Time for a universal “exercise prescription” for kids and adults to boost cognition and mental health?

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time a range of brain research find­ings, tools and con­tro­ver­sies plus some brain teasers to chal­lenge your (and our) work­ing mem­o­ry. #1. Major evi­dence review sup­ports an “exer­cise pre­scrip­tion” for most adults to boost men­tal health “High­er inten­si­ty phys­i­cal activ­i­ty was asso­ci­at­ed with greater improvements”…

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Update: Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) Alzheimer’s pathology

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this month 13 research find­ings, resources and brain teasers for life­long brain and men­tal health. #1. “We found that peo­ple who exhib­it­ed high­er repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing pat­terns expe­ri­enced more cog­ni­tive decline over a four-year peri­od. They also had spe­cif­ic declines in mem­o­ry (which is an ear­ly sign…

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Reading science fiction can help children build critical thinking and resilience

Young peo­ple who are hooked on watch­ing fan­ta­sy or read­ing sci­ence fic­tion may be on to some­thing. Con­trary to a com­mon mis­per­cep­tion that read­ing this genre is an unwor­thy prac­tice, read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy may help young peo­ple cope, espe­cial­ly with the stress and anx­i­ety of liv­ing through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. I am a…

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Will self-driving vehicles lead to a surge of brain training?

Brain train­ing may be required for occu­pants of dri­ver­less vehi­cles (Traf­fic Tech­nol­o­gy): “A much-tout­ed per­ceived ben­e­fit of autonomous vehi­cle tech­nol­o­gy is that work­ing and a vari­ety of leisure activ­i­ties could be per­formed dur­ing the time freed up from being behind the wheel. However,

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Eight Tips To Understand and Remember What You Read — Especially As You Read Nonfiction

___ Despite Insta­gram, YouTube, Face­book, Twit­ter, and tele­vi­sion, (or per­haps pre­cise­ly because of all of them) tra­di­tion­al read­ing is still an impor­tant skill. Whether it is mag­a­zines, pro­fes­sion­al man­u­als or fas­ci­nat­ing books, peo­ple still need to read, now and in years ahead. And much of it is non­fic­tion mate­r­i­al, where it’s impor­tant to real­ly understand…

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