UC study finds near-transfer of cognitive training to be necessary (yet not sufficient) for far-transfer, broader benefits

Who ben­e­fits from brain train­ing, and why? (UCI release): If you are skilled at play­ing puz­zles on your smart­phone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puz­zles, or more broad­ly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the lan­guage of psy­chol­o­gists, does “near trans­fer” pre­dict “far…

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On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above. #1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” –…

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Given cognitive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain training may work best for each person and under which conditions?

Does ‘Brain Train­ing’ Actu­al­ly Work? (Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can): If there were an app on your phone that could improve your mem­o­ry, would you try it? Who wouldn’t want a bet­ter mem­o­ry? After all, our rec­ol­lec­tions are frag­ile and can be impaired by dis­eases, injuries, men­tal health con­di­tions and, most acute­ly for all of us, aging.

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Large UC study to investigate when and how brain training transfers (or does not) to broader cognitive and health benefits

Nation­wide project seeks to under­stand how brain exer­cis­es pro­duce cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits (UC press release): How does mem­o­ry train­ing lead to cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits? Aaron Seitz, direc­tor of the Brain Game Cen­ter for men­tal fit­ness and well-being at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side, has wres­tled with this ques­tion for sev­er­al years. Now he and Susanne Jaeg­gi, an asso­ciate professor…

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To maximize cognitive benefits, study suggests you exercise brain and body at the same time

___ Phys­i­cal and men­tal mul­ti­task­ing may boost mem­o­ry, study sug­gests (UCLA research alert): “Per­form­ing mem­o­ry train­ing exer­cis­es at the same time as ped­al­ing a sta­tion­ary bike led to bet­ter gains in mem­o­ry than doing the train­ing exer­cis­es after work­ing up a sweat, accord­ing to a 55-per­­son study led by UCLA researchers. The find­ings sug­gest that…

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The future (of Brain Health & Enhancement) is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed

_____ “The future is already here — it’s just not very even­ly dis­trib­uted” — William Gib­son Last week we asked the ques­tion, Have you ever used–for your­self or for others–technologies or prod­ucts that you think would fall into the cat­e­go­ry of brain enhance­ment? a) If Yes, what did you use and what lessons learned can you…

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