BY THE NUMBERS

2 mental health researchers, Nicholas Balderston and Meaghan Creed, were selected as the winners of the 2021 Klerman and Freedman Prizes.

15 components make up the MIND diet, which has shown to reduce a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and helps maintain cognition in older adults.

2 0 6 0

The year the average life span is expected to reach age 90.

ONE HUNDRED FOUR of 818 first responders to 9/11 show signs of cognitive impairment.

1,000 brains have been donated since 2008 to the Veterans Administration, Boston University, and the Concussion Legacy Foundation collaboration for CTE Research.

“I have tried to live in a a world that does not see color but have only succeeded in living in a world that does not see me.”

— Kafui Dzirasa, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University, from an essay that first appeared in Cell magazine.

Brain In The News

Links to brain-related articles we recommend

> New York Times: When It Comes to People Like My Daughter, One Size Does Not Fit All

> NBC News: Deep brain stimulation may ease opioid addiction when other treatments fail

> Scientific American: Caffeine Boosts Bees’ Focus and Helps Them Learn

> New York Times: Tapping Into the Brain to Help a Paralyzed Man Speak

> Quanta Magazine: How Computationally Complex is a Single Neuron

> New York Times: Cupid in Quarantine: What Brain Science Can teach Us About Love

> Washington Post: FDA-approved gaming is already here, pointing to its therapeutic potential

35,000 overdose deaths occurred as a result of the pandemic in 2020, a 30 percent increase over the previous year. 93,000

Africans are helping the NeuroGapPsychosis project collect and study data to find genetic markers linked to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

$56,000 is the amount Biogen plans to charge for its new Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm.

> The Star-Ledger: There’s no vaccine for opioid use disorder

> Science Focus: The mind-blowing science behind how our brains shape reality

> New York Times: I Can’t Stop Wondering What’s Going on Inside My Cat’s Head

> University of Cambridge: The Pict Warrior Fighting Her Inner Demons

> Washington Post: The mystery of 9/11 first responders and dementia

> Orchid: Identify Your Healthiest Embryo

> Science: A cautionary tale of eugenics

Bookshelf

A few brain-science books that have recently caught our eye

BY BRANDON BARRERA

Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion

by Wendy Suzuki (Atria Books)

A recent September figure from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey shows that 28 percent, or more than one in four, of U.S. adults reported experiencing anxiety indicators— symptoms such as uncontrollable worry, nervousness, or feeling on edge—in the previous week. In the face of this age of anxiety, New York University neuroscientist and author of Healthy Brain, Happy Life Wendy Suzuki suggests approaching anxiety with a paradigm-shifting (if seemingly counter-intuitive) idea: anxiety, mind you, is actually beneficial and crucial for motivating optimal living. In Good Anxiety, Suzuki provides readers with tools that go beyond effectively managing anxiety, preparing them to fundamentally alter their relationship with the oftenunwanted discomfort and unease of anxiety. Using the latest research and her own experience, Suzuki guides readers through the neural and biological processes of anxiety, emphasizing why learning to listen to (and not ignore) our sources of worry and discomfort trains us for dwelling comfortably on the knife’s edge of good anxiety—a reliable source of motivation and heightened focus we can tap into to increase productivity and quality of life. A compelling guidebook, Good Anxiety is poised to complement the moment.

Committed: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training

by Adam Stern (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

An incoming psychiatry resident at Harvard Medical School, Adam Stern found himself training alongside brilliant minds with prestigious pedigrees from the halls of Yale, Duke, and, of course,

In Memoriam

J. Allan Hobson, M.D., a psychiatrist and pioneering sleep researcher who disputed Freud’s view that dreams held hidden psychological meaning. — A Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives member, Hobson was a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. Over a career that spanned more than four decades, his own research and that of others showed that sleep is crucial to normal cognitive and emotional function, including learning and memory. In more than 20 books—among them The Dreaming Brain (1988); Dreaming as Delirium: How the Brain Goes Out of its Mind (1999), and Dream Self (2021), a memoir—he popularized his research and that of others, including the findings that sleep begins in utero and is essential for tissue growth and repair throughout life.

Harvard. As a graduate of the lesserknown State University of New York’s Medical University in Syracuse, Stern was quickly subsumed by a lack of confidence in his own abilities. In his memoir Committed, Stern, now an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychiatrist, chronicles his and his fellow 14 residents’ arduous trek to completing their Harvard residency training, capturing the intensity, whimsy, and nearconstant struggle with self-doubt. Stern emphasizes the trainees’ growth as doctors and as people, vividly detailing the four years of the program and making sure to include some of the most challenging and rewarding patient portraits found within the psychiatric wards. While these patients’ stories of struggling with manic depression, schizophrenia, and anorexia nervosa are included in the work, the spotlight remains on the residents. A memoir that reads like a medical trainee journal infused with the essence of Grey’s Anatomy (the TV drama), Committed is a vibrant and realistic glimpse into the life of a resident psychiatrist. l

Elaine Snell, a contributor to the Dana Foundation over the last 25 years beginning in 1997 when she spearheaded press efforts to inform the public, media, and neuroscience community of the launch of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB). — Snell’s skill in science communication contributed to many Dana Foundation and EDAB efforts, including the success of our Brain Awareness Week campaign throughout Europe. She helped develop more than 150 programs for public debate and dialogue on issues in contemporary science at Dana Centre at the London Science Museum. With Foundation support, Snell ran the press office at FENS Forum since their first meeting in 1998. From 2012 to 2015, she served as chief operating officer of the British Neuroscience Association and subsequently served in the same capacity for the International Neuroethics Society.