How to keep your brain young and healthy well into old age

Future-proof your brain with this cognitive care package.

  • Human memory relies on the coordination of multiple brain regions, each of which is subject to demise as we age.
  • A variety of games and actionable methods can help keep our memory strong.
  • Learning new skills is an important component of keeping our memory sharp into our later years
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People with large brain reserves can circumvent Alzheimer's. Here's how to build yours.

It's never too late to start strengthening your brain.

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  • Cognitive reserve is your mind's ability to resist damage to your brain.
  • Brain reserve refers to the brain structures that provide resilience against neurodegenerative diseases.
  • A certain number of people with Alzheimer's pathology never show symptoms; there are methods for developing this skill.
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A new AI passes the smell test almost 100% of the time

Our remarkable olfactory senses are modeled in a new research chip.

Image source: Peshkova/Ilona Rainbow/Shutterstock/Big Think
  • Two researchers have created an algorithm that can accurately identify 10 different smells.
  • The AI algorithm runs on an Intel chip that has 130,000 silicon "neurons."
  • The natural mammalian olfactory bulb grows new neurons even in adults.
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Japanese scientists discover clue to erasing traumatic memories

Researchers make breakthrough in studying traumatic long-term memory in flies.

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  • Scientists in Japan find that light can affect long-term traumatic memories in flies.
  • Keeping male flies in the dark helped them overcome negative mating memories.
  • The researchers hope to use the finding to develop new treatments for PTSD and similar disorders.
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The life-long psychological effects your first love has on you, according to science

If love is an addiction, your first love is the first dose.

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  • Biological researcher Helen Fisher's 2005 fMRI study on couples in love proved that romantic love is primarily a motivation system that can be similar to what we experience during addiction.
  • Cognitive scientists at MIT explain that we experience peak processing and memory power at around age 18. We experience a lot of firsts (such as our first love) at a time when our brains are still developing or reaching this processing peak.
  • These emotional and hormonal imprints of first love (at a time when our brains are in such an important growing stage or peak) cause life-long effects not only to our psyche but our biology as well.
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