Have you ever sat down to do something significant and possibly urgent, but you simply cannot concentrate for more than a few minutes? Have you ever gotten to the gym and felt like turning around and walking back out to hit the couch, or worse the fridge? Or how about being so nervous about a big test or presentation that facts and figures are all jumbled in your mind? And you cannot seem to remember anything you painstakingly reviewed in the last couple of days. In all of these situations, caffeine could help wake up and focus your mind and body. But using caffeine alone, especially in higher doses, can leave you jittery, shaky, and unable to focus. There is so much more to an energy boost than the ability to just keep going like an energizer bunny. Thrivous Surge offers a relaxed, focused energy boost by adding L-Theanine and Panax ginseng to complement Caffeine. Skip the jitters and crashes caused by caffeine by adding Thrivous Surge to your performance boosting regime. Thrivous Surge Thrivous Surge contains: 200 mg L-Theanine 100 mg Panax Ginseng Root Extract (7% Ginsenoside) 100 mg Caffeine Anhydrous How Caffeine Works in the Brain Humans have used caffeine for centuries to help them wake up and get going. Coffee, green tea, black tea, yerba mate, and even cocoa beans are natural sources of caffeine. Note that the Food and Drug Administration notes for healthy adults, up to 400 mg of daily caffeine is “not generally associated with dangerous, negative side effects.” The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages children and teenagers from consuming caffeine. Caffeine use should be limited when pregnant or breastfeeding. Biochemistry explains how caffeine stimulates the brain. With every waking hour, adenosine levels rise and accumulate in the brain. Adenosine acts as an inhibitory transmitter to relax and sedate the brain for sleep. With a similar chemical structure to adenosine, caffeine readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and interferes with adenosine binding. It takes about forty-five minutes from ingesting caffeine to reach maximum blood serum levels. Depending on the person, the biochemical effects caused by caffeine can last up to six hours. Interrupting adenosine binding increases the uptake of acetylcholine, dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline to promote energy, cognition, focus, and recall. Acetylcholine helps encode new memories to support working memory, cognition, and recall. Dopamine is best known for boosting mood. However, it is also involved in relaying nerve messages to enhance movement, memory, attention, learning, and cognition. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter associated with “feeling good”. Besides enhancing mood, it also supports focus. Adrenaline is the hormone and neurotransmitter responsible for the heightened senses in fight-or-flight responses. It increases oxygenated blood flow and releases stored glucose to increase focus, strength, and speed. Along with increased mental focus, caffeine taken pre-work has been clinically shown to enhance strength and endurance performance in high-intensity exercise. Benefits of Caffeine Anhydrous Anhydrous means without water. Caffeine anhydrous is derived by isolating and dehydrating the caffeine contained in natural caffeine sources. As pure caffeine, it is easier to determine the exact dosage and conveniently package it into pills and powders. How L-Theanine Works in the Brain L-Theanine is a non-protein amino acid found in certain plants, especially green tea. It has a similar chemical structure to the neurotransmitter glutamine and passes the blood-brain barrier within 30 minutes of ingestion. Researchers believe L-Theanine increases the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA and neuromodulators serotonin and dopamine to relay neuron signals in a calm and relaxed manner. My high school-aged daughter deals with extreme anxiety. After researching the calming effect of L-Theanine, we decided to see if it could provide some relief. What a difference it ha ...

Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) training strategy to capture images of mouse brain cells in action. The engineers say the AI system and specialized ultra-small microscopes make it possible to find precisely where and when cells are activated during movement, learning, and memory. "When a mouse's head is restrained for imaging, its brain activity may not truly represent its neurological function," says research leader Xingde Li in a press release issued by Johns Hopkins. "To map brain circuits that control daily functions in mammals, we need to see precisely what is happening among individual brain cells and their connections, while the animal is freely moving around, eating and socializing." Previously, the engineers developed ultra-small microscopes that the mice can wear on the top of their head. These microscopes measure only a couple of millimeters in diameter, which limits the imaging technology they can carry on board. Therefore, the frame rate that the miniature microscopes can achieve is lower than the 20 frames per second that would be needed to eliminate all the disturbances from the motion of a freely moving mouse. To solve this problem, the engineers reduced the resolution (number of pixels) of the microscopes and trained an AI program based on deep learning and deep neural networks to recognize and restore the missing points, enhancing the images to a higher resolution. Video-rate imaging was achieved by increasing the scanning speed and decreasing the scanning density during data acquisition in conjunction with the assistance of deep neural networks. The engineers developed a two-stage training strategy, described in a research paper published in Nature Communications. First, they began training the AI to identify the building blocks of the brain from images of fixed samples of mouse brain tissue. Then, they trained the AI to recognize these building blocks in a head-restrained living mouse under their ultra-small microscope. This step trained the AI to recognize brain cells with natural structural variation and a small bit of motion caused by the movement of the mouse's breathing and heartbeat. "The hope was that whenever we collect data from a moving mouse, it will still be similar enough for the AI network to recognize," explains Li. The engineers adapted an open-source, deep learning platform distributed via Github to recover image quality. The engineers found that the AI could adequately restore the image quality up to 26 frames per second. "We could never have seen this information at such high resolution and frame rate before," says Li. "This development could make it possible to gather more information on how the brain is dynamically connected to action on a cellular level."

Scientists have investigated the effects of anthocyanin supplements on adverse metabolic and inflammatory responses to the consumption of a high fat meal in healthy individuals. The scientists note that unhealthy diets, such as Western style diets high in fats and carbohydrates, can trigger several pathologies. In particular, high fat meals lead to a series of short-term events described as postprandial dysmetabolism. These events include alterations in glucose and lipid metabolism, endotoxemia, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Importantly, postprandial dysmetabolism has been associated with poor aging. Anthocyanins are compounds that provide color to dark berries such as blueberries, grapes, purple corn, and black rice, among other fruits and vegetables. Anthocyanidins are sugar-free counterparts of anthocyanins. In this study, the scientists investigated the effects of an anthocyanin extract on metabolic and inflammation-related parameters in healthy individuals. The participants in the study included 25 healthy volunteers, aged between 19 and 35. They consumed a high fat meal simultaneously with either the anthocyanin extract or a placebo. The extract was a blend of 150 mg blueberry extract, 230 mg black currant extract, and 620 mg black rice extract. These amounts are suitable for both acute and long-term human consumption, and also reflect those used in some other clinical studies. Thus, the obtained results are of practical relevance when it comes to making recommendations for dietary intakes and/or the use of supplements. Blood samples were collected from the participants in both the supplement and placebo groups. And the samples were analyzed to measure parameters related to endotoxemia, inflammation, oxidative stress, and alterations in lipid and glucose metabolism. The scientists conclude that the results of the study provide evidence in support of the protective actions of anthocyanin extract against these metabolic alterations. They also indicate that the consumption of fruits and vegetables rich in anthocyanins can counterbalance the adverse consequences of the ingestion of unhealthy meals. The scientists are persuaded that this is a strategy with the potential for high impact on human health. As usual in this type of study, the scientists note that further studies of the long-term and dose-dependent effects of anthocyanin consumption, and their impact on metabolic health, are needed. In particular, further dose-response studies should establish the optimal amounts to be consumed. Thrivous develops Vitality Geroprotector to enhance metabolic and cellular function for better aging. Each serving of Vitality provides a clinical dose of anthocyanin extract from blueberry, along with complementary nutrients. As indicated by this study, Vitality may help to protect the body from negative metabolic effects of high fat meals. Vitality is available online in the Thrivous store.

Scientists at UC San Francisco and Imperial College London have found that psilocybin can help depressed people. Psilocybin is a naturally occurring compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi, known for psychedelic effects. In particular, psilocybin fosters greater connections between different regions of the brain. This may free depressed people from long-held patterns of rumination and excessive self-focus. A research paper is published in Nature Medicine. Scientists note that, while psilocybin therapy is known to show antidepressant potential, its therapeutic actions haven’t been well understood. The researchers argue that the results of this study suggest an antidepressant mechanism for psilocybin therapy. The mechanism is global increases in brain network integration. The scientists studied fMRI brain scans from nearly sixty participants. They were given psilocybin or a placebo. In addition to the drugs, all the participants received the same type of psychotherapy. The results of this study show the psilocybin treatment reduced connections within brain areas that are tightly connected in depression. And treatment increased connections to other regions of the brain that had not been well integrated. The participants treated with psilocybin experienced an improvement of depressive symptoms, which lasted for weeks after the end of the treatment with psilocybin. “In previous studies we had seen a similar effect in the brain when people were scanned whilst on a psychedelic, but here we're seeing it weeks after treatment for depression, which suggests a carry-over of the acute drug action," says research leader Robin Carhart-Harris in a press release issued by US San Francisco. Psilocybin and other psychedelics, like ayahuasca, seem to affect neural connections in brain networks that become overactive in depression. The scientists argue that the drugs briefly disrupt these connections, giving them a chance to reform in new ways in the ensuing days and weeks. "For the first time we find that psilocybin works differently from conventional antidepressants - making the brain more flexible and fluid, and less entrenched in the negative thinking patterns associated with depression," says Imperial College researcher David Nutt. "This supports our initial predictions and confirms psilocybin could be a real alternative approach to depression treatments." Singularity Hub uses the term “magic mushrooms,” which is not used in the press release or the Nature Medicine paper. “Pioneering trials found that just one or two doses of psilocybin, the main component in magic mushrooms, rapidly pulls people out of severe depression.” The study found that psilocybin “shakes up global neural networks in the brain, essentially ‘rebooting’ how they communicate and forcing the brain out of its entrenched depressive funk.” “It might sound trite to say, but I think psilocybin therapy opens up the mind, and that’s its strength,” said Carhart-Harris as reported by Singularity Hub. Scientists caution that patients with depression should not attempt to self-medicate with psilocybin. "We don't yet know how long the changes in brain activity seen with psilocybin therapy last, and we need to do more research to understand this," says Carhart-Harris. "We do know that some people relapse, and it may be that after a while their brains revert to the rigid patterns of activity we see in depression."

Researchers have conducted a rigorous study to evaluate the effects of short-term supplementation with Ginseng on exercise-induced muscle damage, oxidative stress, and inflammation following intense downhill running. Exercise-induced muscle damage can occur following prolonged and overloaded exercise training. It results in muscle fiber microdamage and increased oxidative stress. It is characterized by a reduction in the functional performance of muscles, disruption of muscle structure, production of reactive oxygen species, and inflammatory reactions. Ginseng is a popular herbal supplement that has been reported to possess a wide range of pharmacological properties for the improvement of cognitive and other bodily functions. Ginseng contains ginsenoside, which is a critical phytochemical and major bioactive component. The researchers report on the methods and conclusions of the study in a December 2021 paper published in Nutrients. The paper is open access. The objectives of this study were to identify the protective effects of Ginseng supplements on muscle damage, by evaluating the changes in creatine kinase activity and delayed onset muscle soreness. Researchers sought to evaluate the anti-oxidative effects of Ginseng supplements on lipid peroxidation. And they tried to determine the changes in pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines after downhill running. Fourteen male physically active college students in their early twenties were recruited for this study. Exclusion criteria included regular use of dietary supplements or drugs; history of cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, or immune system disorders; and habits of smoking or alcohol consumption. The study participants received 400 mg capsules containing either Ginseng extract or a placebo. And they were instructed to ingest four capsules once a day in the morning during a period of 28 days. Then the study participants performed downhill running to induce oxidative stress and muscle damage. Blood samples and biochemical measurements provided data for statistical analysis of the biomarkers listed above, which are associated with oxidation, inflammation, and muscle damage. The results of the study suggest, according to the researchers, that Ginseng supplements reduce oxidative stress and enhance inflammatory adaptation following downhill running in human subjects. In particular, the findings indicate that short-term Ginseng supplementation seems to alleviate exercise-induced muscle damage caused by downhill running in males. This protective effect of Ginseng on exercise-induced muscle damage is probably contributed, according to the researchers, by the decrease in lipid peroxidation during exercise and the promotion of inflammatory adaptation. At the same time, the researchers caution that there are limitations to this study, mostly due to the small sample size. And they call for more investigation of the effects of Ginseng on exercise-induced inflammatory response. Using on the best available science, Thrivous develops Surge Acute Nootropic to enhance energy and focus. Each serving of Surge provides a clinical dose of Ginseng, in an extract that is standardized and tested for ginsenoside. Each serving also provides clinical doses of Caffeine and L Theanine. Surge is available to purchase online in the Thrivous store.

Researchers at Gladstone Institutes and UC San Francisco have developed a strategy and molecular building blocks for the design of therapeutic cells with improved specificity and safety, and for the eventual customization of cell-based therapies. Engineered immune cells can be precise and sophisticated in their ability to detect and eliminate cancer cells. But therapies based on engineered immune cells still face important limitations, including toxicity and the possibility that they could attack healthy cells. In addition, customizing existing therapeutic cells for new applications has been challenging. "We have identified principles that should greatly facilitate the engineering of therapeutic cells with greater sensitivity, accuracy, and safety than was possible before," says research leader Kole Roybal in a press release issued by Gladstone Institutes. "Our work will provide biomedical researchers with a toolkit for directing a range of cell-based therapies to their intended targets and for programming their therapeutic activities." "These smart cell therapies can unleash potent therapeutic activity precisely at the site of disease, improving the efficacy of the therapy and reducing the chance of life-threatening toxicities seen in patients," adds Roybal. Therapeutic cells are covered with large proteins called receptors. The outer portion of a receptor recognizes a specific target (for instance a protein on the surface of a cancer cell) and the inner portion tells the therapeutic cell what to do upon recognizing this target. Previously the researchers had developed a receptor called synNotch that can direct therapeutic cells to better recognize and kill solid tumors. Now there's a paper published in Cell. It describes how the researchers have improved the original synNotch by systematically swapping various portions of the receptor. Eventually, the researchers have produced a catalog of receptors dubbed SNIPRs, which are small enough for cost-effective engineering into human cells. "A challenging but fun feat was figuring out how different parts of known receptors function, so that we could take those pieces apart and put them back together in novel ways to meet our design specifications," says researcher Raymond Liu. "Understanding the rules of receptor design allowed us to build receptors that are more effective and also better suited for clinical translation," adds researcher Iowis Zhu. Roybal co-founded a company called Arsenal Bio. It is participating in the development of cell therapies based on SNIPRs for various types of cancer, as well as autoimmune diseases. "Engineered cells have the potential to operate as much smarter therapeutics than traditional small molecules and biologics," concludes Roybal. "We're hoping our new receptor system will serve as a technology platform enabling scientists and clinicians to design safer, targeted, and more effective cell-based therapies against cancer and many other diseases."

Have you ever met an older person who is sharp as a tack? I know men and women over age 75 whose mental agility is striking. Their ability to pay attention to details, recall, perceive, learn, and express themselves (often with fun-loving banter) amazes me. They are active, involved, and full of spunk. All too often cognitive decline is associated with advancing age. However, research shows the slippery slope of mental decline starts much earlier. It begins at least as early as, if not before, middle adulthood (forty years old). Once decline starts, studies indicate it continues on a relatively continuous path. Longitudinal studies find initial and advancing cognitive decline is not associated with diagnosed medical illnesses, nor indicated in blood work. Cross-sectional studies show cognitive decline affects a wide range of people despite their individual mental and/or physical status. In essence, the brain covers up cognitive decline without you or your doctor noticing it until it reaches a significant point where the brain can no longer compensate. Instead of waiting and wondering how your brain will age, take action to support long-term cognitive functioning. Healthy living, good nutrition, proper sleep, exercise, mental engagement, social interaction, and stress reduction are cumulative. And so is the power of targeted dietary supplements to help protect the brain and nerves. Supplements for Cognition There are two ways supplements support and protect brain cells, neurons, and nerves to keep cognitive operations sharp. They can: Neutralize and remove toxins and inflammation generated in metabolic processes. Support healthy brain function and enhance memory by protecting brain cells. Advancing technology continues to evolve our understanding of brain functioning, aging, and neurogenesis. Neurogenesis of adult brain cells is known to happen in two areas of the brain: the subventricular zone and the hippocampus. The generation of new neurons in other parts of the brain is not well understood. We do know that many brain cells last a lifetime. Supporting brain cell numbers, health, and functionality provides the best scenario for cognitive aging. Ammonia and Cognitive Consequences Ammonia is the natural by-product of the metabolic processes that fuel life. Ammonia is also generated by intestinal bacteria. The liver filters ammonia out of the blood to form urea, which is then passed through the kidneys and released out of the body in urine. The body’s waste removal system must keep circulating ammonia levels very low. Even a slight rise is toxic to the central nervous system, poisoning nerves, neurons, and brain cells. Ammonia also breaks down the blood-brain barrier, allowing other miscreants to enter the brain and wreak havoc. Unfortunately, science shows ammonia levels in the brain naturally increase with age, resulting in neuropathological issues. Every system in the body affects other systems. Supporting the liver to remove ammonia provides a foundation for healthy cognitive aging. Inflammation Affects Cognition Inflammation is the body’s defense to promote healing in cases of injury, toxins, or invading pathogens. But the immune system can go into overload, especially with high-sugar and high-fat diets, causing the body to experience systemic inflammation. Because the immune system and the central nervous system are closely tied, inflammation also breaks down the blood-brain barrier. Research links systemic inflammation with neurodegenerative disorders. In addition, systemic inflammation also impairs neurogenesis. Reducing overall inflammation through healthy habits benefits cognitive aging. Thrivous Alpha Neuroprotector Thrivous relies on current scientific research to target the right ingredients at beneficial dosages. Thrivous Alpha Neuroprotector contains the following ingredients to protect brain and nerve cells and support healthy cognitive aging, memory, recall, and executive functioning. Acetyl L-Carnitine Hyd ...

New York University scientists have discovered how working memory is formatted. And they have advanced toward better understanding of how visual memories are stored. Working memory is the ability to store and retrieve information for short periods of time. And impairments of working memory are associated with many psychiatric and neurologic conditions, including schizophrenia. "For decades researchers have wondered about the nature of the neural representations that support our working memory," explains research leader Clayton Curtis in a press release issued by New York University. "In this study, we used both experimental and analytical techniques to reveal the format of working memory representations in the brain." "Although we can predict the contents of your working memory from the patterns of brain activity, what exactly these patterns are coding for has remained impenetrable," adds Curtis. A paper is published in Neuron. Scientists measured the brain activity of participants in the study. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), while the participants performed visual working memory tasks. With the help of models of the brain, scientists created a representation of the neural activity of participants. Participants viewed a monitor. And their viewing patterns were translated into coordinates within the space of the monitor. This enabled the scientists to "see" how working memory is encoded. Participants were presented with two different visual stimuli. In some trials, the visual stimulus was a tilted grating. And in others it was a cloud of moving dots. After a delay, participants had to indicate the exact angle of the grating's tilt or the exact angle of the dot cloud's motion. The results of the study indicate that working memory uses the same format to encode the direction of the motion of the dots and the orientation of the titled grating. "We reasoned that only the task-relevant features of the tested stimuli were extracted and re-coded into a shared memory format, perhaps taking the form of an abstract line-like shape angled to match either the orientation of the grating or the direction of dot motion," explains Curtis. “We could see lines of activity across the topographic maps at angles corresponding to the motion direction and grating." Generalizing, it seems that the brain discards task-irrelevant features. And it also encodes task-relevant features into efficient memory formats. This confirms and extends a previously known feature of working memory. Visual working memory about letters and numbers is encoded using the same format as verbal working memory. That the brain uses an efficient format to represent many different things makes a lot of sense to me. It's an optimized strategy developed over the course of evolution. And it seems likely to me that this research program will not only shed more light on how our own brains work, but also permit advances toward human-like artificial intelligence.

Nutritional scientists report the result of their double-blind, placebo-controlled investigation on the effects of herbal supplements on cognitive health. A study was published in Nutritional Neuroscience. The scientists studied a multi-ingredient herbal supplement containing Bacopa monnieri (BM), Panax quinquefolius ginseng (PQ), and whole coffee fruit extract (WCFE). Their aim was to determine whether it could enhance cognitive performance and cerebral-cortical activation during tasks of working memory and attention. Motivated by growing evidence that herbal extracts, such as BM and PQ could acutely enhance cognitive performance, the scientists designed a rigorous study. Forty healthy adults between 18 and 60 years, 21 females and 19 males, participated. They completed tasks designed to test working memory and attention, without supplements, and 45 minutes after consuming either an active supplement or a placebo. The active supplement was made up of commercially available extracts of BM (150 mg/ tablet), PQ (50 mg/tablet), and WCFE (50 mg/tablet). The participants in the active supplement group consumed a two-tablet dose to provide a total dose of 300 mg BM, 100 mg PG, and 100 mg of WCFE, with a combined active ingredient intake of 500 mg. During the cognitive testing, changes in hemodynamic response in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) were continuously measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The term hemodynamics refers to the dynamics of the blood flow. The results of the study indicate that working memory was significantly improved following active supplement consumption compared to placebo in terms of both accuracy and response time. The improved performance was associated with a reduction of PFC activation related to effortful mental demand. This reflected increased neural efficiency concomitant with improved cognitive performance. Taken together, the results show improved accuracy and response time across cognitively demanding working memory tasks following active treatment. According to the scientists, this was the first study to examine the combined dose effects of Bacopa, Ginseng, and whole coffee fruit extracts on cognitive performance and brain activation of the PFC using fNIRS. The results show that the combination can modulate brain activation and cognitive task performance. This is the first report of acute, significant changes in cognitive function following intake of a combined, multi-ingredient herbal supplement with concomitant observed changes in haemodynamic response in healthy adults. This study demonstrated that a single, combined dose of herbal extracts known to influence cognitive function improved working memory performance. An equivalent improvement in attention was not found, despite an overall increase in efficiency for response time. The scientists conclude that future studies are needed to replicate the current findings. They also recommend additional examination of the potential positive effects of these herbal supplements across different cognitive functions, with a focus on working memory tasks. Thrivous develops Clarity Daily Nootropic and Surge Acute Nootropic to enhance cognitive performance. Each serving of Clarity provides a clinical dose of Bacopa. And each serving of Surge provides a clinical dose of Ginseng and Caffeine. As indicated by this study, a single serving combination of Clarity and Surge may enhance performance on working memory tasks.

Scientists at the Telomere to Telomere (T2T) consortium led by National Institutes of Health (NIH), UC Santa Cruz, and University of Washington, have published the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome. It has been two decades since the Human Genome Project produced the first draft human genome sequence. “Generating a truly complete human genome sequence represents an incredible scientific achievement, providing the first comprehensive view of our DNA blueprint,” says Eric Green. He is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which is part of NIH. The statement comes from a press release issued by NIH. “This foundational information will strengthen the many ongoing efforts to understand all the functional nuances of the human genome, which in turn will empower genetic studies of human disease.” Six papers encompassing the completed sequence have been published in Science. And related papers have been published in other journals. “Ever since we had the first draft human genome sequence, determining the exact sequence of complex genomic regions has been challenging,” said Evan Eichler, researcher at University of Washington School of Medicine. “I am thrilled that we got the job done. The complete blueprint is going to revolutionize the way we think about human genomic variation, disease and evolution.” CNN notes that the Human Genome Project made history when it sequenced 92 percent of the human genome in 2003. But, after that, scientists have struggled to decipher the remaining eight percent. This is what the T2T scientists have accomplished. The new research adds 400 million letters to the previously sequenced DNA. The full genome will allow scientists to analyze how DNA differs between people and whether these genetic variations play a role in disease. “This complete human genome sequence has already provided new insight into genome biology, and I look forward to the next decade of discoveries about these newly revealed regions,” says Karen Miga, research leader at UC Santa Cruz. Geneticist Colin Johnson called the work “truly ground-breaking,” as reported by BBC News. He compared the previously missing eight percent of the human genome to “the dark matter of the genome that we knew was there but couldn't get to.” And he added that now we have “the full description of the book of life, with all of the paragraphs and pages assembled." Sequencing a person's entire genome should get less expensive and more straightforward in the coming years. “In the future, when someone has their genome sequenced, we will be able to identify all of the variants in their DNA and use that information to better guide their healthcare,” says Adam Phillippy, research leader at NHGRI. "Truly finishing the human genome sequence was like putting on a new pair of glasses. Now that we can clearly see everything, we are one step closer to understanding what it all means."