Breaking study reveals racial discrimination's impact on the brain, a 60-second speech test screens for brain changes, Alzheimer's risk factors as determined by AI, more paradoxical lucidity research

Black Americans who experience racism when they are in their 40s and 50s may be more likely to develop dementia later in life, emerging data indicates. 

“Estimates are that 13.5 million individuals will suffer (with) Alzheimer’s Disease in the United States by 2050, with Black Americans being disproportionately at risk compared to non-hispanic White Americans,” study authors wrote in an article published earlier this month. 

Prior inquiry has already established that people who face racial prejudice are also more likely to confront adverse health outcomes like accelerated aging, chronic illnesses, and even a potential stroke. 

“Building upon these findings, some have argued that the impact of stress and trauma likely extends to the brain and onset of dementia,” researchers wrote. 

The information collected over a 17-year period showed that the 255 participants who faced discrimination when they were middle-aged eventually developed changes that we associate with Alzhiemer’s and neurological decline.

“In the current study, researchers analyzed serum biomarkers, which are associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, including serum phosphorylated tau181 (p-Tau181), a marker of  Alzheimer’s pathology; neurofilament light (NfL), a nonspecific marker of neurodegeneration, and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), a marker of brain inflammation,” university officials said in a statement.

Specifically, respondents answered questions regarding whether or not they were disrespected, insulted, physically harmed, or otherwise ill-treated on the basis of race. 

Discrimination ultimately yielded higher levels of p-Tau181 and NfL, but GFAP was not impacted. 

The results support the idea that racism’s negative impact can have long-lasting and wide-ranging consequences for Black Americans, says Wake Forest University School of Medicine Professor Michelle Mielke. 

Policy makers can draw on this data to create solutions that eliminate racism and diminish the likelihood of developing dementia, she adds

People who are worried that they may someday develop dementia could soon take a 60-second speaking exam to see just how likely they are to experience brain changes, officials say. 

According to a recent Medscape Medical News article, Hungarian researchers have created what they’ve dubbed the Speech-Gap Test, or S-GAP Test, which may help doctors determine whether or not patients have mild cognitive impairment. 

“We tried different approaches and we finally ended up with the temporal speech parameters because these are not culture-dependent, not education-dependent, and could be more reliable than the semantic parts of analysis,” said Doctor János Kálmán, who helped create the assessment..

This means that medical professionals would gauge the speed of, and the space around, spoken words, and the results would help determine whether the examinee requires further neurological testing, reporters say. 

“The only purpose of this tool would be initial screening,” said Kálmán.

University of Szeged officials produced this test to save time in the doctor’s office, but they say it could ultimately be available for widespread internet download. 

So far, the test has been used among German, English, and Hungarian speakers.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere, impacting every industry, touching every consumer. Whether you actively engage with the technology — using AI dream interpretation or AI meeting schedulers — or you fiercely oppose these developments, you cannot ignore the seemingly endless innovation and its impact. 

And that influence now extends to the world of cognitive impairment.

A study published earlier this year shows that AI can detect Alzheimer’s risk several years before any outward signs of the disease appear. 

“The researchers used University of California San Francisco’s clinical database of more than five million patients to look for co-occurring conditions in patients who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center in comparison to individuals without Alzheimer’s and found they could identify with 72% predictive power who would develop the disease up to seven years prior,” officials said in a press release.

The results suggested that hypertension and high cholesterol could indicate future Alzheimer’s diagnosis.  Care Partner Connection has previously reported that not getting enough vitamin D was a risk factor, and this study supports that claim. 

Another notable finding was that women who had osteoporosis seemed to be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.

“It is the combination of diseases that allows our model to predict Alzheimer’s onset. Our finding that osteoporosis is one predictive factor for females highlights the biological interplay between bone health and dementia risk,” said Doctor Alice Tang, one of the investigation’s primary authors. “This is a first step towards using AI on routine clinical data, not only to identify risk as early as possible, but also to understand the biology behind it.”

A new study revealed that paradoxical lucidity can be categorized into four distinct subtypes, officials say. 

The phenomena described by researchers “as unexpected, spontaneous, meaningful and relevant communication from a person who is assumed to have permanently lost the capacity for coherent interactions, either verbally or through gestures and actions,” has been observed among people nearing their dementia journey’s end. 

This recent survey, conducted by the non-profit UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, was an attempt to better understand these lucid episodes and what causes them. 

The events were examined in terms of context, duration, how intelligible the dialogue was, and how long the person lived following the clear moment. 

“It’s important for people to know that these are not necessarily harbingers for death. I think people can get anxious when they happen, so it’s good to know that there are different kinds of episodes that don’t necessarily mean death is imminent,” said Doctor Joan Griffin, who led the Mayo Clinic study, in a statement. 

The findings show that 33% of those who experienced paradoxical lucidity lived more than six months after the incident took place. Family interactions usually prompted these moments, which weren’t always the most comprehensible, and they didn’t last long. 

Another subtype showed that some people (31%) entered these clear mental spaces without any obvious triggers and witnesses easily understood what was said.

The study identified a third category that showed music or enjoyable engagement prompted these episodes (24%). 

“Type four was relatively consistent with other descriptions of ‘terminal paradoxical lucidity’ in the literature, with an important indicator being the people living with late-stage Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias dying soon after the episode, but only 12% of all episodes in our sample were categorized as type four,” researchers wrote.

They add: “A deeper understanding of temporary reversals of cognitive ability could lead to pathways to induce some types of lucid episodes and extend the duration of others.” 

Former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno has officially taken over his wife’s estate after a conservatorship hearing earlier this month.  The request was prompted by Mavis Leno’s dementia symptoms, reporters say. 

Policymakers may not be considering the potential negative outcomes when they require doctors to report dementia diagnoses to the DMV, a new study shows. According to university officials: “If patients withhold symptoms out of fear their doctor will report a dementia diagnosis to the DMV, or physicians are reluctant to examine dementia symptoms for fear their patient could lose their driving license, that would worsen health outcomes and increase health care costs.”