cognitive

Owning a pet could protect against the mental decline that can foreshadow dementia in older folks living alone, a study of nearly 8,000 people has found.The findings of the sizeable UK study add to existing evidence from the US that having a pet can help buffer against the effects of brain aging in adults aged over 65 years old and living alone.Loneliness and dementia are two growing global problems. It's estimated that the number of people with dementia worldwide will increase from 57 million in 2019, to somewhere…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Ever since Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky formalized the concept of cognitive bias in 1972, most empirical evidence has given credence to the claim that our brain is incapable of improving our decision-making abilities. Cognitive bias has practical ramifications beyond private life, extending to professional domains including business, military operations, political policy, and medicine.…

An analysis of over 5,000 people suggests multivitamins protect our mental faculties as we age, raising the possibility that daily doses of these supplements could help guard against diseases such as Alzheimer's.Researchers, led by a team from Mass General Brigham, ran in-person cognitive tests on 573 participants aged over 60 over the course of two years. The volunteers were split into four groups and given different combinations of cocoa extract supplements, multivitamin supplements, and placebos.When matched against…

Saturday Night Live‘s first episode of the election year opened with James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump bragging that he’s “more cognitive than ever,” and that his campaign has “seen a lot of success with saying things that did not happen.” The Republican frontrunner spoke to the press outside a New York courthouse, where he is facing a defamation lawsuit from E. Jean Carroll, a woman who a jury already determined that he sexually abused and who he can’t stop attacking. After being introduced by his lawyer…

Saturday Night Live‘s first episode of the election year opened with James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump bragging that he’s “more cognitive than ever,” and that his campaign has “seen a lot of success with saying things that did not happen.” The Republican frontrunner spoke to the press outside a New York courthouse, where he is facing a defamation lawsuit from a woman who a jury already determined that he sexually abused, and who he can’t stop attacking. After being introduced by his lawyer in the case,…

After announcing to the state of New Hampshire that he had aced his cognitive test, Donald Trump incorrectly blamed Republican rival Nikki Haley for being in “charge of security” during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on the Capitol. During a rally in Concord, New Hampshire on Friday evening, Trump spiraled into a bizarre rant about crowd sizes and the Capitol riot. “Look at all the people back there. You got a lot of people. This is supposed to be a quaint little area. This is not quaint at all,” Trump titillated…

Donald Trump, who has a penchant for crowing about hoarding classified documents and the crowd size on Jan. 6, 2021, boasted about acing a basic cognitive test in his continued efforts to prove his self-proclaimed title of an “extremely stable genius.” During a campaign stop in New Hampshire Wednesday night, the former president touted his ability to correctly identify animals of different shapes. “I took it, and I aced it,” he told the crowd of supporters. “I think it was 35… 30 questions. And let me tell you, you…

Modern computing techniques are transforming historical research by enabling the analysis of cultural artifacts to uncover societal mindsets and psychological trends. However, these methods, mainly validated with contemporary content, face challenges in accurately representing the diverse strata of historical societies. Juvenility in baby faces and in historical artwork. Credit: Trends in Cognitive Sciences/Baumard et al.No two civilizations throughout history have identical thought patterns. The way a society thinks at…

The US government has reportedly approved AI-based memory loss prediction software for the first time. Darmiyan, a San Francisco-based brain imaging analytics company, says the FDA has granted De Novo approval for its product BrainSee. The software platform assigns “an objective score that predicts the likelihood of progression from aMCI to Alzheimer’s dementia within 5 years,” according to the medical company. Fierce Biotech first reported the announcement.Darmiyan says BrainSee can predict memory loss progression using…

A new study has found that people with obesity who underwent weight-loss – bariatric – surgery had stable cognition two years after, and their executive function improved. Although further research is needed, the researchers are counting their findings as a win, given the association between obesity and rapid cognitive decline.Over the past 50 years, worldwide obesity rates have tripled, creating a widespread public health crisis. It’s projected that by 2030, nearly 50% of US adults will be affected by obesity. Along with…