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Category: neuroscience – Page 951

Panic Attacks and Anxiety Episodes Linked to Vitamin Deficiencies in Groundbreaking Study

HELLO! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6025786/

With approximately 40 million adults across the United States experiencing anxiety each year, scientists and researchers have dedicated their careers to trying to better understand this condition. Despite this work, we are still somewhat unclear on what actually causes this condition to occur.

Characterized by feelings of nervousness and restlessness, increased heart rate, hyperventilation, sweating, trembling, difficulty concentrating and uncontrolled worry, it has the ability to impact every area of one’s life. There are many theories regarding the root cause of the condition, including genetics, brain chemistry, environmental factors or other medical factors and/or disease, however, nothing has been proven definitively. Instead, the scientific community continues to explore these leads further in the hope of an answer.

One small study out of Japan may provide an important insight into the connection between nutritional deficiencies and mental health, revealing that low levels of vitamin B6 and iron may actually trigger the chemical changes in the brain responsible for panic attacks, hyperventilation and other forms of anxiety.

It May Be Possible To Avoid Developing Dementia

Scientists from the University of Exeter believe it may be possible to avoid developing dementia, and there are 5 ways that can help to reduce the risk, findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

As published in the journal JAMA living a healthy lifestyle may help reduce the risk of dementia even if you have a genetic risk; risk of dementia in those with a higher genetic risk who followed a healthy lifestyle were found to be at 32% lower risk than those with an unhealthy lifestyle.

Data was studied from 196,383 adults of European ancestry who were 60+ years old; 1,769 cases of dementia were identified over an 8 years follow up period; those with high genetic risk and an unhealthy lifestyle were found to be almost 3 times more likely to develop dementia.

Your brain loves conspiracy theories. Here’s why

It’s not ‘us’ (reasonable people) vs. ‘them’ (irrational conspiracy nuts).

Let’s face it — you love a good conspiracy theory. At least, statistically there is a good chance you do. About half of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory in any given year. How could that be? What is it about the regular, everyday reality we don’t like?

A recent study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology says that the answer to this predilection towards conspiracy-fueled thinking may lie in how our brains deal with probabilities. What may be responsible is a general cognitive bias associated with low probabilities. People tend to believe more in conspiratorial explanations of events as the probability of them actually occurring gets lower.

A conspiracy theory offers an alternative explanation for events and how things seem to be in the world around you. No, says a conspiracy theory, just because most people think this is the real state of things (especially politically), that’s not how matters really stand.

Can Learning a Foreign Language Prevent Dementia?

The evidence is far less clear than popular media might lead you to believe.

By: richard roberts and roger kreuz

You may have heard that learning another language is one method for preventing or at least postponing the onset of dementia. Dementia refers to the loss of cognitive abilities, and one of its most common forms is Alzheimer’s disease. At this time, the causes of the disease are not well understood, and consequently, there are no proven steps that people can take to prevent it. Nonetheless, some researchers have suggested that learning a foreign language might help delay the onset of dementia.

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