In a new study, neuroscientists have found that raised blood pressure and diabetes in mid-life alter brain structure to slow thinking speed and memory.

Looking at results from 22,000 volunteers in the UK Biobank who underwent brain scanning, the scientists found that raised blood pressure and diabetes significantly impaired the brain’s cognitive functions, specifically the performance of thinking speed and short-term memory. Masud Husain, professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences and lead investigator of the study, said:

A study has found that working memory training increases neural efficiency in Parkinson’s disease.

The neural efficiency hypothesis describes the phenomenon that brighter individuals show lower brain activation than less bright individuals when working on the same cognitive tasks. Impairment of working memory and executive functions is frequently observed in early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Improvements in working memory performance could potentially be achieved via working memory training. However, the specific neural mechanisms underlying different working memory processes, have largely gone under-investigated.

Using blood thinners to prevent stroke in very elderly patients with atrial fibrillation is a challenge for doctors, because of an increased risk of bleeding.

Researchers from the Saiseikai Kumamoto Hospital in Japan decided to conduct a randomised, double-blind trial to compare a daily dose of blood thinner edoxaban with a placebo treatment involving almost 700 elderly Japanese patients who were 80 years old and above. They all had atrial fibrillation, and weren’t considered to be appropriate candidates for oral blood-thinning therapy at doses approved for stroke prevention.

After a stroke, up to one in three survivors will experience a condition called spatial neglect – but researchers say there isn’t enough research being done into the condition.

Spatial neglect is a type of vision loss, where a stroke survivor loses awareness of one side. It’s most common after strokes to the right hemisphere, where people will be unaware of objects or people on the right side, says Helen Morse, PhD student University of East Anglia, funded by the Stroke Association. People with spatial neglect don’t have anything physically wrong with their eyes that causes these problems. Morse calls it a ‘complex and bizarre condition’ that can also affect other ways people receive information, such as visually, as well as their hearing and sense of touch. This, she says, makes it a difficult condition to measure, detect and treat.