Brain Connection: Eric Jensen on Learning and the Brain

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 12, 2008 |

Eric Jensen is a for­mer mid­dle school teacher and for­mer adjunct pro­fes­sor for sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties includ­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego. He co-found­ed the Learn­ing Brain Expo, a con­fer­ence for edu­ca­tors, and has writ­ten 21 books on the brain and learn­ing. Jensen is cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing his PhD course­work. His most recent book, Enrich­ing the…

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On The Brain

By Alvaro Fernandez | October 11, 2007 |

Very intense week, and very fun. I will be writ­ing more about this week’s 3 speak­ing events, but let me say now that our key mes­sages 1) our brains remain flex­i­ble dur­ing our life­times, 2) we can refine our brains with tar­get­ed prac­tice, 3) good brain exer­cise, or “men­tal cross-training”, requires nov­el­ty, vari­ety, and increas­ing level…

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Neuroplasticity 101 and Brain Health Glossary

By Alvaro Fernandez | September 10, 2007 |

Giv­en the grow­ing num­ber of arti­cles in the pop­u­lar press men­tion­ing words such as “neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty”, “fMRI” and “cog­ni­tive reserve”, let’s review some key find­ings, con­cepts and terms. First, a pre­scient quote by Span­ish neu­ro­sci­en­tist San­ti­a­go Ramon y Cajal (1852–1934): “Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculp­tor his own brain”. Thanks to new neuroimaging…

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11 Neuroscientists Debunk a Common Myth about Brain Training

By Alvaro Fernandez | September 6, 2007 |

Last Mon­day, NPR (very good US-based radio sta­tion) had a pro­gram on “do brain train­ing pro­grams work?” that reflect­ed very old-fash­ioned think­ing. In short, the guest speak­ers talked and talked about the impor­tance of nutri­tion and phys­i­cal exer­cise (both very impor­tant, as we have cov­ered in this blog mul­ti­ple times), and expressed skep­ti­cism about the…

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SharpBrains in Scientific American Mind/ Brain Health Blog and Newsletter

By Caroline Latham | June 12, 2007

We were very hap­py to dis­cov­er that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can Mind has high­light­ed Sharp­Brains in their June/July 2007 issue!If you are here due to that issue, we’d like to wel­come you and show you around a bit. You might enjoy: Our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series in which we inter­view some of the lead­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tists in brain fit­ness, includ­ing: Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing, Cog­ni­tive Sim­u­la­tions for Bas­ket­ball Game-Intel­li­gence: Inter­view with Prof. Daniel Gopher, Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing and RoboMemo: Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, Mem­o­ry train­ing and atten­tion deficits: inter­view with Notre Dame’s Bradley Gib­son, and an upcom­ing inter­view with Yaakov Stern, the lead­ing researcher behind the Cog­ni­tive Reserve theory

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