127 scientists challenge the purported brain training “consensus” released by the Stanford Center for Longevity

— Sci­en­tists to Stan­ford: Research Shows Brain Exer­cis­es Can Work (Press release): “A group of 127 sci­en­tists sent an “open let­ter” to the Stan­ford Cen­ter for Longevi­ty, today, in reac­tion to a recent state­ment by the cen­ter that was high­ly crit­i­cal of the emerg­ing sci­ence of brain train­ing and dero­gat­ed the effi­ca­cy of all brain…

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Michael Merzenich on Brain Training, Assessments, and Personal Brain Trainers

Inter­view with Dr. Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor at UCSF, a lead­ing pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invent­ed the cochlear implant. In 1996, he was the found­ing CEO of Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Nas­daq: SCIL), and in 2004 became co-founder and Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer of Posit Sci­ence. He was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in 1999 and to the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine this year. He retired as Fran­cis A. Sooy Pro­fes­sor and Co-Direc­tor of the Keck Cen­ter for Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San Fran­cis­co in 2007. You may have learned about his work in one of PBS TV spe­cials, mul­ti­ple media appear­ances, or neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty-relat­ed books.

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Preventing Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Stronger Effort Need­ed To Pre­vent Men­tal, Emo­tion­al, And Behav­ioral Dis­or­ders in Young peo­ple, Experts Urge (Sci­ence Dai­ly) — “The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment should make pre­vent­ing men­tal, emo­tion­al, and behav­ioral dis­or­ders and pro­mot­ing men­tal health in young peo­ple a nation­al pri­or­i­ty, says a new report from the Nation­al Research Coun­cil and Insti­tute of Med­i­cine.” — “Research has shown…

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Brain Blogs and Michael Merzenich

Two quick notes: — Encephalon #56 edi­tion: the lat­est edi­tion of this neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy blog car­ni­val is ready for your read­ing plea­sure. — Michael Merzenich Elect­ed to Insti­tute of Med­i­cine: Con­grat­u­la­tions! “The Insti­tute of Medicine’s total active mem­ber­ship is now 1,576 and the num­ber of for­eign asso­ciates is 89. With anoth­er 71 mem­bers hold­ing emeritus…

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