The US government announced additional funding this week for Alzheimer’s prevention and research, including $8 million to test an insulin nasal spray for treating Alzheimer’s disease. The funding was announced as part of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, also known as NAPA 2025.

This is an important and useful step to validate an easy, safe, and relatively low cost treatment approach for Alzheimer’s symptoms. Delivering insulin in a common nasal spray format can bump up the amount of insulin and glucose available in the brain, which has been shown to improve memory, learning, and other cognitive functions necessary for functional living.

A key point here is that insulin spray is a treatment for Alzheimer’s symptoms, and not a cure. However, by itself, anything that can reliably relieve Alzheimer’s symptoms enough to allow for functional self care (bathing, dressing, preparing meals, etc.) would be a huge benefit to patients, families, and caregivers alike – not to mention better use of Medicare resources because of fewer unnecessary hospital visits.

The NAPA plan also helps fund a clinical trial for Crenezumab, a experimental drug to prevent Alzheimer’s from developing in the first place. The study will focus on volunteer subjects who have specific genetic mutations that strongly predispose them to early onset (before age 65) Alzheimer’s.

There may be some interesting insights from the Crenezumab study into how to slow down symptom progression in the more typical Alzheimer’s pattern of developing the disease after age 65. As I mentioned in this post on rethinking a cure for Alzheimer’s, we may begin to look at Alzheimer’s as a chronic but manageable condition, much like hypertension or diabetes.
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Cheesecake… and a double bacon cheeseburger with supersize fries and a coke. Throw in a vanilla or chocolate milkshake. If you crave any of these food choices (and many of us do), also know that you’re creating an active neurofeedback loop with your brain. That’s the implication from a recent research study published in Nature Neuroscience.

The study divided lab rats into three groups; the first group was given unlimited access to a diet of high fat & high carb foods, the second group was given access to this food for only one hour a day, and the third group only had access to regular, boring lab rat food.

As expected, the group with unlimited access to the high fat & high carb foods quickly became obese, by gorging themselves daily at twice the calorie intake level versus the group stuck with the standard lab chow. The second group, with access to cheesecake for only an hour each day, turned into binge eaters – they consumed well over 50% of their daily calories in just that one hour.

The Brain Physically Responds to Food Choices

The really interesting fact to come out of the study is that in the test group with unlimited access to high fat & high carb foods there were signs of physical, anatomical changes to their brains. Specifically, neurogenesis (new nerve cell growth) was occurring in the hypothalamus, a tiny and highly complex part of the brain that regulates appetite, sleep cycles, hormone release, and other important functions.

The discovery that the hypothalamus was growing new nerve cells because of diet choices (changing from a balanced fat/carb/protein diet –> to high fat & high carb diet) adds to a growing body of evidence that high fat and sugary food choices create an ultimately unhealthy feedback loop between the body and brain – other research has shown that the dopamine reward cycle (and damage to) brain circuits from habitual cocaine use and high sugar intake are strikingly similar.

So, what to do? First, know the basic steps to maintaining a healthy brain. Next, take the Healthy Brain Test, and learn about the importance of consistent diet choices.

Longer term, I can see how a new medical procedure could evolve where an electron or X-Ray beam could zap nerve cells in the hypothalamus to relieve cravings or addictions. We’re obviously years away from such a procedure, but basic research such as the Nature article points the way.
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Peter King at Sports Illustrated reported earlier today that researchers who run the NFL ‘Brain Bank’ at Boston University have requested that Junior Seau’s brain be donated for research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a serious degenerative brain disease. (The San Diego medical examiner confirmed today that Seau, 43, whose NFL career spanned 20 years, died Wednesday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.)

This event bears a striking similarity to NFL player Dave Duerson’s death last year, who apparently texted a message to his family asking that his brain be donated to the Boston University research center, before shooting himself in the chest. Several reports at the time indicated that Duerson had been struggling with several signs of CTE, which include poor memory and coordination, depression, and impulse control problems.

However, a USA Today article quotes Seau’s former teammates who were with him at a USC event last month, and they report that Seau was in good spirits. Unfortunately, impulse control problems can appear quite suddenly in CTE, which damages the frontal cortex areas of the brain responsible for conscious regulation and inhibition of emotional impulses – a University of Pennsylvania football player who abruptly committed suicide in 2010 showed signs of CTE in his autopsy.

At this point we need to wait for further information before determining the possibility of CTE contributing to Seau’s death. What is clear is that further research is needed on how brain injuries can develop into a terminal degenerative condition like CTE, which is now also showing up in soldiers and veterans, especially those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This latest event also adds to concerns about football programs at the high school and collegiate level. Most states have implemented sports concussion legislation, which include mandatory school sports concussion detection and management policies.
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A recent research article by Dr. Bennet Omalu in the journal Neurosurgical Focus highlights a probable connection between blast-related brain injuries common in Iraq and Afghanistan deployments, and a brain disease usually associated with certain sports like boxing, American football, and hockey. This connection was first reported in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof.

The brain disease in question is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain condition that can result in memory loss, confusion, impulse & anger control problems, and other progressive dementia symptoms. One of the main causes of CTE in professional athletes is a history multiple concussions over a playing career. Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson showed many signs of CTE in the months leading up to his death in 2011 – CTE typically strikes years after players have received multiple concussions.

Why CTE in Soldiers and Veterans?

The Neurosurgical Focus article brings up an interesting question as to why CTE symptoms and signs are also showing up in US military service members who were exposed to (non-impact) blast-related injuries, rather than multiple (direct impact) concussions spread over several years. I believe part of the answer lies in the high intensity nature of the shock wave generated by IEDs: Continue reading…

A recent article in the Journal of Applied Physiology points out several interesting benefits to your brain from regular exercise, including both aerobic activity and strength training. The meta research article looked at over one hundred studies that measured various aspects of cognitive performance after cardio (aerobic) workouts and strength training.

This meta analysis highlighted several common threads from a cross section of individual studies:

Sedentary, physically inactive patterns impair cognitive performance, for both children and adults. Conversely, regular exercise patterns tend to improve memory, attention, and decision-making skills.

Exercise encourages growth of new nerve cells and brain blood vessels, though increased production of neurotrophins such as BDNF and IGF-1, which promote the growth and repair of brain cells.

Physical exercise also has an almost immediate effect on human DNA, through a process called epigenetic modification (basically switching individual genes on & off). Physical exercise causes epigenetic modifications in muscle tissue, priming your muscles for use and future strengthening.

And this leads us to the brain health benefits of strength training (or weight training):

Strength/weight training can promote better ability to stay on a task in the face of distractions.

This is especially true if the weight involved is large enough to cause injury if dropped, or when the exercise task is complex – letting distractions interfere reduces the effectiveness of the exercise set.

**NEW: Take the Healthy Brain Test — Create Your Personal Brain Health Profile**

An additional benefit of strength training is better coordination skills, which can help reduce the occurrence of severe falls (and accompanying brain injuries), especially in older adults.

So hit the gym, pool, bike path, etc. knowing you’re maintaining a healthy brain and a healthy heart!
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