Neurosciences

With the rise in Alzheimer’s disease in Orange County over the last decade, there is a good chance your family has been touched by dementia or mild cognitive decline. Alzheimer’s Orange County recently estimated that the number of people facing dementia has nearly doubled since 2014 locally, from 84,000 to 164,000 people. “The new data … Read More

During a webinar presented by mental health experts from Hoag Hospital’s ASPIRE program to CUSD families, a child psychiatrist shared some recently released statistics on child mental health issues. Dr. Sina Safahieh, a double-board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and medical director of the ASPIRE Program at Hoag in Newport Beach and Irvine, said … Read More

By Matthew Reed, M.D. | Hoag Hospital’s Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute More than car accidents. More than suicide. More than gun violence. Fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for people ages 18-49, a startling fact that prompted the Food and Drug Administration to approve naloxone (commonly known as Narcan) for over-the-counter sales in … Read More

Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that involves repeated stopping and starting of breathing during sleep, which can lead to low oxygen levels. Studies show that sleep apnea may increase the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. Research also shows that sleep apnea may exacerbate the buildup of amyloid beta proteins in the brain — a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). … Read More

If you want to know whether a standard-of-care medication will work to treat your depression, flip a coin. More than half of all patients treated for major depressive disorder (MDD), the clinical name for what is typically thought of as depression, don’t respond to the first treatment option prescribed to them. Even those who do … Read More

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., recently outlined a national framework to combat the loneliness epidemic in the United States. He noted four important facts about loneliness and social isolation: Being lonely is as bad for your long-term health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! People who are lonely are 26% more likely to die … Read More

Want to look 19 years younger than you are? Sorry. This isn’t a story about that. But you can make your brain appear nearly two decades more youthful simply by following a Mediterranean diet. A new study published in the journal Neurology, looked at the brains of 581 people who donated their bodies to science. … Read More

Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder that causes slowness of movement, tremors, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and coordination. Depictions of the disease in popular culture are grim, and nobody wants to be told they have a disorder that’s associated with the loss of motor skills and possible cognitive decline. Caused by a lack of … Read More

Exercise is key for maintaining physical and mental health. Studies show that it positively affects health even if started later in life. Some suggest that exercise improves cognition by inducing long-term changes in the hippocampus, such as increased volume and an increased rate of neuronal formation. How exactly exercise changes the hippocampus, however, remains unknown. Understanding more about how … Read More