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Why do psychiatric conditions multiply the risk of cognitive decline?

Age is the single biggest risk factor for dementia, with the odds doubling about every five years after age 65. But many things influence those odds for a given individual. Genetic vulnerability is a contributor, as are so-called modifiable risk factors such as smoking, cardiovascular disease, social isolation, and impaired hearing and vision. Certain mental conditions, particularly depression and schizophrenia, have also been linked to dementia. But because depression can itself be a sign of cognitive decline, the causality has been a bit muddy. Earlier this year an analysis of data from New Zealand provided the most convincing evidence to date linking many kinds of mental illness with dementia. That study raises important questions about the reasons for this increased risk and what could be done to reduce it.

The study looks at the health records of 1.7 million New Zealanders born between 1928 and 1967 covering a 30-year period ending in mid-2018. It found that those with a diagnosed mental disorder—such as anxiety disorders, depression or bipolar disorder—had four times the rate of ultimately developing dementia compared with people without such a diagnosis. For those with psychosis such as schizophrenia, it was six times the rate.

Among people who developed dementia, those with a psychiatric disorder were affected 5.6 years earlier, on average.

The study did not examine biological, social, or other reasons for the increased risk, but research on dementia points to several possible explanations. “There might be shared genetic risk factors,” suggests psychologist Leah Richmond-Rakerd of the University of Michigan, lead author of the study. Recent studies have found some overlap in genetic markers associated with Alzheimer’s disease and those linked to bipolar disorder and to major depression. Long-term use of psychiatric medications could also be playing a role in dementia, but Richmond-Rakerd and her co-authors do not think it is a major contributor.

They suspect that a more significant risk factor is the chronic stress associated with having a psychiatric disorder, which may degrade brain health over time. Studies in animals, as well as human autopsy studies, have linked chronic stress to a loss of neural connections in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, which is where Alzheimer’s takes a heavy toll. Evidence suggests that stress drives inflammation and immune dysregulation in the body and brain, impacting brain connectivity, says Harvard University neurologist and dementia researcher Steven Arnold. “If you have fewer connections and synapses, to begin with, because of stress, then you can’t afford to lose as many with aging before it starts to show up as what we might call dementia.” In other words, as illustrated by Fatinha Ramos people with mental illnesses may have less “cognitive reserve”— brainpower that is sufficiently robust to withstand normal aging without obvious loss of function.

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Relieving Stress Anxiety Depression

Mindfulness meditation can help ease your pain.

The technique can reduce pain intensity by as much as 32 percent, a new study has discovered—and even people who haven’t meditated before can quickly achieve these benefits.

The key is in not associating with the pain, but instead observing it as if it was happening to someone else, say researchers from the University of California at San Diego.

They tested the benefits of mindfulness on a group of 40 volunteers, half of whom were taught the technique and the others were told just to relax.

When a painful heat was applied to the leg, the mindfulness group reported a 32 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 32 percent reduction in unpleasant feelings about the Pain, Compared to the relaxation group.

Brain scans endorsed the findings. Transmissions between different areas of the brain were reduced in the meditators. “For many people struggling with chronic pain, what often affects their quality of life most is not the pain itself but the mental suffering and frustration that comes with it,” said lead researcher Fadel Zeidan.

A key feature of mindfulness is that ‘you’ are not your experiences. “You train yourself to experience thoughts and sensations without attaching your ego or sense of Self to them, and we’re now finally seeing how this plays out in the brain during the experience of acute pain,” he said.

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Mental Healthcare and Holistic Healthcare

Experts say wonder is an essential human emotion and a salve for a turbulent mind.

Awe can mean ‘many things. ‘And while many of us know it when we feel it, awe is not easy to define.

Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world” said Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

It’s vast, yes. But awe is also simpler than we think — and accessible to everyone, he writes in his book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life”.

Experiencing awe comes from what Dr. Keltner has called a “perceived vastness,” as well as something that challenges us to rethink our previously held ideas. Awe can come from moments like seeing the Grand Canyon or witnessing an act of kindness.

In his book, Dr, Keltner writes that awe is critical to our well-being. His research suggests it has tremendous health benefits that “include calming down our nervous system and triggering the release of oxytocin, the “love” hormone that one as and bonding.

“Awe is on the cutting edge,” emotion research said. Judith T. Moskowitz, a professor of medical social sciences at North Western University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Dr. Moskowitz who has studied how positive emotions help people cope with stress wrote in an email that “intentional awe experiences like walks in nature, collective movement, like dance or ceremony, even use of psychedelics improve psychological well-being.”

So, what is it biologically? Awe wasn’t one of the six basic emotions – anger, surprise, disgust, enjoyment, fear, and sadness – identified back in 1972, Dr. Keltner said. But new research shows that awe “is its own thing,” he said.

Dr. Keltner found that awe activates the vagal nerves, clusters of neurons in the spinal cord that regulate various bodily functions, and slows our heart rate, relieves digestion, and deepens breathing.

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As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found it harder and harder to fall and stay asleep. Why is that?

Dr. Abhinav Singh, medical director of the Indiana Sleep Center and a sleep professor at Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine, likes to answer this question with an analogy. Think of your ability to sleep as though it were a car, he said. As it ages and clocks more miles, it begins to fall apart; it needs more repairs, and its ride becomes less smooth.

The same thing happens with your sleep, Dr. Singh said. Researchers have found that sleep quality gets a little rusty with age: Older adults are more likely to take longer to fall asleep and wake up more frequently throughout. the night and spend more time napping during the day compared with younger. adults. They also spend less time in deep, restorative. sleep, which helps: with bone and muscle growth and repair, strengthens the immune system, and helps the brain reorganize and consolidate memories, Dr. Singh said. Your melatonin levels, which play an important role in sleep and wake cycles, also go awry with age, he said.

It is no surprise, then, that when researchers surveyed more than 9,000 people ages 65 and older in a landmark study published in 1995, they found that 57 percent of them reported at least one sleep complaint over three years. These included trouble falling or staying asleep, waking up too early, feeling unrested, and napping during the day. In a different study, published in 2014, scientists found that a little more than half of the 6,050 older adults surveyed had either one or two insomnia symptoms over the past month.

Research suggests that women are more likely than men to report poorer sleep quality in general.

As for what causes these changes, no one knows for sure. “We’re only just starting to understand why all of this happens, said Luis de Lecea, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.

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It’s often the case that we experience an event, later, to recall it only vaguely, or partially, or as a distortion of the facts. With the so-called illusory truth effect, what we assume we take in, or think we hear, may form in us false assumptions, attitudes, beliefs.

‘You don’t remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.’ – John Green, author.

Memory involves a process of encoding – how we take in – storing, then later retrieving data and information, as needed. It takes place in the electrochemical actions at synapses – tiny gaps between brain cells – creating neuronal connections, important for retaining new information, making decisions, solving problems.

Sensory memory can be brief, especially in taking in visual information, such as light, as well as auditory, smell and touch. When focused on, it passes into short term memory, generally around 18-30 seconds, then afterwards into long term memory. The hippocampus and amygdale in the limbic system are involved in consolidation of short term memory into long term memory; spatial memory, with neuronal connections in the neocortex.

In explicit memory, a conscious, intentional recollection occurs in the retrieval of contextual information from specific experiences and events, and formation of new episodic memories – things that happen to us – via the prefrontal cortex and limbic system. Damage or atrophy in the hippocampus can be seen in the development of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.

‘For all of us, explicit memory makes it possible to pass, to leap across space and time and conjure up events and emotional states that have vanished into the past, yet somehow, continue to live in our minds.’ – Eric Kandel, psychiatrist, neuroscientist.

Implicit memory is motor memory, retained in the body, effortlessly, used in automatic tasks, such as riding a bike or tying one’s shoelaces, and many other unconscious patterns governing daily functions.

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Relieving Stress Anxiety Depression | Biofeedback Neurofeedback

It’s popular on social apps to blame cortisol for myriad ills. But its role isn’t so clear-cut.

Maybe you can’t sleep. Or you sleep too much. Maybe you keep breaking out or getting sick. Perhaps your stomach bloats, your skin sags, you feel shaky, Maybe you can’t focus, eat or get rid of the tension in your spine.

If you’ve scrolled through TikTok lately, you might be inclined to blame one or all of these things on your cortisol levels. Over the last year or. so, users have flooded the app with stories about how their supposed cortisol imbalances have led to a variety of health concerns.

Cortisol, sometimes known as the stress hormone, is a chemical that helps regulate the way our bodies react to stress. “It’s a hormone that connects the mind and the body together,” said Martin Picard, an associate professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University. Nearly every organ has a receptor that responds to cortisol. It is crucial in helping us function throughout the day, whether by regulating blood pressure or combating inflammation.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that cortisol imbalances are responsible for the various ailments that people are sharing on TikTok said Nia Fogelman, an associate research scientist at the Yale Process Center.” I think it’s completely natural and understandable why people want to A, figure out what’s going on with their bodies, and B, to want some one thing that we can fix,” she said. But it’s not that simple.

When we experience stress, the pea-size pituitary gland in the brain — sometimes called the master gland — signals to the adrenal glands perched atop the kidneys, prompting them to secrete and deliver cortisol into our bloodstream.

Our bodies release the chemical when we are faced with a challenge, whether psychological or physical, real or imagined, said Jeanette M. Benett, a health psychologist who studies the effects of stress on health at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. We release cortisol when we encounter a tangible threat, like coming across a bear on a hike, but also when we receive an ominous work email. The more threatening we perceive an event to be, the more cortisol we typically produce.

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