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New research has found that those who consume more foods rich in flavonoids, such as berries, tea, red wine and dark chocolate, could lower their risk of dementia. Led by researchers, the study, reveals that increasing the intake of flavonoid-rich foods and drinks could help reduce the risk of developing the incurable illness. While age and genetics contribute substantially to the development of the disease, evidence has shown that risk factors such as diet, can play an important role in prevention. Flavoniods, primarily found in plant foods, have a range of health benefits, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. They...

Motor learning skills let us move through the world. But age or sickness can weaken our ability to learn motor tasks. Scientists studying the impact of oxygen supplementation on motor learning have found a promising treatment that could help patients who have experienced neurological trauma recover old skills. "A simple and easy to administer treatment with 100% oxygen can drastically improve human motor learning processes," said Dr. Marc Dalecki. Our brains need a lot of oxygen. In low-oxygen contexts cognitive function decreases, while in high-oxygen contexts it recovers, and the delivery of 100% oxygen is already used to help preserve...

Regular exercise at some point in life is a key to better cognitive health in old age, researchers say. Starting sooner is better and sustaining it longer are, too. A new British study has found that exercising at least once a month at any time in adulthood is linked to better thinking and memory function in later life. People who reported being physically active at least one to four times per month in separate surveys at the ages of 36, 43, 53, 60 to 64, and 69 had the biggest benefit. The effect was greater than for those who said...

What did Stephen Hawking and Mao Zedong have in common? They both suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), for which a cure remains elusive. Scientists took an important step toward the prevention of ALS and another brain disorder called Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) with their research on the effects of the antibiotic rifampicin on genetically modified mice. "The primary cause of FTD and ALS is a hexanucleotide repeat expansion (HRE) in non-coding regions of the C9orf72 gene," said Professor Takami Tomiyama. This mutation causes neurodegeneration through loss-of-function or gain-of-toxic-function mutations.Rifampicin is an antibiotic that slows bacterial RNA production; it is usually...

A new study shows that a potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease may also improve cognitive function in people with Down syndrome. The drug sargramostim (GM-CSF, which stands for granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor) is the first to show memory improvement in Alzheimer's patients in a phase II clinical trial. GM-CSF is a normal human protein that is safe and well-tolerated with over 30 years of FDA-approved use for other disorders. A multidisciplinary team studied the safety and tolerability of GM-CSF treatment and its effects on behavior and brain pathology in a mouse model of Down syndrome and in mice undergoing typical aging....

If Joe Biden gives a State of the Union address sometime this March, it will be late, based on precedence, but still in accordance with an 87-year tradition. All of which brings up the question: if Joe Biden does not deliver or cannot deliver a State of the Union address, is he truly the president? In 38 days, he has not held a full press conference. Each of us who frequent Townhall.com and read the articles has known for quite a while that poor old Joe lacks the cognitive capability to handle the job. He is a mere puppet to...

In a study published in Brain, Behavior and Immunity, University of New South Wales researchers describe how lab rats rapidly began to show signs of serious memory decline after just six days on a sugar- and fat-laden diet of cakes, chips, and more. Specifically, the junk-food-eating rats had inflamed hippocampal regions, and they did poorly on spatial-memory tests long before they started gaining weight. "We were surprised at how fast it was," co-author Margaret Morris tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "Our preliminary data also suggests that the damage is not reversed when the rats are switched back to a healthy...