Kayt Sukel, The Dana Foundation

Kayt Sukel

The Dana Foundation

San Antonio, TX, United States

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Recent:
  • Unknown
Past:
  • The Dana Foundation
  • Big Think

Past articles by Kayt:

Understanding the Gut-Brain Connection

“It’s fascinating to me that the gut, literally, has a sweet tooth,” says Dana grantee Diego Bohórquez. → Read More

Sound Effects: The Link Between Hearing Loss and Cognitive Decline

Q&A with Jonathan Peelle, Ph.D.The world is a noisy place. The human brain relies on limited cognitive resources to process the massive amount of sensory information we encounter in each moment, focusing on what’s important and filtering out what’s not. When a person has a sensory issue such as hearing loss, information processing, across the board, can significantly suffer. Jonathan Peelle,… → Read More

Out of Left Field

Language is processed in networks across the brain, not just the left hemisphere. New research suggests one aspect the left focuses on is how sounds change over time, while the right tracks pitch and frequency of speech. → Read More

Finding the Rhythm of Literacy

Q&A with Nina Kraus, Ph.D.For most elementary schoolers, learning how to read seems to occur almost naturally. But for the approximately 5-10 percent of children who are diagnosed with reading disorders, gaining critical literacy skills can be a significant challenge—a challenge that can directly affect learning in other academic subjects, overall educational attainment, and future… → Read More

Understanding the Links between Social Media and Depression

It’s more what people do on social media and less how much time they spend doing it that affects mood, suggests a new study. Perhaps “improving” habits of usage could also improve mood? → Read More

Seeking an Image of the Smallest Strokes

Q&A with Andy Shih, Ph.D.Vascular dementia, or the type of dementia caused by blood vessel blockage and damage in the brain is the second-most common form of the disorder, and often occurs alongside Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, physicians lack the tools to diagnose this disease before the brain has sustained significant damage. Andy Shih, Ph.D., an associate professor at Seattle… → Read More

Harnessing Imagination to Calm Fears

“We know that imagery and visualization techniques can be helpful but this really is the first step to understanding why scientifically,” says researcher Tor Wager. → Read More

Following the Threads: The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Psychosis

“All types of abuse, irrespective of their nature, were associated with a higher risk for psychosis,” says one researcher, and the more types of abuse that a child experiences, the higher the risk. → Read More

A Patient’s Choice in Treatment Affects PTSD Outcomes

Patients who were given their treatment of choice stayed in the program longer and showed fewer symptoms at the end of one study than those randomly assigned to treatment that they did not prefer. → Read More

A Link Between Sense of Smell and Spatial Memory

As Alzheimer’s disease progresses, it disrupts both navigation and olfaction; scientists are starting to tease out why, which might help them find an early-indicator test for people at risk before these systems start to break down. → Read More

Going Small to Attack Cancers

Q&A with Michelle Bradbury, M.D., Ph.D. Over the past few years, several studies have heralded the promise of nanomedicine, or the use of different nanotechnologies to deliver therapeutics, to help treat progressive cancers. Malignant brain tumors, like high-grade gliomas (a type of tumor involving the brain’s glial cells) and central nervous system metastases can aggressively invade the… → Read More

When is the Brain “Mature”?

Ask a handful of people at what age an individual becomes a fully-formed adult and you are likely to receive just as many answers. Some might say it happens when you get your first full-time job, others may say it doesn’t occur until you become a parent. Another one or two might joke that adulthood is the kind of thing that can remain elusive even after decades. Others may simply invoke the… → Read More

The Art of Discovering New Brain Cells

Researchers identify new types of cells by looking at the brain through sharper lenses, searching vast gene expression databases, and crowd-sourcing visual analyses. → Read More

Frontal Lobe Deficits and Financial Scams

Q&A with Natalie Denburg, Ph.D. You’ve likely heard about seniors getting financially scammed on your favorite nightly news program—or perhaps from a friend or family member who was unfortunately targeted. It starts with a phone call or email: a message supposedly from a grandchild, a Medicare representative, or the tech support company associated with a popular electronics store. It ends… → Read More

Reversing the Alzheimer’s Catastrophe

Q&A Huntington Potter, Ph.D. At first glance, there may not seem like there is much overlap between Down Syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease. The first, also known as Trisomy 21, is a chromosomal abnormality present at birth, resulting in impairments to both mental and physical health. The other is a neurodegenerative disorder mainly affecting the elderly, characterized by the build-up of a… → Read More

Predicting Suicides—Beyond STARRS

In the past few years, America has lost several celebrities, including actor/comedian Robin Williams and fashion designer Kate Spade, to suicide. It’s not a surprise: Suicide rates have been increasing across the board in the United States. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 1.3 million people in the US attempted suicide in 2016 – and nearly 45,000 died. This is nearly… → Read More

Advances in Biomarkers: Using Machine Learning to Develop a Test for Autism

When Thomas Insel stepped down from his role as director at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in September 2015 to take a job with Google Life Sciences, he suggested he had good reason to move to a technology company: the promise of data analytics in the field of mental health. He stated that algorithms and so-called “big data” techniques might provide a new way to help the mental… → Read More

Fine-Tuning Deep Brain Stimulation

Despite advances in both brain science and technology, DBS devices have not improved much since the original prototypes were implanted 25 years ago, says Philip Starr, M.D., a neurological surgeon at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “This is a device that works very well for most people, but there are a few problems that could be addressed by more advanced devices,” he says.… → Read More

Heroin vs. the Runner’s High: Different Action on Neurons

The United States is in the midst of a public health crisis when it comes opioid drug use. As physicians and public health officials struggle to keep up with the current rash of addiction diagnoses and overdose deaths (See “Synthetic Opioid Driving Overdose Death Rate”), there is still no clear explanation why this particular type of drug is so prone to abuse. A new study from the University of… → Read More

Do Complex Tasks Train Your Brain to be More Efficient?

Over the past decade, study after study suggests the brain is strongly affected by music. Playing music has the power to enhance emotion and communication (See “Music as the Brain’s Universal Language”), to improve executive function (See “Music Training Linked to Better Understanding of Speech”), and to compensate for certain aspects of cognitive decline in aging populations (See “Past Music… → Read More