Study ties thicker brain sections to spirituality

NEW YORK -- For people at high risk of depression because of a family history, spirituality may offer some protection for the brain, a new study hints.

Parts of the brain's outer layer, the cortex, were thicker in high-risk study participants who said religion or spirituality was "important" to them versus those who cared less about religion.

"Our beliefs and our moods are reflected in our brain and with new imaging techniques we can begin to see this," Myrna Weissman told Reuters Health. "The brain is an extraordinary organ. It not only controls, but is controlled by our moods."

Weissman, who worked on the new study, is a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University and chief of the Clinical-Genetic Epidemiology department at New York State Psychiatric institute.

While the new study suggests a link between brain thickness and religiosity or spirituality, it cannot say that thicker brain regions cause people to be religious or spiritual, Weissman and her colleagues note in JAMA Psychiatry.

It might hint, however, that religiosity can enhance the brain's resilience against depression in a very physical way, they write.

Previously, the researchers had found that people who said they were religious or spiritual were at lower risk of depression. They also found that people at higher risk for depression had thinning cortices, compared to those with lower depression risk.

The cerebral cortex is the brain's outermost layer made of gray matter that forms the organ's characteristic folds. Certain areas of the cortex are important hubs of neural activity for processes such as sensory perception, language and emotion.

For the new study, the researchers twice asked 103 adults between the ages of 18 and 54 how important religion or spirituality was to them and how often they attended religious services over a five-year period.

In addition to being asked about spirituality, the participants' brains were imaged once to see how thick their cortices were.

All the participants were the children or grandchildren of people who participated in an earlier study about depression. Some had a family history of depression, so they were considered to be at high risk for the disorder. Others with no history served as a comparison group.

Overall, the researchers found that the importance of religion or spirituality to an individual - but not church attendance - was tied to having a thicker cortex. The link was strongest among those at high risk of depression.

"What we're doing now is looking at the stability of it," Weissman said.

Her team is taking more images of the participants' brains to see whether the size of the cortex changes with their religiosity or spirituality.

"This is a way of replicating and validating the findings," she said. "That work is in process now."

Dr. Dan Blazer, the J.P. Gibbons Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, said the study is very interesting but is still exploratory.

"I think this tells us it's an area to look at," Blazer, who was not involved in the new study, said. "It's an area of interest but we have to be careful."

For example, he said there could be other areas of the brain linked to religion and spirituality. Also, spirituality may be a marker of something else, such as socioeconomic status.

Blazer added that it's an exciting time, because researchers are actively looking at links between the brain, religion and risk of depression.

"We've seen this field move from a time when there were virtually no studies done at all," he said.

Weissman said the mind and body are intimately connected.

"What this means therapeutically is hard to say," she added.

SOURCE: bit.ly/1jYo6ro JAMA Psychiatry, online December 25, 2013.

source: interaksyon.com

Good night's sleep cleans out gunk in brain

LOS ANGELES — When we sleep, our brains get rid of gunk that builds up while we're awake, suggests a study that may provide new clues to treat Alzheimer's disease and other disorders.

This cleaning was detected in the brains of sleeping mice, but scientists said there's reason to think it happens in people too.

If so, the finding may mean that for people with dementia and other mind disorders, "sleep would perhaps be even more important in slowing the progression of further damage," Dr. Clete Kushida, medical director of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center, said in an email.

Kushida did not participate in the study, which appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

People who don't get enough shut-eye have trouble learning and making decisions, and are slower to react. But despite decades of research, scientists can't agree on the basic purpose of sleep. Reasons range from processing memory, saving energy to regulating the body.

The latest work, led by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center, adds fresh evidence to a long-standing view: When we close our eyes, our brains go on a cleaning spree.


The team previously found a plumbing network in mouse brains that flushes out cellular waste. For the new study, the scientists injected the brains of mice with beta-amyloid, a substance that builds up in Alzheimer's disease, and followed its movement. They determined that it was removed faster from the brains of sleeping mice than awake mice.

The team also noticed that brain cells tend to shrink during sleep, which widens the space between the cells. This allows waste to pass through that space more easily.

Though the work involved mouse brains, lead researcher Dr. Maiken Nedergaard said this plumbing system also exists in dogs and baboons, and it's logical to think that the human brain also clears away toxic substances. Nedergaard said the next step is to look for the process in human brains.

In an accompanying editorial, neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro said scientists have recently taken a heightened interest in the spaces between brain cells, where junk is flushed out.

It's becoming clearer that "sleep is likely to be a brain state in which several important housekeeping functions take place," she said in an email.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. In a statement, program director Jim Koenig said the finding could lead to new approaches for treating a range of brain diseases.

source: philstar.com

Sleep helps brain stay fit by clearing waste

WASHINGTON - Like a janitor sweeping the halls after the lights go out, major changes occur in the brain during sleep to flush out waste and ward off disease, researchers said Thursday.

The research in the journal Science offers new answers to explain why people spend a third of their lives asleep and may help in treating dementia and other neurological disorders.

In lab experiments on mice, researchers observed how cellular waste was flushed out via the brain's blood vessels into the body's circulatory system and eventually the liver.


These waste products included amyloid beta, a protein that when accumulated is a driver of Alzheimer's disease.

In order to help remove the waste, cerebral spinal fluid is pumped through brain tissue.

The process is sped along during sleep because the brain's cells shrink by about 60 percent, allowing the fluid to move faster and more freely through the brain.

The whole operation takes place in what researchers call the glymphatic system, which appears to be nearly 10 times more active during sleep than while awake.

"The brain only has limited energy at its disposal," said lead author Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

"You can think of it like having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you can't really do both at the same time."

Co-authors of the study, which was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, came from Oregon Health and Science University and New York University.

source: interaksyon.com

Memory decline may be earliest sign of dementia

BOSTON — Memory problems that are often dismissed as a normal part of aging may not be so harmless after all.

Noticing you have had a decline beyond the occasional misplaced car keys or forgotten name could be the very earliest sign of Alzheimer's, several research teams are reporting.

Doctors often regard people who complain that their memory is slipping as "the worried well," but the new studies show they may well have reason to worry, said Maria Carrillo, a senior scientist at the Alzheimer's Association.

One study found that self-reported memory changes preceded broader mental decline by about six years. Another tied these changes to evidence on brain scans that dementia is setting in.

"Maybe these people know something about themselves" that their doctors don't, "and maybe we should pay attention to them," said Dorene Rentz, a Massachusetts General Hospital psychologist. She helped run one of the studies, which were discussed Wednesday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Boston.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's disease is the most common type. It causes a slow decline in thinking and reasoning ability. Memory trouble that disrupts daily life is one symptom.



Don't panic, though: The researchers are not talking about "senior moments," those small, temporary lapses most everyone has, said Creighton Phelps, a neuroscientist with the U.S. National Institute on Aging. They are talking about real memory loss, in which the information doesn't come back to you later, not even when people remind you of what you forgot, he explained.

A true decline is a change in your normal pattern. "You're starting to forget things now that you normally didn't — doctor appointments, luncheon engagements, the kids are coming over ... things that a year or two ago you wouldn't," said Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Pati Hoffman, of Carol Stream, Ill., near Chicago, used to design menus and organize events for restaurants but began forgetting where she filed things in her computer.

"I really just kind of started struggling. Something wasn't right. I would have to bring my work home, spread it all over the floor, sort it and then try to get it done so that nobody at work would know I was having this difficulty," she said. Driving to familiar places, "I would think, 'I know where I am, but I don't know how to get out of here.'"

Two neurologists said it was just stress and anxiety, and one prescribed an antidepressant. A third finally diagnosed her with early-onset Alzheimer's disease four years ago. She was 56.

The new studies were on "subjective cognitive decline" — when people first notice they are having trouble, even if they test normal on mental ability tests:

— Richard Kryscio at the University of Kentucky led a study of 531 people, average age 73. Those who reported a change in memory or thinking abilities since their last doctor visit were nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with dementia or mild cognitive impairment about six to nine years later.

— Researchers from the French government's health agency and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston studied 3,861 nurses at least 70 years old who were asked about memory symptoms and periodically tested for them later. About 900 of them carried a gene that raises their risk for dementia. Among the gene carriers, worry about a single memory symptom predicted verbal memory decline on tests over the next six years. In the others without the gene, worry about three or more memory symptoms was linked to memory decline on tests.

— Rebecca Amariglio and other Harvard researchers found that complaints about memory decline matched how much sticky plaque researchers saw on brain scans of 189 people 65 and older. This confirms an earlier study of 131 people that tied memory complaints to these brain plaques, the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

— Reports of memory impairment were closely tied to a decline later in the ability to recall events in a study of 2,230 people, average age 80, by researchers at the University of Bonn in Germany.

— Petersen said that a study he and others soon will report shows that complaints about memory predicted who would later develop mild cognitive impairment — what used to be called "pre-Alzheimer's" — in a random sample of 1,500 people in the community near the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

"If you notice a change in your pattern of either yourself or a loved one, seek a health care professional's evaluation," said Heather Snyder, the Alzheimer's Association's director of medical and scientific operations. "It could be a lack of sleep or nutritional, but it may be something more than that."

But don't worry about small, common memory slips, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

"Every time you forget someone's name, you don't need to go running to the doctor," she said.

The Alzheimer's Association lists 10 warning signs of the disease:

— Memory changes that disrupt daily life.

— Challenges in planning or solving problems.

— Difficulty completing familiar tasks at home, at work or at leisure.

— Confusion with time or place.

— Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships.

— New problems with words in speaking or writing.

— Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps.

— Decreased or poor judgment.

— Withdrawal from work or social activities.

— Changes in mood and personality.

source: philstar.com