Study shows men­tal agility game slows cog­ni­tive decline in older peo­ple (Iowa Now): “Wolin­sky and col­leagues sep­a­rated 681 gen­er­ally healthy med­ical patients in Iowa into four groups—each fur­ther sep­a­rated into those 50 to 64 years of age and those over age 65. One group was given com­put­er­ized cross­word puz­zles, while three other groups were exposed to a video game called Read the rest of this entry »

Brain Games Aim to Make Kids Smarter (SciAm Mind, requires sub­scrip­tion):
“Sci­en­tists have con­cocted men­tal fit­ness reg­i­mens to strengthen weak think­ing skills in students—in effect, mak­ing kids smarter…Psychologists have long believed that think­ing capac­i­ties such as atten­tion, mem­ory and rea­son­ing were fixed, but Read the rest of this entry »

Phys­i­cal exer­cise and men­tal exer­cise are both ben­e­fi­cial for the brain. Each can improve brain func­tions and decrease risks of cog­ni­tive decline over time. This raises the ques­tion of their com­par­a­tive and com­bined effects: Is one bet­ter than the other? Are their ben­e­fits addi­tive (1 + 1 =2) or per­haps even syn­er­gis­tic (1 + 1 =3)? Read the rest of this entry »

I love read­ing the New Yorker. I have writ­ten before about bogus brain games, and about bogus brain train­ing claims. We have pub­lished a 10-question check­list to help con­sumers make informed decisions.

All this is to say I was sur­prised to read a recent New Yorker blog arti­cle titled “Brain games are bogus.” If you are going to make such strong claims, you need to back them up with seri­ous due dili­gence and analy­sis, and explain to read­ers what Read the rest of this entry »

Mas­ter­ing emo­tions by sharp­en­ing mem­ory? It just might work (Los Ange­les Times):

“Emo­tional reg­u­la­tion — the abil­ity to take neg­a­tive feel­ings and rec­og­nize, accept and chan­nel them prop­erly — is an Achilles’ heel for many peo­ple, but espe­cially for those with anxiety-related dis­or­ders, Read the rest of this entry »

Each blue dot below rep­re­sents one of the 300 peo­ple reg­is­tered so far in 27 coun­tries to watch the lat­est on neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and brain health, access­ing the pre­sen­ta­tions by 40+ sci­en­tists and pio­neers recorded dur­ing the 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit.

You can check out the full Agenda here. And this is what par­tic­i­pants had to say about the qual­ity of the pre­sen­ta­tions: Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of Brain Aware­ness Week 2013, which starts today, let’s debunk ten myths about brain fit­ness and brain train­ing that remain sur­pris­ingly popular.

Top 10 brain fit­ness and brain train­ing myths, debunked:

Myth 1. Genes deter­mine the fate of our brains.
Fact: Life­long brain plas­tic­ity means that our lifestyles and behav­iors play a sig­nif­i­cant role in how our brains (and there­fore our minds) phys­i­cally evolve.

Myth 2. We are what we eat. Read the rest of this entry »