Cognitive Function News and Research

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Cognition is a concept used in different ways by different disciplines, but is generally accepted to mean the process of thought. For example, in psychology and cognitive science it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions.

U.S. Army Grants QR Pharma, UCLA $3M To Test TBI Treatment

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9 Oct 2013

GABA inverse agonist restores learning, memory performances in cognitively-impaired DS mice

A selective GABA inverse agonist has restored cognitive function in a mouse model of Down's syndrome (DS) and has the potential to benefit humans, French researchers have revealed.

8 Oct 2013

Statin medications pose no threat to short-term memory and may protect against dementia

A review of dozens of studies on the use of statin medications to prevent heart attacks shows that the commonly prescribed drugs pose no threat to short-term memory, and that they may even protect against dementia when taken for more than one year.

2 Oct 2013

Cogstate test shows effective treatment option for schizophrenia

Medical technology company Cogstate continues to strengthen its position as an essential partner for measuring cognition in important studies around the world, with results from a schizophrenia study using Cogstate's test published in a major scientific journal.

27 Sep 2013

Research shows commonly prescribed statin medicines can adversely affect cognitive function

New research that looked at whether two commonly prescribed statin medicines, used to lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or 'bad cholesterol' levels in the blood, can adversely affect cognitive function has found that one of the drugs tested caused memory impairment in rats.

26 Sep 2013

Cerebral imaging in patients with early symptoms of AD may have better clinical outcomes

Patients suffering from early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease who were diagnosed sooner than usual using a brain imaging test received Alzheimer-specific medications earlier than those who did not have the brain imaging results available to their doctors or themselves.

25 Sep 2013

Protecting stem cells around hippocampus in brain reduces rate of memory loss in cancer patients

Protecting the stem cells that reside in and around the hippocampus - a C-shaped area in the temporal lobe on both sides of the brain associated with the ability to form and store memories - substantially reduces the rate of cancer patients' memory loss during whole-brain radiotherapy without a significant risk of recurrence in that area of the brain, a new study shows.

24 Sep 2013

Sleep disturbances may influence vascular cognitive decline

Patients with vascular cognitive impairment without dementia have distinct abnormal sleep patterns that may be related to their cognitive deficits, researchers report.

23 Sep 2013

Falls are the leading cause of injuries in older populations

One of the top reasons for trauma admission at Vanderbilt University Medical Center may come as a surprise: falls.

23 Sep 2013

First clinical trials to diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s disease

More than a century ago, Alois Alzheimer, a Bavarian physician, first identified the neurodegenerative brain condition that came to be known as Alzheimer's disease. Finding ways to diagnose and treat this disease has frustrated scientists and clinicians ever since.

19 Sep 2013

Brain atrophy leads to cognitive decline in T2DM people

New research has shown that cognitive decline in people with Type 2 Diabetes is likely due to brain atrophy, or shrinkage, that resembles patterns seen in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

13 Sep 2013

Levels of certain fats in cerebral spinal fluid can predict patients with HIV, say scientists

Johns Hopkins scientists have found that levels of certain fats found in cerebral spinal fluid can predict which patients with HIV are more likely to become intellectually impaired.

12 Sep 2013

UK and US policies risk conscription into unwanted 'war against dementia'

A political drive, led by the UK and US, to screen older people for minor memory changes (often called mild cognitive impairment or pre-dementia) is leading to unnecessary investigation and potentially harmful treatment for what is arguably an inevitable consequence of ageing, warn experts on bmj.com today.

11 Sep 2013

Degeneration of fornix in brain may provide clues to future cognitive decline in healthy old people

The degeneration of a small, wishbone-shaped structure deep inside the brain may provide the earliest clues to future cognitive decline, long before healthy older people exhibit clinical symptoms of memory loss or dementia, a study by researchers with the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center has found.

10 Sep 2013

Negative symptom clue to smoking in schizophrenia patients

Patients with schizophrenia may have a preponderance to cigarette smoking because it reduces negative symptom severity, researchers report.

5 Sep 2013

Study confirms Mediterranean diet associated with better cognitive function

Over recent years many pieces of research have identified a link between adherence to a Mediterranean diet and a lower risk of age-related disease such as dementia.

4 Sep 2013

Alzheimer’s drug trial: an interview with Geoffrey Kempler, Chairman & CEO Prana Biotechnology

Approval for the IMAGINE trial was granted by the Austin Health Research Ethics Committee in November 2011, with the first patients dosed in March the following year. However, well before the trial was approved, PBT2 had already shown promise in significantly changing Abeta levels in spinal fluid while improving cognition in a previous 12-week trial conducted in 2006.

28 Aug 2013

Sangamo BioSciences signs definitive agreement to buy Ceregene

Sangamo BioSciences, Inc. announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Ceregene, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company focused on developing adeno-associated virus gene therapies.

26 Aug 2013

Stem cell therapy improves radiation-induced cognitive impairment

Patients receiving cranial irradiation treatment for brain cancer may find the treatment life-saving, but often suffer progressive and debilitating cognitive detriments, including spatial learning and memory deficits. The cognitive deficits are a contributing factor to the often significant adverse impacts on the surviving patients' quality of life after radiation therapy. In an effort to improve post-irradiation cognitive impairment, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues at Neuralstem, Inc. (Rockville, MD), have transplanted fetal stem cells into laboratory animals with radiation-induced cognitive impairments and found that this led to a number of cognitive improvements.

23 Aug 2013

Study: Teenagers seriously injured in fight show reduction in cognitive ability

Teenagers who have been seriously injured in a fight show a reduction in intelligence and cognitive ability, according to a large study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

14 Aug 2013