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Apr 30, 2008

Brain Fitness Update: Use It and Improve It

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Here you are have the bi-monthly update with our 10 most Pop­u­lar blog posts. (Also, remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive our RSS feed, or to our newslet­ter, at the top of this page, if you want to receive this digest by email).Crossword Puzzles Brain fitness

In this edi­tion of our newslet­ter we bring a few arti­cles and recent news pieces that shed light on what “Use It or Lose It” means, and why we can start going beyond that to say “Use It and Improve It.”

The Neu­ron, The Brain, and Think­ing Smarter

New Neu­rons: Good News, Bad News: Dr. Bill Klemm, a pro­fes­sor of Neu­ro­science at Texas A&M Uni­ver­sity, sum­ma­rizes the research on how new neu­rons are born and what they need to live long happy lives.

Inter­views with 16 Lead­ing Sci­en­tists: Com­pi­la­tion of inter­views with promi­nent neu­ro­sci­en­tists and psy­chol­o­gists con­ducted by Sharp­Brains over the past year. “Use It and Improve It” not only applies to the neu­ron unit, but also to a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive and emo­tional skills, as you will dis­cover in these interviews.

The Sci­ence of Think­ing Smarter: Har­vard Busi­ness Review pub­lishes a great inter­view with biol­o­gist John Med­ina, author of Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Sur­viv­ing and Thriv­ing at Work, Home and School.

Brain and Research News

Cog­ni­tive News RoundUp: arti­cles cov­er­ing epi­ge­net­ics (how our envi­ron­ments and expe­ri­ences can con­tribute to turn­ing genes on or off, thereby putting in bet­ter con­text genetic influ­ences), men­tal prob­lems among return­ing vet­er­ans, and the cog­ni­tive effects of med­ica­tions and aging.

Mem­ory Train­ing and Fluid Intel­li­gence: accord­ing to a new paper pub­lished in Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences (PNAS), the “researchers did not find the upper-limit for improve­ment, sug­gest­ing that more train­ing could yield even bet­ter men­tal per­for­mance gains.” Which shows how well-directed brain exer­cise can work, and not only for peo­ple with aging or disease-specific problems.

Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing for Adults: Dr. David Rabiner dis­cusses the ini­tial results, pre­sented in the April 2008 Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Soci­ety meet­ing, of a con­trolled trial of work­ing mem­ory train­ing con­ducted with 55 younger (20–30 years old) and 45 older (60–70 years old) adults. Sim­i­lar results to the ones reported above, and more durable. We are look­ing for­ward to see­ing when and where the study will be published.

Pump up those lit­tle grey cells: great arti­cle in the UK’s Sun­day Times list­ing a vari­ety of free or inex­pen­sive brain health-related resources.

Reflec­tions

Peace Among Pri­mates (Part 3): “Any­one who says peace is not part of human nature knows too lit­tle about pri­mates, includ­ing our­selves”, con­cludes neu­ro­sci­en­tist Dr. Robert Sapol­sky in his third and final install­ment in this series.

Brain Teasers

Chal­lenge Your Atten­tion: count the TOTAL num­ber of times that the bas­ket­balls change hands? If you haven’t done this exper­i­ment before, please try it…you’ll be amazed.

Your Haiku, Please?: feel free to share your research sug­ges­tions, in haiku form.

Stim­u­lat­ing times. Have a great day!

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Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Debunk­ing 10 com­mon brain fit­ness myths, by Alvaro Fernandez
  2. Brain plas­tic­ity: How learn­ing changes your brain, by Pas­cale Michelon
  3. 8 Tips To Remem­ber What You Read, by Bill Klemm
  4. Why do You Turn Down the Radio When You’re Lost?, by Car­o­line Latham
  5. Retool­ing Brain Care With Low-Cost, Data-Driven Tech­nolo­gies, by Alvaro Fernandez
  6. Do you believe these neu­romyths?, by SharpBrains
  7. Six tips to build resilience and pre­vent brain-damaging stress, by SharpBrains
  8. Does cog­ni­tive train­ing work? (For Whom? For What?), by Pas­cale Michelon
  9. The Emo­tional Life of Your Brain, by by Richard David­son, Sharon Begley
  10. To Be (Your Con­nec­tome), or Not to Be (Your Genome), by Sebas­t­ian Seung
  11. Top 10 Brain Fit­ness Future Trends, by Alvaro Fernandez
  12. Biofeed­back now a “Level 1 — Best Sup­port” Inter­ven­tion for ADHD, by SharpBrains
  13. When 1 + 1 = 5: Dyscal­cu­lia and Work­ing Mem­ory, by Tracy Alloway
  14. Train­ing Atten­tion and Emo­tional Self-Regulation — Inter­view with Michael Pos­ner, by Alvaro Fernandez
  15. The Ten Habits of Highly Effec­tive Brains, by Alvaro Fernandez
  16. Does brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 con­di­tions, by SharpBrains
  17. Cog­ni­tive ther­apy or med­ica­tion? Brain scans may help per­son­al­ize treat­ments, by SharpBrains
  18. New Study shows Teens with ADHD helped by Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­apy, by David Rabiner
  19. How Do Words Change Our Brains and Lives?, by Andrew New­berg, Mark Waldman
  20. BBC “Brain Train­ing” Exper­i­ment: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, by Alvaro Fernandez
  21. From Anti-Alzheimer’s “Magic Bul­lets” to True Brain Health, by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, Peter Whitehouse
  22. Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Ratio­nal and Intu­itive Problem-Solving, by Judith Tingley
  23. Why I Wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, by Bar­bara Arrowsmith-Young
  24. The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom, by Alvaro Fernandez
  25. Break­ing Down the Cog­ni­tion & Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Alpha­bet Soup, by Dharma Singh Khalsa
  26. Top 10 Quotes on Life­long Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, by Alvaro Fernandez
  27. To Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, Start with Enthu­si­asm, by Helena Popovic
  28. Q&A with Yaakov Stern on Brain Reserve, Exer­cise, Cog­ni­tive Train­ing, Angry Birds, by Alvaro Fernandez
  29. Eval­u­a­tion Check­list for Brain Fit­ness prod­ucts and games, by Alvaro Fernandez
  30. Mind­ful­ness and Med­i­ta­tion in Schools for Stress Man­age­ment, by Jill Sutie
  31. Stress and Neural Wreck­age: Part of the Brain Plas­tic­ity Puz­zle, by Gre­gory Kellet
  32. Cog­ni­tive and Emo­tional Devel­op­ment Through Play, by David Elkind
  33. AARP’s Brain Fit­ness Best Books List, by SharpBrains
  34. Judith Beck: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son, by Alvaro Fernandez
  35. Improve Mem­ory with Sleep, Prac­tice, and Test­ing, by Bill Klemm
  36. 10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn, by Lau­rie Bartels
  37. Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and Brain Fit­ness, by Alvaro Fernandez
  38. Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion for Adults & Teens with ADHD, by David Rabiner
  39. Phys­i­cal Exer­cise and Brain Health, by Pas­cale Michelon
  40. Sleep, Tetris, Mem­ory and the Brain, by Shan­non Moffet

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