Memory Problems? Perhaps you are Multi-tasking

Today’s kids are into mul­ti-task­ing. This is the gen­er­a­tion hooked on iPods, IM’ing, video games — not to men­tion TV! Many peo­ple in my gen­er­a­tion think it is won­der­ful that kids can do all these things simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and are impressed with their com­pe­tence. Well, as a teacher of such kids when they reach col­lege, I…

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Can food improve brain health?

In oth­er words, may some foods be specif­i­cal­ly good for brain func­tion? For a great in-depth review of the effects of food on the brain you can check out Fer­nan­do Gomez-Pinil­la’s recent arti­cle in Nature Reviews Neu­ro­science (ref­er­ence below). Here is an overview of the state off the research. Sev­er­al com­po­nents of diet seem to…

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Executive Functions, Education and Alzheimer’s Disease

I just read a very inter­est­ing arti­cle in Newsweek: Exec­u­tive Func­tions: The School Skill That May Mat­ter More Than IQ. A few quotes: — “But recent advances in psy­chol­o­gy and brain sci­ence are now sug­gest­ing that a child’s abil­i­ty to inhib­it dis­tract­ing thoughts and stay focused may be a fun­da­men­tal cog­ni­tive skill, one that plays…

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10 Highlights from the 2007 Aspen Health Forum

The Aspen Health Forum gath­ered an impres­sive group of around 250 peo­ple to dis­cuss the most press­ing issues in Health and Med­ical Sci­ence (check out the Pro­gram and the Speak­ers bios), on Octo­ber 3–6th. It was the first con­fer­ence, by the way, where I have heard a speak­er say: “I resus­ci­tat­ed a woman yes­ter­day”. Key…

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Medicine 2.0 in action (blog carnival)

Wel­come to the August 19, 2007 edi­tion of med­i­cine 2.0. Med­i­cine 2.0? Yes, some pio­neers are already mak­ing good use of Web 2.0 tools to improve Med­i­cine in a new, col­lab­o­ra­tive way. This blog car­ni­val seems to me to be, in itself, liv­ing proof. Let’s see. You may won­der, what exact­ly is “Med­i­cine 2.0”? well, Constructive…

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