Cognitive Labs

In a late night red-bull/FRS frenzy, Officials at UCSD hit the send key and sent an email they really wished they hadn't sent...

Labels: admissions, email, freud, frs, oops, redbull, screwup, UCSD

A new study examines atrophy in the brain, signs of early Alzheimer's, and test scores from the mini mental status exam, a 1970's questionnaire administered verbally by health practitioners to assess rough changes in mental fitness. Atrophy was detected via the work of Linda K. McEvoy, Ph.D., of the University of California San Diego, and colleagues with the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), analyzing magnetic resonance images from 139 healthy controls, 84 patients with mild Alzheimer's disease and 175 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), using volumetric segmentation and cortical surface reconstruction methods, then measured with the test scores.

Labels: atrophy, mcevoy, mmse, UCSD

A new study at UCSD has found that APOE positive individuals perform poorly on cognitive tests in the presence of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva.

The researchers analyzed a large population of 962 individuals. Research concerning the mechanisms by which chronic stress influences pathological aging and cognitive decline is important for determining interventions, either pharmacological or behavioral.

The growing evidence of significant relationships between chronic stress and cognitive changes may be particularly important in the study of Alzheimer’s disease. Recent animal studies have shown associations between chronic stress and neuropathological changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease, including synapse loss, increases in amyloid-β peptide, and tau accumulation and phosphorylation. Clearly, there are many factors that lead to the pathology and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, including environmental and genetic factors.

full paper

Labels: alzheimers, apoe, cognitive, cortisol, Peavy, UCSD