Cour­tesy of the recent study Neu­romyths in edu­ca­tion: Preva­lence and pre­dic­tors of mis­con­cep­tions among teach­ers, by Sanne Dekker et al, here you have 32 brain-related state­ments. Are they cor­rect or incorrect?

1. We use our brains 24 h a day (C ).
2. Chil­dren must acquire their native lan­guage before a sec­ond lan­guage is learned. If they do not do so nei­ther lan­guage will be fully acquired (I).
3. Boys have big­ger brains than girls (C ). Read the rest of this entry »

In recent years, we have wit­nessed the begin­nings of a rev­o­lu­tion in edu­ca­tion.  Tech­nol­ogy has fun­da­men­tally altered the way we do many things in daily life, but it is just start­ing to make head­way in chang­ing the way we teach.  Just as tele­vi­sion shows like Sesame Street enhanced the pas­sive learn­ing of infor­ma­tion for kids by teach­ing in a fun for­mat, elec­tronic games offer to greatly enhance the way kids and adults are taught by actively engag­ing them in the process. Read the rest of this entry »

You may find that too much media cov­er­age on how to take good care of our brains is con­fus­ing, if not poten­tially mis­lead­ing. In The True Story — is men­tal exer­cise good, bad, or irrel­e­vant, Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon dis­sects for you a recent large study which was largely reported as bad news when in fact it brings good news (no mir­a­cles, but good news).  We hope you enjoy her insight­ful analy­sis — and all the excel­lent arti­cles that fol­low in the Sep­tem­ber edi­tion of our monthly eNewslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can use the box in the right col­umn to sub­scribe and receive this newslet­ter via email.

Do you Mind

Dear sapi­ens sapi­ens, do you mind: Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man encour­ages you to ask your­self the tough ques­tions: Do you mind your brain? Do you know your nog­gin’? Can you claim cere­bral own­er­ship or is your men­tal a rental? Plus, why we need a new lex­i­con for pos­i­tive cog­ni­tion interventions.

Time for a Cog­ni­tive Reserve Day: with 36 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide with demen­tia today and related care costs around 1 per­cent of the world’s gross domes­tic prod­uct (GDP), and grow­ing fast, may it be time to com­ple­ment World Alzheimer’s Day with Word Cog­ni­tive Reserve’s Day?

Food for Thought

Debunk­ing learn­ing styles: a recent arti­cle in The New York Times debunks many old myths about learn­ing and learn­ing styles, sum­ma­riz­ing emerg­ing cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science findings.

Sci­ence for the Peo­ple: quick now — think of a ques­tion, any ques­tion, that comes to mind. Chances are some one in the excel­lent ros­ter of 28 sci­ence blog­gers who took part in Sharp­Brains’ edi­tion of Sci­en­tia Pro Pub­lica blog car­ni­val answered it.

Food for Thought — II

‘West­ern’ Style Diet Increases Risk of ADHD: Dr. David Rabiner reports how, on the one hand, a recent large study track­ing 1172 Aus­tralian ado­les­cents and their par­ents found that dietary fac­tors can play an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of atten­tion deficits, at least for some children.

A Con­trolled Trial of Herbal Treat­ment for ADHD: on the other hand, Dr. Rabiner adds, a recent randomized-controlled trial sup­ports the idea that appro­pri­ately pre­pared and tar­geted herbal com­pounds have the poten­tial to be ther­a­peu­tic and reduce atten­tion deficit symptoms.

Shap­ing the Future

Q&A about the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion: we have received many good ques­tions about the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil … here you are our answers.

Meet the Experts: since 2006 we have inter­viewed dozens of experts on the future of cog­ni­tive enhance­ment and men­tal health, build­ing up the foun­da­tion for the type of inno­va­tion the Sharp­Brains Coun­cil wants to fos­ter. Here you can find what 26 leading-edge sci­en­tists and experts believe and why.

Get­ting ther­apy through your iPhone: The Daily Beast (a great new media out­let) just pub­lished this excel­lent arti­cle on an emerg­ing “small rev­o­lu­tion” in men­tal health care.

Brain Teaser

Brain Teaser: are you ready to test your men­tal rota­tion skills?

Please feel free to share this monthly eNewslet­ter to friends and col­leagues. Have a great month of October!

For an excel­lent review of the most recent find­ings on learn­ing habits, check out The New York Times recent arti­cle: For­get What You Know About Good Study Habits. Tons of unex­pected and fas­ci­nat­ing results!

The find­ings can help any­one, from a fourth grader doing long divi­sion to a retiree tak­ing on a new lan­guage. But they directly con­tra­dict much of the com­mon wis­dom about good study habits, and they have not caught on. For instance, instead of stick­ing to one study loca­tion, sim­ply alter­nat­ing the room where a per­son stud­ies improves retention.

Take the notion that chil­dren have spe­cific learn­ing styles, that some are “visual learn­ers” and oth­ers are audi­tory; some are “left-brain” stu­dents, oth­ers “right-brain.” In a recent review of the rel­e­vant research, pub­lished in the jour­nal Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence in the Pub­lic Inter­est, a team of psy­chol­o­gists found almost zero sup­port for such ideas.

Com­ment: The way we learn mat­ters for two rea­sons: a) we need to effi­ciently retain some infor­ma­tion for the var­i­ous tasks we have to per­form every day, but also b) learn­ing induces neu­ro­plas­tic changes in the brain, which  in turn may increase our brain reserve and brain health (see our prior arti­cle on Brain Plas­tic­ity: How learn­ing changes your brain).