Media Project: Does exercise truly help our brain functioning ?

For generations people have associated old age with a decline in memory capacity, and a healthy mind to a heathy body. In many instances people mistake old age in general for being responsible for this “decline” when in reality it’s the brain alternations due to age that cause this decline.  Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine compared the levels of activity in different brain regions between young people (18-31years), and old people (55-74 years) while performing a memory task. The trick to this study was to determine if being physically active helps reduce memory deficiency within individuals.

The study was split into two different parts in order to compare how different levels of physical activity affect associative encoding in the brain. The first part of the study required the participants to perform physical activity on a treadmill in order to collect data on their peak oxygen uptake (VO2),  which is a ratio of  gas exchange that occurs while performing physical activity. The data on VO2 was used to determine the cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) of each of the individuals in order to compare them with each of the other participants. The second part of the study required the participants to take on a memory task that involved recalling face-name pairs that were presented to them in pictures during various different time periods with a limited amount of time to recall the information. The researchers also used Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to observe the level of brain activation in each of the participants while performing the memory task.

The results demonstrated that older individuals with higher CRF and higher levels of physical activity  have more activation in brain regions involved in learning and memory such as the left hippocampus and bilateral thalamus when compared to younger adults with low VO2 levels. This correlates to the idea that high CRF scores correlate to a diminish in cognitive decline in individuals as they age.

The researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine later correlated their study to one from the Univeristy of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The study done at UCLA collected data on the affects of different levels of physical activity on brain size and how different brain sizes correspond to the possibility of developing some sort of disease related to cognitive decline such as dementia.

The correlation that was found was that higher levels of exercise in older individuals leads to higher brain activity which in turn leads to a decline in the possibility of developing dementia.The researchers at UCLA also determined that the hippocampus which is the part of the brain used during learning activities does actaully grow with more physical activity. The growth of the hippocampus demonstrates that the brain can change in size due to external factors such as daily exercise.

It is important to understand that partaking in physical activity does not mean that an individual can never develope dementia or any other type of cognitive decline, but the process does slow down. Being involved in physical activity does not mean once in a month it has to be a constant routine that is done even at an old age in order to see the benfits later on in life.

Both of these studies show a positive correlation between physical activity and higher memory capacity at an older , which in turn demonstrates that old age is not the only cause  for deficiencies in memory capacity/recall because there are ways of slowing down the process of brain alternations. So exercising has its perks: a fit body and a lower risk of developing dementia so I guess next time you  don’t feel like getting off the couch just remember you are killing two birds with one stone so why not partake in a little daily exercise!

 

 

 

Reflection:

Many times when we read news articles we are quick to judge the author of the article and assume that they are giving false information out to the public for the mere purpose of getting increased rates of viewing. Before completing this assignment I always thought journalist exaggerated the claims in their articles in order to reel people in. After writing this summary of the news article found in the magazine “Psychology Today,” I can say I respect these individuals for taking the time to write these articles. I now have a changed view on these journalist because it was extremely difficult to incorporate the information found on the scholarly research paper into a limited amount of words. It is often times difficult to understand the statistics reported on the research studies in order to properly present their findings without falsely reporting the results. Research reports tend to be extremely long so it is impressive how these journalist are able to compact everything in a well organized and interesting way while still presenting the important parts of the study to their audience. My summary is approximately 300 words shorter than the actaully news article and much less extensive than the scholarly article. I made sure to incorporate some of the information not reported on the news article in order to bring both reports together. I made sure to include enough “important” information to allow people enough basis to understand what the research and its results were about. It was extremely difficult to incorporate/understand the statistics behind the research so even though it was important I decided to leave it out instead of including information I did not understand. It was also very difficult to incorporate information from both because the news article was straight to the point, while the scholarly article extensively reported the results. In all I have learned to appreciate the work these journalist do instead of just assuming they are writing about topics they have no clue about. So next time I read an article from a magazine, newspaper, or blog, I will read the content of the article with more knowledge of how hard it is to present this type of information to a public that might not have any background on the topic , and prevent from falsely informing them.

References:

Scott M. Hayes, Jasmeet P. Hayes, Victoria J. Williams, Huiting Liu, Mieke Verfaellie. FMRI activity during associative encoding is correlated with cardiorespiratory fitness and source memory performance in older adults. Cortex, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

Zaldy S. Tan, Nicole L. Spartano, Alexa S. Beiser, Charles DeCarli, Sanford H. Auerbach, Ramachandran S. Vasan, and Sudha Seshadri. Physical Activity, Brain Volume, and Dementia Risk: The Framingham Study J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 2016 : glw130v1-glw130.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201701/physical-fitness-keeps-your-brain-in-good-shape-study-finds%3Famp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Media Project: Does exercise truly help our brain functioning ?

For generations people have associated old age with a decline in memory capacity, and a healthy mind to a heathy body. In many instances people mistake old age in general for being responsible for this “decline” when in reality it’s the brain alternations due to age that cause this decline.  Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine compared the levels of activity in different brain regions between young people (18-31years), and old people (55-74 years) while performing a memory task. The trick to this study was to determine if being physically active helps reduce memory deficiency within individuals.

The study was split into two different parts in order to compare how different levels of physical activity affect associative encoding in the brain. The first part of the study required the participants to perform physical activity on a treadmill in order to collect data on their peak oxygen uptake (VO2),  which is a ratio of  gas exchange that occurs while performing physical activity. The data on VO2 was used to determine the cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) of each of the individuals in order to compare them with each of the other participants. The second part of the study required the participants to take on a memory task that involved recalling face-name pairs that were presented to them in pictures during various different time periods with a limited amount of time to recall the information. The researchers also used Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to observe the level of brain activation in each of the participants while performing the memory task.

The results demonstrated that older individuals with higher CRF and higher levels of physical activity  have more activation in brain regions involved in learning and memory such as the left hippocampus and bilateral thalamus when compared to younger adults with low VO2 levels. This correlates to the idea that high CRF scores correlate to a diminish in cognitive decline in individuals as they age.

The researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine later correlated their study to one from the Univeristy of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The study done at UCLA collected data on the affects of different levels of physical activity on brain size and how different brain sizes correspond to the possibility of developing some sort of disease related to cognitive decline such as dementia.

The correlation that was found was that higher levels of exercise in older individuals leads to higher brain activity which in turn leads to a decline in the possibility of developing dementia.The researchers at UCLA also determined that the hippocampus which is the part of the brain used during learning activities does actaully grow with more physical activity. The growth of the hippocampus demonstrates that the brain can change in size due to external factors such as daily exercise.

It is important to understand that partaking in physical activity does not mean that an individual can never develope dementia or any other type of cognitive decline, but the process does slow down. Being involved in physical activity does not mean once in a month it has to be a constant routine that is done even at an old age in order to see the benfits later on in life.

Both of these studies show a positive correlation between physical activity and higher memory capacity at an older , which in turn demonstrates that old age is not the only cause  for deficiencies in memory capacity/recall because there are ways of slowing down the process of brain alternations. So exercising has its perks: a fit body and a lower risk of developing dementia so I guess next time you  don’t feel like getting off the couch just remember you are killing two birds with one stone so why not partake in a little daily exercise!

 

 

 

Reflection:

Many times when we read news articles we are quick to judge the author of the article and assume that they are giving false information out to the public for the mere purpose of getting increased rates of viewing. Before completing this assignment I always thought journalist exaggerated the claims in their articles in order to reel people in. After writing this summary of the news article found in the magazine “Psychology Today,” I can say I respect these individuals for taking the time to write these articles. I now have a changed view on these journalist because it was extremely difficult to incorporate the information found on the scholarly research paper into a limited amount of words. It is often times difficult to understand the statistics reported on the research studies in order to properly present their findings without falsely reporting the results. Research reports tend to be extremely long so it is impressive how these journalist are able to compact everything in a well organized and interesting way while still presenting the important parts of the study to their audience. My summary is approximately 300 words shorter than the actaully news article and much less extensive than the scholarly article. I made sure to incorporate some of the information not reported on the news article in order to bring both reports together. I made sure to include enough “important” information to allow people enough basis to understand what the research and its results were about. It was extremely difficult to incorporate/understand the statistics behind the research so even though it was important I decided to leave it out instead of including information I did not understand. It was also very difficult to incorporate information from both because the news article was straight to the point, while the scholarly article extensively reported the results. In all I have learned to appreciate the work these journalist do instead of just assuming they are writing about topics they have no clue about. So next time I read an article from a magazine, newspaper, or blog, I will read the content of the article with more knowledge of how hard it is to present this type of information to a public that might not have any background on the topic , and prevent from falsely informing them.

References:

Scott M. Hayes, Jasmeet P. Hayes, Victoria J. Williams, Huiting Liu, Mieke Verfaellie. FMRI activity during associative encoding is correlated with cardiorespiratory fitness and source memory performance in older adults. Cortex, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

Zaldy S. Tan, Nicole L. Spartano, Alexa S. Beiser, Charles DeCarli, Sanford H. Auerbach, Ramachandran S. Vasan, and Sudha Seshadri. Physical Activity, Brain Volume, and Dementia Risk: The Framingham Study J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 2016 : glw130v1-glw130.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201701/physical-fitness-keeps-your-brain-in-good-shape-study-finds%3Famp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Media Project: Does exercise truly help our brain functioning ?

For generations people have associated old age with a decline in memory capacity, and a healthy mind to a heathy body. In many instances people mistake old age in general for being responsible for this “decline” when in reality it’s the brain alternations due to age that cause this decline.  Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine compared the levels of activity in different brain regions between young people (18-31years), and old people (55-74 years) while performing a memory task. The trick to this study was to determine if being physically active helps reduce memory deficiency within individuals.

The study was split into two different parts in order to compare how different levels of physical activity affect associative encoding in the brain. The first part of the study required the participants to perform physical activity on a treadmill in order to collect data on their peak oxygen uptake (VO2),  which is a ratio of  gas exchange that occurs while performing physical activity. The data on VO2 was used to determine the cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) of each of the individuals in order to compare them with each of the other participants. The second part of the study required the participants to take on a memory task that involved recalling face-name pairs that were presented to them in pictures during various different time periods with a limited amount of time to recall the information. The researchers also used Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to observe the level of brain activation in each of the participants while performing the memory task.

The results demonstrated that older individuals with higher CRF and higher levels of physical activity  have more activation in brain regions involved in learning and memory such as the left hippocampus and bilateral thalamus when compared to younger adults with low VO2 levels. This correlates to the idea that high CRF scores correlate to a diminish in cognitive decline in individuals as they age.

The researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine later correlated their study to one from the Univeristy of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The study done at UCLA collected data on the affects of different levels of physical activity on brain size and how different brain sizes correspond to the possibility of developing some sort of disease related to cognitive decline such as dementia.

The correlation that was found was that higher levels of exercise in older individuals leads to higher brain activity which in turn leads to a decline in the possibility of developing dementia.The researchers at UCLA also determined that the hippocampus which is the part of the brain used during learning activities does actaully grow with more physical activity. The growth of the hippocampus demonstrates that the brain can change in size due to external factors such as daily exercise.

It is important to understand that partaking in physical activity does not mean that an individual can never develope dementia or any other type of cognitive decline, but the process does slow down. Being involved in physical activity does not mean once in a month it has to be a constant routine that is done even at an old age in order to see the benfits later on in life.

Both of these studies show a positive correlation between physical activity and higher memory capacity at an older , which in turn demonstrates that old age is not the only cause  for deficiencies in memory capacity/recall because there are ways of slowing down the process of brain alternations. So exercising has its perks: a fit body and a lower risk of developing dementia so I guess next time you  don’t feel like getting off the couch just remember you are killing two birds with one stone so why not partake in a little daily exercise!

 

 

 

Reflection:

Many times when we read news articles we are quick to judge the author of the article and assume that they are giving false information out to the public for the mere purpose of getting increased rates of viewing. Before completing this assignment I always thought journalist exaggerated the claims in their articles in order to reel people in. After writing this summary of the news article found in the magazine “Psychology Today,” I can say I respect these individuals for taking the time to write these articles. I now have a changed view on these journalist because it was extremely difficult to incorporate the information found on the scholarly research paper into a limited amount of words. It is often times difficult to understand the statistics reported on the research studies in order to properly present their findings without falsely reporting the results. Research reports tend to be extremely long so it is impressive how these journalist are able to compact everything in a well organized and interesting way while still presenting the important parts of the study to their audience. My summary is approximately 300 words shorter than the actaully news article and much less extensive than the scholarly article. I made sure to incorporate some of the information not reported on the news article in order to bring both reports together. I made sure to include enough “important” information to allow people enough basis to understand what the research and its results were about. It was extremely difficult to incorporate/understand the statistics behind the research so even though it was important I decided to leave it out instead of including information I did not understand. It was also very difficult to incorporate information from both because the news article was straight to the point, while the scholarly article extensively reported the results. In all I have learned to appreciate the work these journalist do instead of just assuming they are writing about topics they have no clue about. So next time I read an article from a magazine, newspaper, or blog, I will read the content of the article with more knowledge of how hard it is to present this type of information to a public that might not have any background on the topic , and prevent from falsely informing them.

References:

Scott M. Hayes, Jasmeet P. Hayes, Victoria J. Williams, Huiting Liu, Mieke Verfaellie. FMRI activity during associative encoding is correlated with cardiorespiratory fitness and source memory performance in older adults. Cortex, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

Zaldy S. Tan, Nicole L. Spartano, Alexa S. Beiser, Charles DeCarli, Sanford H. Auerbach, Ramachandran S. Vasan, and Sudha Seshadri. Physical Activity, Brain Volume, and Dementia Risk: The Framingham Study J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 2016 : glw130v1-glw130.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201701/physical-fitness-keeps-your-brain-in-good-shape-study-finds%3Famp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Media Project: Does exercise truly help our brain functioning ?

For generations people have associated old age with a decline in memory capacity, and a healthy mind to a heathy body. In many instances people mistake old age in general for being responsible for this “decline” when in reality it’s the brain alternations due to age that cause this decline.  Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine compared the levels of activity in different brain regions between young people (18-31years), and old people (55-74 years) while performing a memory task. The trick to this study was to determine if being physically active helps reduce memory deficiency within individuals.

The study was split into two different parts in order to compare how different levels of physical activity affect associative encoding in the brain. The first part of the study required the participants to perform physical activity on a treadmill in order to collect data on their peak oxygen uptake (VO2),  which is a ratio of  gas exchange that occurs while performing physical activity. The data on VO2 was used to determine the cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) of each of the individuals in order to compare them with each of the other participants. The second part of the study required the participants to take on a memory task that involved recalling face-name pairs that were presented to them in pictures during various different time periods with a limited amount of time to recall the information. The researchers also used Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to observe the level of brain activation in each of the participants while performing the memory task.

The results demonstrated that older individuals with higher CRF and higher levels of physical activity  have more activation in brain regions involved in learning and memory such as the left hippocampus and bilateral thalamus when compared to younger adults with low VO2 levels. This correlates to the idea that high CRF scores correlate to a diminish in cognitive decline in individuals as they age.

The researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine later correlated their study to one from the Univeristy of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The study done at UCLA collected data on the affects of different levels of physical activity on brain size and how different brain sizes correspond to the possibility of developing some sort of disease related to cognitive decline such as dementia.

The correlation that was found was that higher levels of exercise in older individuals leads to higher brain activity which in turn leads to a decline in the possibility of developing dementia.The researchers at UCLA also determined that the hippocampus which is the part of the brain used during learning activities does actaully grow with more physical activity. The growth of the hippocampus demonstrates that the brain can change in size due to external factors such as daily exercise.

It is important to understand that partaking in physical activity does not mean that an individual can never develope dementia or any other type of cognitive decline, but the process does slow down. Being involved in physical activity does not mean once in a month it has to be a constant routine that is done even at an old age in order to see the benfits later on in life.

Both of these studies show a positive correlation between physical activity and higher memory capacity at an older , which in turn demonstrates that old age is not the only cause  for deficiencies in memory capacity/recall because there are ways of slowing down the process of brain alternations. So exercising has its perks: a fit body and a lower risk of developing dementia so I guess next time you  don’t feel like getting off the couch just remember you are killing two birds with one stone so why not partake in a little daily exercise!

 

 

 

Reflection:

Many times when we read news articles we are quick to judge the author of the article and assume that they are giving false information out to the public for the mere purpose of getting increased rates of viewing. Before completing this assignment I always thought journalist exaggerated the claims in their articles in order to reel people in. After writing this summary of the news article found in the magazine “Psychology Today,” I can say I respect these individuals for taking the time to write these articles. I now have a changed view on these journalist because it was extremely difficult to incorporate the information found on the scholarly research paper into a limited amount of words. It is often times difficult to understand the statistics reported on the research studies in order to properly present their findings without falsely reporting the results. Research reports tend to be extremely long so it is impressive how these journalist are able to compact everything in a well organized and interesting way while still presenting the important parts of the study to their audience. My summary is approximately 300 words shorter than the actaully news article and much less extensive than the scholarly article. I made sure to incorporate some of the information not reported on the news article in order to bring both reports together. I made sure to include enough “important” information to allow people enough basis to understand what the research and its results were about. It was extremely difficult to incorporate/understand the statistics behind the research so even though it was important I decided to leave it out instead of including information I did not understand. It was also very difficult to incorporate information from both because the news article was straight to the point, while the scholarly article extensively reported the results. In all I have learned to appreciate the work these journalist do instead of just assuming they are writing about topics they have no clue about. So next time I read an article from a magazine, newspaper, or blog, I will read the content of the article with more knowledge of how hard it is to present this type of information to a public that might not have any background on the topic , and prevent from falsely informing them.

References:

Scott M. Hayes, Jasmeet P. Hayes, Victoria J. Williams, Huiting Liu, Mieke Verfaellie. FMRI activity during associative encoding is correlated with cardiorespiratory fitness and source memory performance in older adults. Cortex, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

Zaldy S. Tan, Nicole L. Spartano, Alexa S. Beiser, Charles DeCarli, Sanford H. Auerbach, Ramachandran S. Vasan, and Sudha Seshadri. Physical Activity, Brain Volume, and Dementia Risk: The Framingham Study J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 2016 : glw130v1-glw130.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201701/physical-fitness-keeps-your-brain-in-good-shape-study-finds%3Famp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Media Project: Does exercise truly help our brain functioning ?

For generations people have associated old age with a decline in memory capacity, and a healthy mind to a heathy body. In many instances people mistake old age in general for being responsible for this “decline” when in reality it’s the brain alternations due to age that cause this decline.  Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine compared the levels of activity in different brain regions between young people (18-31years), and old people (55-74 years) while performing a memory task. The trick to this study was to determine if being physically active helps reduce memory deficiency within individuals.

The study was split into two different parts in order to compare how different levels of physical activity affect associative encoding in the brain. The first part of the study required the participants to perform physical activity on a treadmill in order to collect data on their peak oxygen uptake (VO2),  which is a ratio of  gas exchange that occurs while performing physical activity. The data on VO2 was used to determine the cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) of each of the individuals in order to compare them with each of the other participants. The second part of the study required the participants to take on a memory task that involved recalling face-name pairs that were presented to them in pictures during various different time periods with a limited amount of time to recall the information. The researchers also used Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to observe the level of brain activation in each of the participants while performing the memory task.

The results demonstrated that older individuals with higher CRF and higher levels of physical activity  have more activation in brain regions involved in learning and memory such as the left hippocampus and bilateral thalamus when compared to younger adults with low VO2 levels. This correlates to the idea that high CRF scores correlate to a diminish in cognitive decline in individuals as they age.

The researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine later correlated their study to one from the Univeristy of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The study done at UCLA collected data on the affects of different levels of physical activity on brain size and how different brain sizes correspond to the possibility of developing some sort of disease related to cognitive decline such as dementia.

The correlation that was found was that higher levels of exercise in older individuals leads to higher brain activity which in turn leads to a decline in the possibility of developing dementia.The researchers at UCLA also determined that the hippocampus which is the part of the brain used during learning activities does actaully grow with more physical activity. The growth of the hippocampus demonstrates that the brain can change in size due to external factors such as daily exercise.

It is important to understand that partaking in physical activity does not mean that an individual can never develope dementia or any other type of cognitive decline, but the process does slow down. Being involved in physical activity does not mean once in a month it has to be a constant routine that is done even at an old age in order to see the benfits later on in life.

Both of these studies show a positive correlation between physical activity and higher memory capacity at an older , which in turn demonstrates that old age is not the only cause  for deficiencies in memory capacity/recall because there are ways of slowing down the process of brain alternations. So exercising has its perks: a fit body and a lower risk of developing dementia so I guess next time you  don’t feel like getting off the couch just remember you are killing two birds with one stone so why not partake in a little daily exercise!

 

 

 

Reflection:

Many times when we read news articles we are quick to judge the author of the article and assume that they are giving false information out to the public for the mere purpose of getting increased rates of viewing. Before completing this assignment I always thought journalist exaggerated the claims in their articles in order to reel people in. After writing this summary of the news article found in the magazine “Psychology Today,” I can say I respect these individuals for taking the time to write these articles. I now have a changed view on these journalist because it was extremely difficult to incorporate the information found on the scholarly research paper into a limited amount of words. It is often times difficult to understand the statistics reported on the research studies in order to properly present their findings without falsely reporting the results. Research reports tend to be extremely long so it is impressive how these journalist are able to compact everything in a well organized and interesting way while still presenting the important parts of the study to their audience. My summary is approximately 300 words shorter than the actaully news article and much less extensive than the scholarly article. I made sure to incorporate some of the information not reported on the news article in order to bring both reports together. I made sure to include enough “important” information to allow people enough basis to understand what the research and its results were about. It was extremely difficult to incorporate/understand the statistics behind the research so even though it was important I decided to leave it out instead of including information I did not understand. It was also very difficult to incorporate information from both because the news article was straight to the point, while the scholarly article extensively reported the results. In all I have learned to appreciate the work these journalist do instead of just assuming they are writing about topics they have no clue about. So next time I read an article from a magazine, newspaper, or blog, I will read the content of the article with more knowledge of how hard it is to present this type of information to a public that might not have any background on the topic , and prevent from falsely informing them.

References:

Scott M. Hayes, Jasmeet P. Hayes, Victoria J. Williams, Huiting Liu, Mieke Verfaellie. FMRI activity during associative encoding is correlated with cardiorespiratory fitness and source memory performance in older adults. Cortex, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

Zaldy S. Tan, Nicole L. Spartano, Alexa S. Beiser, Charles DeCarli, Sanford H. Auerbach, Ramachandran S. Vasan, and Sudha Seshadri. Physical Activity, Brain Volume, and Dementia Risk: The Framingham Study J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 2016 : glw130v1-glw130.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201701/physical-fitness-keeps-your-brain-in-good-shape-study-finds%3Famp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.01.002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Aducanumab against Alzheimer’s

Here it goes! The last post of the year!

Exciting and perhaps groundbreaking results from the study The antibody aducanumab reduces Aβ plaques in Alzheimer’s disease reveal what may be a possible treatment for the deteriorating Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid-Beta plaque formation are key indicators of Alzheimer’s. The study performed research on the Aducanumab antibody, which is something in our bodies designed to fight off pathogens when helping our immune systems, which demonstrated success after being tested for on subjects for a whole year. Using this antibody in therapy could possibly reduce memory loss in a dose dependent fashion (Sevigny et al. 2016).

Previously, old therapies were not successful in removing plaques, however this study was successful in causing a decrease in the amount of existing plaques, at least in some of the participants that they tested (Sevigny et al. 2016). Aducanumab was developed by the company Biogen, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found when observing human memory B cells that made these antibodies which could bind the amyloid plaques.

The aim of the trial was to find an adequate, yet safe, dosage of the antibodies that could clear these harmful plaques. A total of 165 participants between the years of 50 and 90, with either a mild form of Alzheimer’s or prodromal Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s with lots of asymptomatic plaque build up, were tested. This was a double blind, placebo using experiment. One group was set up as a control, receiving a placebo, while the experimental group received one of the four dosages of Aducanumab, depending on their body weight of 1, 3, 6 or 10 mg (Sevigny et al. 2016). Afterwards, the researchers gave the placebo or antibody through an infusion 14 times over the span of four weeks. However, only about 20 individuals stayed as patients dropped out throughout the study (Sevigny et al. 2016).

Scans were done on the subjects in order to see how they were doing with the new treatment. Amyloid actually absorbs Florbetapir, so they used this see how the plaques changed. The scientists found that plaques ultimately shrank and the higher the dose administered, the better the results were. The Amyloid Beta plaques seemed to decrease in amount as well (Sevigny et al. 2016).

Additionally, the study performed this testing on mice as well, to further explore the effects in larger numbers. They found that as Aducanumab bonded, cells in the brain were activated to eat up Amyloid Beta plaques (Sevigny et al. 2016).

Some tests were given that asked participants to answer a series of questions, however it was inconclusive as some revealed what could have been a decrease in cognitive decline while other tests didn’t reveal anything (Sevigny et al. 2016).

Like other drugs, Aducanumab treatment had a noticeable adverse side effect called ARIA, or an amyloid-related imaging anomaly. Basically, it indicates more fluid found in a part of the brain which could signal a hemorrhage. Those that received higher dosages of the antibody showed more cases of the negative symptom, among which were headache and urinary tract infections. At 10 mg, 41% of patients developed ARIA. Scientists don’t exactly understand the reasons why ARIA forms (Sevigny et al. 2016). Thus, in future studies, they aim at managing these side effects because the benefits to the drug are immense and could really help our society as a whole and those who are suffering with this neurodegenerative disease.

REFLECTION

Upon reflection, writing a summary on my particular research article “The antibody aducanumab reduces Aβ plaques in Alzheimer’s disease” was extremely challenging in more ways than one. Just getting started and remembering what I had read previously was difficult. The research article, like other primary literature pieces that I read for other classes, is written educated individuals that had full knowledge on the topic and procedure at hand as they performed the experiments themselves. They fully understood what took place and made their own interpretations based on their findings, and their purpose, therefore, was to convey to other researchers like them and journals why their research was significant and what the results mean in terms of its effects on us. Like I previously mentioned, their target audience is not the common lay person, who has little to no previous psychological or scientific background. So, the language that they used contained terms and phrases that were complex. It was up to myself to change the words and ideas in a way that was both clear and easy to understand. In addition, I had to make sure that I did not leave any details out of my summary as well. This time around I included information on the procedures as in how the doses were administered and how much of it was given. I also made the effort to define some terms and explain in really simple ways how procedures were brought out and simplified what they found by a lot as well. I have always known that the role of a journalist is no easy task. However, I did not realize that they covered and read scientific literature and cited them as they reported on findings. Covering the bases of the journal article in a way that catches the eye of the reader is not an easy task at all.

SOURCES

News Article- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/alzheimer-s-drug-shows-promise-in-small-trial/

Research Article-  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v537/n7618/full/nature19323.html

 


Reflections

I look back over my first blog post about psychology and saw how time flew by since the beginning of February to May 2017. The class and I,  all covered most of the psychology topics and the topics which were most interesting to me were the Sleep, Drugs ,Alcohol and the Brain and Classifying Mental Illness. At the beginning of the year I said the same exact topics and they resulted being interesting to me. My least favorite topics were scientific method, brain structures , and neurons. Those topics also resulted to be hard for me in class and exams. Before the course started, I thought scientific method, research method, and experimental design were not interesting. My question about this course was, what kind of  psychology skills can I develop and put to use? The skills I developed from this class is, how to study for tests, how sleep affects the body, the effects on drugs, how to do research, and the mental illnesses caused by genetic or formed by a certain disorders.  Since this was my first psychology course I was amazed of how much information I have learned throughout this course and will use it to my advantage and future use to help others and myself.

Reflections

I look back over my first blog post about psychology and saw how time flew by since the beginning of February to May 2017. The class and I,  all covered most of the psychology topics and the topics which were most interesting to me were the Sleep, Drugs ,Alcohol and the Brain and Classifying Mental Illness. At the beginning of the year I said the same exact topics and they resulted being interesting to me. My least favorite topics were scientific method, brain structures , and neurons. Those topics also resulted to be hard for me in class and exams. Before the course started, I thought scientific method, research method, and experimental design were not interesting. My question about this course was, what kind of  psychology skills can I develop and put to use? The skills I developed from this class is, how to study for tests, how sleep affects the body, the effects on drugs, how to do research, and the mental illnesses caused by genetic or formed by a certain disorders.  Since this was my first psychology course I was amazed of how much information I have learned throughout this course and will use it to my advantage and future use to help others and myself.

Reflections

I look back over my first blog post about psychology and saw how time flew by since the beginning of February to May 2017. The class and I,  all covered most of the psychology topics and the topics which were most interesting to me were the Sleep, Drugs ,Alcohol and the Brain and Classifying Mental Illness. At the beginning of the year I said the same exact topics and they resulted being interesting to me. My least favorite topics were scientific method, brain structures , and neurons. Those topics also resulted to be hard for me in class and exams. Before the course started, I thought scientific method, research method, and experimental design were not interesting. My question about this course was, what kind of  psychology skills can I develop and put to use? The skills I developed from this class is, how to study for tests, how sleep affects the body, the effects on drugs, how to do research, and the mental illnesses caused by genetic or formed by a certain disorders.  Since this was my first psychology course I was amazed of how much information I have learned throughout this course and will use it to my advantage and future use to help others and myself.

Reflections

I look back over my first blog post about psychology and saw how time flew by since the beginning of February to May 2017. The class and I,  all covered most of the psychology topics and the topics which were most interesting to me were the Sleep, Drugs ,Alcohol and the Brain and Classifying Mental Illness. At the beginning of the year I said the same exact topics and they resulted being interesting to me. My least favorite topics were scientific method, brain structures , and neurons. Those topics also resulted to be hard for me in class and exams. Before the course started, I thought scientific method, research method, and experimental design were not interesting. My question about this course was, what kind of  psychology skills can I develop and put to use? The skills I developed from this class is, how to study for tests, how sleep affects the body, the effects on drugs, how to do research, and the mental illnesses caused by genetic or formed by a certain disorders.  Since this was my first psychology course I was amazed of how much information I have learned throughout this course and will use it to my advantage and future use to help others and myself.