed by an ongoing monitoring and workout for the brain.

Brain power vs. Alzheimer's

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY

Sherry Whiteley is nowhere near retirement age, yet she has adopted an active lifestyle that might delay or prevent Alzheimer's disease. Whiteley is only 45, but she has good reason to worry: Her mother and several close relatives developed Alzheimer's in their 70s. That puts Whiteley at risk for a disease that will affect as many as 16 million people in the USA by the middle of the century.

Experts such as Marilyn Albert of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore say it's never too early to start making changes to protect the brain. She says the disease probably smolders for years, maybe even decades, before the first symptoms of memory loss appear. New research suggests that ballroom dancing and other physical and mental activities might ward off the disease, or at least delay the onset of symptoms, in healthy people. (Related story: Minds in motion stay sharp)

Whiteley says the dancing lessons her mother took during the early stage of the disease seemed to help, at least at first.

"She could remember the easy dance steps from one lesson to the next," she says. "I could tell it was really sinking in."

Alzheimer's first shows up as mild forgetfulness. But as time goes on, the disease destroys the ability to remember even familiar tasks, such as how to eat or how to get dressed in the morning. Alzheimer's can take eight to 20 years to kill. During that time, the disease sweeps through the brain and ultimately destroys regions of the brain that control basic functions.

Whiteley's mother eventually had to quit dancing because she could no longer remember how to do the steps.

"Toward the end, she couldn't walk or talk," Whiteley says. She knows that once the disease really takes hold, there is no way to slow it down. So she's banking on her active lifestyle to power up her own brain.

Her job as a senior vice president at software company Intuit in Mountain View, Calif., gives her a mental workout during the day. After work, she's juggling a busy household, including four kids, and on weekends she takes time out to jog about seven miles with friends.

That weekly run gives her hope that she's gaining a mental edge, an edge that might one day make all the difference.

"I am just hoping that when I am 75, I am bungee-jumping and not dealing with this disease."

Coming Next...the impact of TV on Alzheimer's>

We are traveling and seeing more of the snow-bound parts of the U.S. this week. But tomorrow we will be back in Silicon Valley. Of the news today, comes word of a large (n=8,500) study conducted by Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA.

It seems that smoking, cholesterol, high-blood pressure, and diabetes all increase the risk of Alzheimer's - and these changes may wreak havoc years before any symptoms are visible, causing changes in the brain. Exercise and a memory management program can help, but these won't work if the individual does not take active control of their health and well-being. It may be that these physical factors combine with genetic predisposition to make the risk even greater...in that case the time to act is now.


A new study finds that people in their early 40s who smoke or have diabetes and high cholesterol or have hypertension are at greater risk to develop Alzheimer's in their late 60s.


But those risk factors can be mitigated through treatment and exercise, the study suggests.

Alzheimer's can spring from heart and artery trouble, not just from neurological damage, said neurologist Rachel Whitmer, who led the study of 8,500 Kaiser Permanente patients.

"Blood pressure, hypertension, cholesterol - they have an effect on the brain and, apparently, damage it," she said.

The study, in the current issue of Neurology magazine, is the first to show that risk factors can damage the brain 10 or 20 years before the person shows symptoms of dementia or Alz-heimer's disease.

"Lifelong exposures to risk factors seem to change your brain and make you more susceptible," Whitmer said.

Diabetes is the greatest risk factor. In the study, one out of seven people who had diabetes in their 40s had developed dementia or Alzheimer's by the time they were in their late 60s or early 70s. That represents an almost 50 percent greater risk.

Those with high cholesterol were 42 percent more likely to get dementia; those who smoked 26 percent more likely and those with hypertension 24 percent more likely.

When people had at least three of those risk factors the likelihood more than doubled.

There are specific treatments for high cholesterol, diabetes and hypertension. But the risk of all can be reduced through exercise and keeping weight down.

"It gives us another good reason to be aggressive about treating these four risk factors," said Dr. Glenn Gade, a gerontologist with Kaiser Permanente in Denver.

"It's another reason why we should keep healthy, exercise and eat well," he added.

"The chance to live a longer, healthier life with good cognitive memory would moticate most people.

  
The online tech magazine Always-On which is as vigilant as Hal (see above) ran an interesting piece today on 'trends' in technology. I guess right here in this corral we're onto something, as tech pundits like Roger McNamee, Esther Dyson, (whose father I believe invented the Dyson Sphere, later borrowed by Larry Niven for Ringworld reference from NASA) John Doerr, and Joe Schoendorf opined on the tech markets of the future, which I think, will be aimed towards you...We even posited our own snarky reply about Austin Powers or more appropriately Dr. Evil as we approach 1,000,000 members and Sue Halpern's article in Slate.

It appears that the APOE marker, specifically the APOE-e4 variety, is associated with memory loss. This article puts the APOE-e4 prevalence at 20% of the population. Yet, people with the APOE-e4 in this study did poorly relative to others on a neuropychological test. The research conducted with the Cognitive Labs' proprietary tests on several dozen subjects showed a similar finding, and in fact, MemCheck was able to flag people who showed the earliest effects of memory loss, even though there were no obvious symptoms. The advantage is earlier detection which gives much more time to take action to monitor and enhance the memory through natural measures. Here is the article from Neuropsychology.Also please contact Cognitive Labs if you would like to receive an abstract of the Stanford/VA study to which we refer, which was carried out by Dr. Ruth O'Hara and colleagues.

> go to the free test center


Healthy seniors with 'Alzheimer's gene' find it harder to 'remember to remember'
24 Jan 2005


Study finds surprisingly strong impact of genetic variation - Carrying the higher-risk genotype for Alzheimer's disease appears to render even healthy older people subject to major problems with prospective memory, the ability to remember what to do in the future. For the group studied, this could affect important behaviors such as remembering to take medicine at a certain time or getting to a doctor's appointment. The research appears in the January issue of Neuropsychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association.

People with this genotype have a certain variety, or allele, of a gene called ApoE (for Apolipoprotein E), which switches on production of a protein that helps carry cholesterol in the blood. ApoE has three alleles and about one out of five people carry the e-4 allele. It makes homozygous carriers, who carry this variation on both of their ApoE genes, eight times as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as non-carriers. Heterozygous carriers, who carry the high-risk variation only on half the pair, have a three-fold higher risk. Neuro- psychologists have looked at the episodic, or retrospective, memory, of e-4 carriers, especially for recent events. This study was the first to look at their prospective memory.

At the University of New Mexico, a group of 32 healthy, dementia-free adults between ages of 60 and 87 were drawn from a larger study of aging and divided evenly between people with and people without the e-4 allele.

On a task in which participants were asked to remember to write a certain word when they saw a target word, the carriers showed significantly worse prospective memories. Far more often than non-carriers, they failed to remember to write down the desired word when they were supposed to - in other words, they forgot to do what they meant to do, when they meant to do it.

Because the Alzheimer's genotype had a strong and obvious effect on prospective memory, the study's authors recommend changing the prevailing view that the allele has only subtle, often undetectable effects on cognition. The findings also supplement previous discoveries of how the allele also is linked to problems in episodic retrospective memory, even without any signs of dementia.

Given these findings, clinicians can help even healthy e-4 carriers to improve their prospective memory. Having been found to be an important "exception to the rule" about the impact of this genetic variation, prospective memory appears to merit more research.

What's more, co-author Mark McDaniel, PhD, says that "Our results might provide some encouragement to the use of prospective memory as an early diagnostic tool" because other research has found a steep prospective-memory drop in patients with very mild disease. He explains, "Our sample of carriers were healthy as far as we could tell, but our assessments were not as sensitive as some of those used at the major Alzheimer's research centers. It might well be that some of our carriers were in early AD stages that were not yet detected."

Replicating the results on a different group of people, using ultra-sensitive tests, could result in the promise of a simple test to aid in early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

Finally, McDaniel points out that major problems with prospective memory could alert older adults to the presence of a genetic risk for Alzheimer's. He says, "It could be useful for someone to recognize such a risk, as recent research suggests that lifestyle factors such as diet, including cholesterol, may be important in the development of the disease precisely for those with the genetic predisposition."

Article: "Apolipoprotein E and prospective memory in normally aging adults;" Ira Driscoll, PhD, and Mark A. McDaniel, PhD, University of New Mexico, and Melissa J. Guynn, PhD, New Mexico State University; Neuropsychology, Vol. 19, No. 1.

  

Cognitive Labs' affiliate Dr. Rich Haier at UC-Irvine has explored the evolution of intelligence - into two different types of brain structures using MRI and cognitive testing...in a fascinating report just published in the online journal NeuroImage...

While there are essentially no disparities in general intelligence between the sexes, a UC Irvine study has found significant differences in brain areas where males and females manifest their intelligence.

The study shows women having more white matter and men more gray matter related to intellectual skill, revealing that no single neuroanatomical structure determines general intelligence and that different types of brain designs are capable of producing equivalent intellectual performance.

"These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior," said Richard Haier, professor of psychology in the Department of Pediatrics and longtime human intelligence researcher, who led the study with colleagues at UCI and the University of New Mexico. "In addition, by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the study has the potential to aid research on dementia and other cognitive-impairment diseases in the brain."

Study results appear on the online version of NeuroImage.

In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of - or connections between - these processing centers.

This, according to Rex Jung, a UNM neuropsychologist and co-author of the study, may help to explain why men tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing (like mathematics), while women tend to excel at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions in the brain, such as required for language facility. These two very different neurological pathways and activity centers, however, result in equivalent overall performance on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as those found on intelligence tests.

The study also identified regional differences with intelligence. For example, 84 percent of gray-matter regions and 86 percent of white-matter regions involved with intellectual performance in women were found in the brain's frontal lobes, compared to 45 percent and zero percent for males, respectively. The gray matter driving male intellectual performance is distributed throughout more of the brain.

According to the researchers, this more centralized intelligence processing in women is consistent with clinical findings that frontal brain injuries can be more detrimental to cognitive performance in women than men. Studies such as these, Haier and Jung add, someday may help lead to earlier diagnoses of brain disorders in males and females, as well as more effective and precise treatment protocols to address damage to particular regions in the brain.

For this study, UCI and UNM combined their respective neuroimaging technology and subject pools to study brain morphology with magnetic resonance imaging. MRI scanning and cognitive testing involved subjects at UCI and UNM. Using a technique called voxel-based morphometry, Haier and his UCI colleagues converted these MRI pictures into structural brain "maps" that correlated brain tissue volume with IQ.

Dr. Michael T. Alkire and Kevin Head of UCI and Ronald A. Yeo of UNM participated in the study, which was supported in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.

Some Alzheimer's damage may be reversible, scientists say

According to Dr. Sam Gandy, an Alzheimer's treatment consisting of reducing Amyloid formation shows promise.

By Tina Hesman
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

(KRT) - ST. LOUIS - Some symptoms of Alzheimer's disease may be reversible, suggests new research from Washington University.

In experiments with mice, a team of researchers led by Robert P. Brendza and Dr. David Holtzman found that removing some of the brain-damaging plaques associated with the disease reduced swelling in nerve fibers. The discovery is the first evidence that some types of nerve damage caused by the disease can be undone, researchers say.

The result is probably good news for Alzheimer's disease patients and their families. It may mean that new drugs and therapies to halt or reduce build-up of plaques could improve some disease symptoms.

About 4.5 million people in the United States have the debilitating memory-robbing disease, and the number is expected to grow as the population ages.

The results of the study will appear in the Journal of Clinical Investigation on February 5.

Neuroscientists have long thought that nerve damage, such as that caused by Alzheimer's and other diseases, was permanent, said Samuel Gandy, director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

"It was an assumption based on no good data, frankly," Gandy said.

The Washington University researchers wanted to see if removing toxic proteins from the brains of mice with an Alzheimer's-like disease could stop further damage, Brendza said.

"We didn't know it would even do that," he said.

He injected antibodies into the brains of mice with the disease. The antibodies attacked and removed about half the amount of a protein called beta-amyloid or A-beta from the mice's brains. That protein sticks together, forming fibers and plaques that damage the brains of people and animals with Alzheimer's disease.

Long fibers, called axons and dendrites, extend from the main parts of brain cells and form connections, called synapses, that allow neurons to communicate. When A-beta plaques form around the neurons, axons and dendrites get irritated and damaged. The damage is visible in the form of swollen bulbs, Brendza said.

Brendza thought that using the antibodies to clear away A-beta could stop more bumps from forming on the nerves. But within three days of injecting the antibodies, the number of swollen areas went down and some of the remaining bulbs deflated. In other words, the nerves got better.

Over the course of a week about 25 percent of the swellings went away or shrunk in volume, Holtzman said.

"I didn't think it was going to be a reversible change," he said.

The recovery was not complete, but some additional improvement might happen over time, said John Hardy, chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging.

"I think it's an important observation that the disease is at least partially reversible," Hardy said.

No one knows whether antibody therapy could help people with Alzheimer's disease. Clinical trials of antibodies against beta-amyloid were halted when some people developed serious side effects. But scientists are now testing a variety of drugs aimed at stopping plaque formation or breaking them up, Gandy said.

"This validates all the other anti-amyloid approaches that are going on right now," he said.

The operative word here is moderate. More later :-)

We're back...Drink a day helps alertness: study




January 21, 2005

OLDER woman might toast, "Here's to your mental health", after a study shows a drink a day can keep them alert.

"Low levels of alcohol appear to have cognitive benefits," said Francine Grodstein, a doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, who led the research.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a 10-year study of 12,480 women, aged 70 to 81.

Women who had a daily glass of wine, beer or spirits over at least four years showed a 20-per-cent reduced risk of severe decline in their mental faculties as they aged, according to the study, which said boosted blood flow to the brain appeared to be an important factor in the results.

"Women who consistently were drinking about one-half to one drink per day had both less cognitive impairment as well as less decline in their cognitive function compared to women who didn't drink at all," Dr Grodstein said.

Mental agility and memory performance in women who drank moderately was that of someone a year and a half younger, compared with their counterparts who did not drink, the study says.

Can an old dog learn new tricks? The researchers find out that YES they can. What is the implication for people? Coming soon.... disclaimer: no animals were disturbed, insulted or bothered in any way in the making of this lead-in post...story at 11, so stay tuned, and no, we won't be featuring any sock puppets either.

Here is the story...(MSNBC)

Old dogs can learn new tricks - with help

Exercise, diet helps keep elderly canines spry, study finds

Updated: 6:07 p.m. ET Jan. 18, 2005 WASHINGTON - Exercise and a diet fortified with vitamins, fruits and vegetables helped older dogs learn new tricks and kept them spry in an experiment that scientists said could teach humans a thing or two.

Beagles given either the fortified diet, regular exercise or both did much better in learning new tricks than dogs fed regular chow and allowed to lie around more, the researchers reported on Tuesday.

Dogs are similar to humans in their dietary needs and the way they digest food, so the findings have implication for people, said Molly Wagster of the National Institute on Aging, which funded the study.

Dogs also can develop memory and learning problems as they age in much the same way people do.

Lessons for humans

"This research brings a note of optimism that there are things that we can do that may significantly improve our cognitive health," Wagster said in a statement.

"The combination of an antioxidant diet and lots of cognitive stimulation - which was almost the equivalent of going to school every day - really did improve brain function in these animals," added Elizabeth Head of the University of California at Irvine, who worked on the study.

"We're excited about these findings because the interventions themselves are relatively simple and might be easily translated into clinical practice for people."

It's official: Eat less, get more exercise

For the study, Head, William Milgram of the University of Toronto in Canada and colleagues studied 48 older beagles over two years.

Writing in the ">journal Neurobiology of Aging, they said they divided the dogs into four groups that got either standard care; a diet supplemented with tomatoes, carrot granules, citrus pulp, spinach flakes and supplements; standard care plus extra exercise and play; or the special diet and the special play and exercise regime.

A second set of 17 dogs aged 1 to 3 got either a standard or fortified diet.

Tests included having to find a hidden treat. The older dogs clearly benefited from the special diet and the special exercise program, the researchers said.

All 12 of the older beagles that got a supplemented diet and exercise could solve a difficult problem, compared to eight of 10 dogs that got the enriched diet alone and two of eight dogs that got no special treatment.

Last week the U.S. government issued new guidelines that encouraged Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables and to exercise for at least an hour a day to improve their health.

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

As I posted at Omidyar.net (an interesting site I just was turned on to) the Cognitive Labs advisory board meeting where we generally discuss the state of Cognitive science and cognitive testing as well as nutritional science and other issues of the day is today at Starbuck's, Redwood City, CA on El Camino Real (near Safeway) at 7:30 PM. Redwood City, in fact was judged "climate best by government test," approximating in fact, the climate of Mauretania most closely. Mauretania is a Mediterranean-climate coastal area of North Africa, formerly a bread basket of the Roman Empire.

I saved the picture above some time ago, so I suppose now is an opportune time to use. We will even fire up a laptop wirelessly via T-mobile and get our MemCheck workout for the day. For our customers from North Pole, Alaska to Key West, thanks for joining with us! If you can't be with us in person, you'll certainly be with us in spirit, already a hundred more people have joined us today.

The image of a cafe on a rainy day, a common sight in California recently

As many researcers have suggested, iconic memory, remembering images, plays a role in detecting early stage memory loss. Remembrance of repeated patterns also has been associated with detecting MCI, known as mild cognitive impairment. For example, Wes Ashford of the Stanford/VA Alzheimer's Center has an interesting series of these "iconic" images, which we'll be posting, along with other top tests from known experts. The imagery is reminiscent of Ezra Pound:

so much depends

upon


a red wheel

barrow


glazed with rain

water


beside the white

chickens


BEIJING, Jan. 18 -- Older people with mild cognitive impairment may have poor "iconic" memory, a subtle memory problem that could be taken as early sign of Alzheimer's disease risk, researchers said on Monday.

Iconic memory refers to the visual image a person holds onto after briefly looking at an object. It is fleeting in nature, regardless of a person's age.

To cite an example, if someone walked into a room, quickly scanned it, then turned off the lights and tried to recall the objects in the room, that would draw upon iconic memory, explained lead study author Dr. Zhong-Lin Lu, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

In their study, Lu and his colleagues found that elderly men and women with mild cognitive impairment performed more poorly on a test of iconic memory than either young adults or older men and women with no signs of mental decline.

The findings are published in the advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mild cognitive impairment -- which involves the type of "benign" forgetfulness in which a person frequently misplaces the car keys, for example -- is considered a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease.

Indeed, scientists estimate that about 80 percent of people with mild cognitive impairment develop Alzheimer's within 10 years, according to Lu.

Right now, mild cognitive impairment is diagnosed through standardized interviews rather than specific, sensitive tests, Reuters Health quoted Lu as saying.

If a decline in iconic memory is indeed an objective marker of mild impairment, Lu said, then testing for it may allow doctors to detect the earliest stages of Alzheimer's.

Finding new, objective and sensitive tests for early Alzheimer's is important, because current drug therapies designed to stabilize symptoms are most effective when started as early as possible, Lu said.

Here is more evidence on the key of treating your heart well to maintain a high-degree of cognitive function....from the UK

CHOOSING dried fruit instead of biscuits in the supermarket or walking briskly uphill to the shops, unofficially racing other pedestrians: we know these things are good for our heart. Yet what many people do not realise is that those same actions could help to protect against dementia. Research increasingly points to good diet and exercise as being a way of both treating dementia and preventing it in the first place.

A recent report suggests that making sure your heart stays healthy is one of the best ways of looking after the brain and slowing the process of memory loss, confusion and cognitive problems which affect more than 750,000 sufferers in the UK.

The comprehensive review of studies on mixed dementia, vascular dementia and Alzheimer's Disease, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, goes so far as to suggest that controlling blood pressure and cholesterol might be a more effective treatment than medication and may even prevent some forms of dementia.

One study reviewed by the researchers at the University of Michigan showed that the incidence of dementia in a group of patients with high blood pressure reduced by half when they were treated over four years with a drug designed to reduce hypertension.

Other evidence has emerged suggesting that reducing cholesterol may help brain function, after researchers noticed that people with high cholesterol in middle age are more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

Kenneth Langa, who led the team of researchers at the University of Michigan Health System, says: "Having risk factors like high blood pressure and high cholesterol does damage to small blood vessels in the brain and can cause death of brain cells over time."

Developing dementia is a potential aspect of growing old that is widely feared. Depictions of it in films books and TV programs have helped to raise awareness, yet confusion persists about what causes it and what can be done to treat it.

Relatives of those with dementia often believe they are more likely to develop the condition themselves, and those with the disease often worry their children and grandchildren will inherit it.

But in almost no case is it caused by an inherited fault. Having close relatives with dementia is not evidence of a family link, says Jim Jackson, chief executive of Alzheimer's Scotland. "Some people still do perceive it as being a genetic illness, but it is only a very small proportion of cases. In nearly all cases where it is genetic, the dementia starts when the person is under the age of 65."

Vascular dementia occurs if there is a blockage in the vascular system, preventing oxygen from reaching the brain and causing brain cells to die. Several factors - such as age, genetic background and lifestyle - work together and lead to the onset of Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. Mixed dementia - a combination of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, common in the elderly - is partly triggered by poor blood flow in the brain.

Some types of vascular disease are hereditary, but in the main it is people with high blood pressure, a high level of fats in their blood or diabetics who are at an increased risk of developing vascular disease.

Jackson says the significance of the review is that it goes further than the claims of other leading researchers, who have said that the prevalence of vascular dementia can be reduced through measures such as taking exercise, not smoking and having a healthy diet. The new research makes similar claims for people with mixed dementia.

He adds, however, that further research on the benefit of treatments for Alzheimer's sufferers is vital. When the researchers assessed the evidence relating to drugs that reduce cholesterol or thin the blood, they discovered that prospective studies on cholesterol drugs called statins have not shown a specific effect on dementia.

It is still uncertain whether complementary therapies, such as treatments involving vitamin E and ginkgo biloba, could help slow down the onset of dementia.

Evidence for the benefits of taking ginkgo biloba is encouraging as it appears to have some effect on mental function, but few side effects. One review of studies says that a diet rich in vitamins, minerals and other micronutrients may prevent cognitive decline.

Another hope is that aspirin therapy, which thins the blood and reduces clotting, thereby

THE FACTS

Dementia is the loss of cognitive function caused by changes to the brain, brought about by disease or trauma. Cognitive functions that may be affected include decision making, judgment , memory, spatial orientation, reasoning, verbal communication and changes in behaviour and personality.

Some dementia is reversible and can be partially or completely cured if the underlying cause is treated very quickly. Irreversible dementia is caused by an incurable condition such as Alzheimer's.

The greatest risk factor for dementia is aging. Other factors include untreated infectious disease, substance abuse, brain tumours, cardiovascular disease, head injuries, kidney failure, liver disease, thyroid disease and vitamin deficiencies (B12, folic acid).

There is no failsafe way to prevent dementia, but a healthy lifestyle and diet can reduce your risk. Smoking and high fat intake can cause heart or blood vessel disease, which stops oxygen reaching the brain properly and can lead to vascular dementia.

Coping with Alzheimer's

A father's Alzheimer's brought sadness, humour
author - Jamie Komarnicki The StarPhoenix

January 15, 2005

A snowstorm was blowing outside Elizabeth Cohen's Binghamton, N.Y., farmhouse, there was no electricity or heat, and the phone was out. And her father, suffering from middle stage Alzheimer's disease, was lost.

"That was my hardest moment. I couldn't leave my baby alone inside the house and go out and find him," said the author, "I just felt trapped."

To her relief, eventually her father came back to the house, but that was only one of the episodes Cohen faced when in 1999, she found herself a single mother caring for a new baby and an elderly father suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

The diary she kept of that period in her life became the pages of her memoir, The House on Beartown Road.

"The theme of the book is about learning and forgetting," Cohen said in an interview Friday before she spoke at an Alzheimer Society of Saskatchewan luncheon. "My baby and my dad grew increasingly similar. She was learning how to walk and talk and eat and do all the things you do in life, and he was simultaneously forgetting all the same things."

And Cohen found herself caught in the middle of this convergence of minds. The same day she taught her daughter Ava to say her name, she had to remind her father his name.

Cohen said she was heartbroken to witness the changes in her father, once a professor and a writer.

"He didn't have any idea who I was, and he was my dad," she said. But as she recorded her daily struggles and triumphs, the author said she also found humour through the sadness, and discovered the beauty in her experience.

"I think it's a story of survival, through weather, through emotional distress, through disease, just getting through things," she said of the book, "I think people should feel empowered by it, that they can do the things they need to do."

The book is a message for other families affected by Alzheimer's disease that things will be OK, said Cohen, "It just helps people with Alzheimer's disease in their family, that's the bottom line, because they can laugh, they can cry, they can see me fall apart, and they can feel a little bit less alone."

January is Alzheimer awareness month across Canada. The local association will hold a Forget-Me-Not Walk in Saskatoon on Jan. 30 to raise funds for its programs and services.

Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is a degenerative disease that destroys vital brain cells, causing memory problems, changes in judgment and difficulty with even the most familiar of tasks.

There is no known cause or cure, but recent advancements include earlier diagnosis and treatments to ease symptoms and improve quality of life.

I got this from NASA daily space ops reports syndicated by SpaceRef.com...
"All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Salizhan Sharipov today completes 100 days in orbit on this mission. Prior to Expedition 10, he logged 8 days, 19 hours and 47 seconds in space in 1998 (1/22-31) aboard "Endeavour" with the crew of STS-89, an astronaut rotation mission to Mir. With today's milestone, the Kirghizian Flight Engineer joins the elite ranks of wizened old "space centurions". Congratulations and continued success, Salizhan!

Still working on preparing onboard systems for the new Russian "Rockviss" payload, FE Sharipov connected the Service Module (SM) onboard computer system (OVS) with a new power switching unit (BSKZ5-32) of the Russian segment's (RS) onboard equipment control system (SUBA).

Also for Rockviss, Salizhan Sharipov temporarily deactivated the Elektron O2 generator, then connected the Rockviss hardware telemetry (TLM) connector to the BITS2-12 onboard telemetry system, supported by ground tagup via S-band.

Chiao signed in and performed his fourth session with the psychological MedOps WinSCAT experiment (Spaceflight Cognitive Assessment Tool) on the MEC. [This is a time-constrained questionnaire test of cognitive abilities, routinely performed by astronauts aboard the ISS every 30 days before or after the PHS (periodic health status) test or on special CDR's, crewmembers or flight surgeons request."

One of the dishes of the South Beach Diet (c) 2005 Waterfront Media

The Atkins and the South Beach Diets, both advocating reduced carbohydrates in the diet, such as less bread, pasta, and potatoes in favor of high protein foods such as fish (wild,not farmed)and lean meats, may slow Amyloid formation. From a practical perspective, you might want to combine this finding with our earler warning against trans fats in the diet...

Researchers found that a low carbohydrate diet that reduced total caloric intake by 30% prevented the development of a fundamental feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in mice genetically engineered to develop the disease. The diet eliminated amyloid plaque development, which is the underlying pathology in AD. The study, published in the February issue of The FASEB Journal Express, is the first to demonstrate that a change in diet can slow and possibly prevent Alzheimer's diseases.

"While it is far too early for us to make specific recommendations for human diets," said Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences and Geriatrics and Adult Development at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and primary investigator on the study, "these findings provide the first solid evidence that dietary changes may provide a new approach to treatment and prevention of this devastating disease."

Dr. Pasinetti and his colleagues found that mice did not develop the physiological markers of the disease when they were fed a reduced carbohydrate diet that provided 70% of the calories eaten by similar mice who were allowed to eat ad-libitum. The strain of mice used in the study was genetically engineered to produce what are known as amyloidogenic â-amyloid peptides in the brain, resulting in formation of amyloid plaques which are known to be the fundamental problem in Alzheimer' disease. Of the mice fed ad-libitum, 100% developed these plaques. No plaque development was detected in the mice fed a carbohydrate and calorie restricted diet.

The diet regimen was begun when the mice were 3-months old, which is considered young adult and is prior to the age at when this Alzheimer's disease mouse model begins to develop plaques in the brain. The presence of plaques was evaluated at 12 months of age, which is an age at which plaques are known to be well developed in this strain.

The investigators found that anti-amyloidogenic activities were increased in mice fed the restricted diet. In other words, the calorie restricted diet activated pathways that break down amyloidogenic a-amyloid peptides in the brain before they form the plaques characteristic of AD.

"Since the diet only reduced calories by 30%, (based on carbohydrate) the mice developed normally," said Dr. Pasinetti. "While they did not gain weight like the mice in the control group, they did not loose weight either and remained within the boundaries considered a healthy weight. Nonetheless, this rather mild change in diet resulted in a remarkable measure of disease prevention. There is epidemiological evidence that humans who consume reduced calorie diets have a lower incidence of AD. Our investigation provides a possible rational for this observation and possible mechanisms through which caloric reduction may provide protection in Alzheimer's disease."

Ongoing studies are investigating whether or not the prevention of plaque development in these mice also prevents behavioral decline and clinical studies are currently being designed at Mount Sinai School of Medicine to explore the applicability of this experimental evidence in Alzheimer's disease cases.

Dr. Wes Ashford, who is involved with the Stanford-VA Alzheimer's Center and an accomplished researcher and an advisory board member of Cognitive Labs, and I have discussed, only half-seriously, an Alzheimer's helmet that could protect at risk people from head injuries which can be associated with the onset of cognitive impairment...

Well now, Slate in I Sing The Body Electric, talks over brain stimulation via electric currents. It seems that there is something to it...

In an experiment that sounds just slightly like science fiction, researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that by running a small electrical current through the front of the brain, they could markedly improve a person's verbal agility. Specifically, researchers could increase the number of words beginning with a certain letter that their subjects could list in 90 seconds. I've posted the link above if you would like to review it...

If you are so inclined you can hear my introduction to MemCheck by clicking on the image above...and decide to purchase if you have not done so yet. Soon, you may be hearing similar stories on AM|FM and satellite radio and even seeing the accompanying video on television.
The growth is thanks to you and your support. Once again, a hearty "thanks." It's gratifying to reach more and more people every day with such an important service. When you think of all the things that are bought and sold everyday with little thought...why sell sugar water when you can change the world?

The health benefits of some spices are still being discovered



Curry ingredient reduces inflammation, is a powerful antioxidant...

A key ingredient in curries could be an important weapon in the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease.

Scientists have found that curcumin stops the accumulation of destructive beta amyloids that build up in the brains of sufferers.

Curcumin is the part of turmeric that gives it its distinctive yellow colour. Turmeric has been used in Asian cookery for thousands of years and is one of the cheaper spices.

Ground from the root of a plant of the ginger family, it is found wild in the Himalayas and is grown across south Asia.

Although a regular in spicy dishes such as chicken tikka masala and rogan josh, turmeric powder itself has a subtle, almost bland, taste.

Turmeric has already been found to slow prostate cancer and can be bought in capsules.

It could eventually be used as a drug or supplement to prevent people developing Alzheimer's in much the same way as statins are used to prevent heart attacks.

Doctors agree that amyloid plaques (abnormal build-ups of a protein fragment known as beta amyloids) are responsible for memory loss in Alzheimer's.

The latest study, at the University of California, Los Angeles, used mice.

The results, published in the Journal Of Biological Chemistry, suggest that curcumin would not only prevent the build-up of plaques in patients with the degenerative brain disease, but would block the plaques developing in the first place.

Scientists found that a chemical in the yellow pigment of the spice was responsible for prevention and dispersal of beta amyloid.

The team has started human trials that could eventually lead to the development of a drug.

Doctors believe the low levels of Alzheimer's in India and other curry-eating countries could be due to the effects of curcumin.

The UCLA study found curcumin crossed the blood-brain barrier to eliminate amyloid plaques. It also reduced the build-up of beta amyloid by up to 21 per cent.

In earlier studies, the same research team found curcumin was a powerful antioxidant and has anti-inflammatory properties, which scientists believe help ease the symptoms of Alzheimer's.

Symptoms include inflammation of brain tissue and damage to cells caused by a process called oxidisation, a release of harmful chemicals that can cause cancer and heart disease.

"Curcumin has been used for thousands of years as a safe anti-inflammatory in Indian traditional medicine," said chief investigator Gregory Cole, a professor of medicine and neurology at UCLA.

"The prospect of finding a safe and effective new approach to both the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's is tremendously exciting

The online magazine Slate wrote an interesting and useful piece on Cognitive Labs' MemCheck on Wednesday. The writer of the Story, Slate's Sue Halpern, apparently was able to see some difference in cognitive performance after using MemCheck for a few months, and interestingly, she used it as a kind of meter to measure whether additional treatments were either effective or not.

Ms. Halpern is a writer and the author of The Book of Hard Things, Four Wings and a Prayer, about the amazing journeys of Monarch Butterflies, Migrations to Solitude, and the forthcoming Introducing Sasha Abramowitz (2005), as well as a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.

It would be interesting to hear if any readers have a similar experience to report; or for example, if you can enhance cognitive results with a long and peaceful hike; lately for example, we have been taking a stroll on the Alambique trail which starts in Woodside, CA above Redwood City and traverses back and forth up the sides of a deep, shadowed ravine towered, like sentinels, by stands of 350 foot tall coast redwoods that often bear the scars of infrequent lighting strikes that result in a fairy-ring of baby redwoods. It is a landscape every bit as magnificent as the fastness of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. All of this serenity just a few miles off a busy SF peninsula suburb. After returning from a five-mile walk, I know I feel more focused and alert.

Yes, private spaceflight is taking off, thanks to the beneficent largesse of people like Paul Allen. Wired (January, 2005) plugs into the topic and dives into some of the issues I raised here in October 2004 when ebullient British billionaire and international man of action Richard Branson and his dynamos pitched Virgin Galactic to the world by regaling us with the fact that the whole venture was "oversubcribed."

Actually, it is important if you are pondering participating (come up with $200,000 first, just sell your house or if you live in the Bay Area or the sunnier, palmier part of California just get a small loan out against your inflated home value, you know: termite infested shack, overgrown postage-stamp yard, original "classic" shag rug, price: $1.2 million) to improve and maintain your cognitive performance and reaction, similar to what pilots and astronauts undergo.


Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true..."


I know in my case when considering the decline of manned space flight, it is disappointing to look back at the last Apollo mission and barely remember it, and recall the Space Shuttle as a new project they talked about in kindergarten. Somewhere, like Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey and his jogging across the widescreen we came off the track, even with with the successes of the Mars Rover program. As it stands now, the artificial brains still must relay information to the human brains who interpret the findings otherwise it is merely data with no context..