Humour

Chart: The Most In-Demand Jobs of the Next Decade in the U.S.

Source : Statista

Charts: China Gold Reserves Increased As Treasury Reserves Reduced

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Read more at Bond Vigilantes

Gold prices: beyond inflation and real yields . . . . .

Infographic: What Southeast Asia Thinks About China and the U.S.

Source : Visual Capitalist

Can Mild Cognitive Impairment Be Reversed?

Gina Shaw wrote . . . . . . . . .

In rare cases, people who have been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) revert to normal cognition, at least for a period of time. Researchers don’t completely understand why this occurs, but a possible explanation is something called cognitive reserve—the brain’s ability to develop alternative connections and ways of accomplishing mental tasks. Cognitive reserve is likely related to how our brains were intellectually and cognitively stimulated over a lifetime.

A 2022 article in Neurology on cognitive reserve reported on a multidecade study in which 472 participants were diagnosed with MCI: 143 of them (30.3 percent) reverted to normal cognition based on testing, and 120 of those 143 (83.9 percent) never developed dementia. The subjects came from the Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease, which followed a group of almost 700 nuns from the Sisters of Notre Dame order in Minnesota starting in the late 1980s. (The last surviving sister died in 2019.) The study’s investigators found that nuns with higher levels of education and other signs of cognitive reserve were more than twice as likely to return to normal cognition.

For the overall study, the nuns underwent yearly physical and cognitive examinations and agreed to have their brains studied after their deaths. On autopsy, the brains of several nuns showed plaques and tangles characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. But while they were alive, their scores on all cognitive tests and other measures had been normal. Others were diagnosed with MCI during the study period but later returned at least temporarily to normal brain function, based on their scores on several standard memory and cognition tests and their ability to perform activities of daily living.

In other published research, a meta-analysis in Neuropsychology Review in 2021 found that people with greater cognitive reserve are better able to stave off symptoms of degenerative brain changes associated with dementia. Additional studies show that cognitive reserve also may reduce the brain changes associated with Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and stroke.

The idea is that staying healthy and cognitively engaged builds a stronger brain, says Jeffrey Burns, MD, professor of neurology and co-director of the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. “You are strengthening neural networks that allow your brain to remain high-functioning even if you are developing the pathologies behind various forms of dementia,” he explains.

Source : Brain&Life