In a study involving rat brain cells, Dr. Mark Mattson, chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, found that reducing cholesterol and ceramide, a form of fat, made the cells more resistant to the destructive effects of the amyloid plaque. And in a study of mice genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's, the NIA scientists found that how much the rats ate also was significant.

“What we find is that a high-fat diet is bad for learning and memory, and the low-calorie and intermittent fasting diets preserve learning and memory,” says Mattson, whose research was presented last month at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Although an actual cause and effect has not yet been proven, cholesterol appears to promote the production of amyloid plaque and contains an enzyme that the plaque needs to grow. It also promotes harmful oxidation and can cause damage to cell membranes.

A fishy story
While diets high in cholesterol are bad for the brain, getting plenty of omega 3 fattyacids, found primarily in fish, is vital for a healthy noggin, researchers say. In particular, a component of omega 3 fatty acids known as DHA, or docosahexaenoic acid, is key.

DHA is found in high concentrations in the brain and is needed for healthy cognitive function. It is widely believed to have an anti-inflammatory effect and is known to have a protective benefit on the heart. The most concentrated source of DHA is oily fish, such as salmon, tuna, herring, sardines and mackerel.

In an observational study conducted at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Dr. Martha Clare Morris, associate professor of internal medicine, found that people who ate fish once a week had a 60 percent reduction in the risk of Alzheimer’s compared with people who never ate fish. Eating fish more than once a week did not appear to provide additional benefits.

Other studies have found similar results. Hoping to learn more about the processes behind DHA's apparent benefits, Dr. Greg Cole, associate director of the Alzheimer’s Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, conducted a study in which one group of aging bioengineered mice were fed food high in DHA while another group ate a standard diet and a third group ate a diet deficient in DHA. The mice fed a diet high in DHA performed better on memory tests and had reduced levels of amyloid plaque in their brains. The mice fed a diet low in DHA performed poorly on memory tests and also showed damage in the areas where brain cells communicate.

What about toxins?
Despite the protective effects of eating fish, many people may worry about the potential dangers of fat-soluble toxins such as mercury and dioxins. Most researchers don't have an answer to this conundrum except to point out that the health benefits for populations of people who eat lots of fish, such as the Japanese, appear to outweigh the risks.

For those consumers willing to pay extra, fish oil or purified DHA may offer similar benefits, although it's unclear if they're as beneficial as eating fish itself.

Cole says the best solution would be to consume the kind of DHA used in infant formulas, which is made from farmed marine algae.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6630362  

The next day they were asked to repeat the tasks or recall the images while their brains were scanned using a technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Those who had slept properly performed better, and this was reflected in their brain activity.

Dr Sophie Schwartz, from the University of Geneva, who led the study, said: "Our results revealed that a period of sleep following a new experience can consolidate and improve subsequent effects of learning from the experience. "This improvement comes from changes in brain activity in specific regions that code for relevant features of the learned material."

Sleep helped the brain consolidate learned experiences and transform weak memories that might fade in time into more permanent fixtures, she said.

But how long it was necessary to sleep for the brain to benefit from this process was still unknown.

"Everybody sleeps, but some people sleep less than the average population, others have an abnormal sleep structure, and some drugs may change the duration of specific sleep stages," said Dr Schwartz. "We also need to better study the impact of sleep on brain development in children."

Brain scans should make it possible to assess the neuronal impact of sleep disturbances on patients with insomnia, sleep apnoea, depression or narcolepsy, she added.

"We now want to know which brain circuits are involved in these learning effects during the night and if we can experimentally enhance such effects," said Dr Schwartz. "We want to assess how sleep disorders affect emotional and cognitive functioning, and what are the biological factors responsible for these effects."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/14/easleep114.xml

Carrie Sturrock, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Stanford University research has found for the first time that musical training improves how the brain processes the spoken word, a finding that researchers say could lead to improving the reading ability of children who have dyslexia and other reading problems.

The study, made public Wednesday, is the first to show that musical experience can help the brain improve its ability to distinguish between rapidly changing sounds that are key to understanding and using language.

The research also eventually could provide the "why" behind other studies that have found that playing a musical instrument has cognitive benefits.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/17/MNGQ9FPODP1.DTL   

Shakespearean language stimulates the brain in unique and pleasing ways, according to British researchers.

Shakespeare good for the brain

SYDNEY: Shakespearean language excites positive brain activity, according to a new British study, adding another layer of drama to the works of the bard.

"The brain reacts to reading a phrase such as 'he godded me' from the Tragedy of Coriolanus, in a similar way to putting a jigsaw puzzle together," said author Philip Davis, from the University of Liverpool in England. "If it is easy to see which pieces slot together you become bored of the game, but if the pieces don't appear to fit … the brain becomes excited."

"By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest of things."

Davis' team believes that this heightened brain activity may be one of the reasons why Shakespeare's plays have such a dramatic impact on their readers.

Shakespeare used a linguistic technique known as 'functional shift' that involves, for example, using a noun to serve as a verb ('he godded me'). The researchers found that this technique allows the brain to understand what a word means before it figures out the word's role in the sentence. This process causes a sudden peak in brain activity and forces the brain to work backwards in order to fully understand the sentence.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/945

Exercise - It Does A Brain Good