Monday, July 23, 2012

Webinar: The Aging Brain: What's New in Brain Research, Treatment, and Policy

Interested in the aging brain?  What you can do to achieve higher cognitive function as you age? Here’s a link to a webinar posted to the Chicago area Brain Network by Magdalene (Maggie) Rouman, M.A. The webcast was the inaugural event in the Neuroscience and Society Series, presented by the AAAS and the Dana Foundation.

The first speaker is Marilyn S. Albert, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The second speaker is Reisa Sperling, M.D., M.MSc. She is a neurologist, specializing in dementia and imaging research and an Associate Professor in Neurology at the Harvard Medical School. The third speaker is Richard J. Hodes, M.D., the Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

If my notes from the Ms. Albert are correct, there are four factors that can lead to higher cognitive function as we age:

Physical activity
Mental activity
Social engagement
Vascular risks

I won’t even try to summarize a teeny bit of the Dr. Sperling’s presentation because I didn’t understand any of it.

That doesn’t mean, though, that you won’t understand it.  Here’s the link and see for yourself: http://dana.org/events/detail.aspx?id=39130&goback=.gmp_4196068.gde_4196068_member_126107999

The third presentation is policy-oriented, i.e. now that we know about the aging of our US population and the increase in dementia, what should we or can we do about it.

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