What Everyone Should Know About Stress, Brain Health, and Dance

Every­one expe­ri­ences stress at some point in our lives. It is impor­tant to know that stress can harm the brain, and also that dance can be a great avenue for a per­son resist, reduce, or escape it. Stress can change the phys­i­cal struc­ture and func­tion of the brain, affect­ing wiring and thus per­for­mance of one’s activities. 

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Study: Physical exercise can enhance neuroplasticity in adult brains, accelerating neural repair

Phys­i­cal activ­i­ty may leave the brain more open to change (EurekAlert) “Learn­ing, mem­o­ry, and brain repair depend on the abil­i­ty of our neu­rons to change with expe­ri­ence. Now, researchers report­ing in the Cell Press jour­nal Cur­rent Biol­o­gy on Decem­ber 7 have evi­dence from a small study in peo­ple that exer­cise may enhance this essen­tial plasticity…

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Upcoming event on therapeutic and non-therapeutic uses of non-invasive neuromodulation devices

. Heads-up: The Insti­tute of Med­i­cine (IOM), a branch of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, is putting togeth­er a for­ward-look­ing work­shop on Non-Inva­­sive Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion of the Cen­tral Ner­vous Sys­tem. March 2–3rd, 2015, in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Descrip­tion: Based on advances in biotech­nol­o­gy and neu­ro­science, neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion devices are poised to gain clin­i­cal impor­tance in the com­ing years and to be…

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How to incorporate mindfulness into psychotherapy

Mind­ful­ness is good for you. In thou­sands of stud­ies, moment-to-moment, non-judg­­men­­tal atten­tion has been shown to improve well-being, strength­en rela­tion­ships, increase focus and atten­tion, and even boost our immune sys­tems. So it’s no sur­prise that ther­a­pists have tak­en an inter­est in using mind­ful­ness with their patients. The poten­tial for ben­e­fit is clear­ly great. But how…

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Rethinking Alzheimer’s research, beyond amyloid deposition, via new funding models

How a new approach to fund­ing Alzheimer’s research could pay off (MIT News): “More than 5 mil­lion Amer­i­cans suf­fer from Alzheimer’s dis­ease, the afflic­tion that erodes mem­o­ry and oth­er men­tal capac­i­ties, but no drugs tar­get­ing the dis­ease have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion since 2003…Lo and three co-authors propose 

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Maker of cognitive training game seeks FDA approval

Good brief arti­cle at New Sci­en­tist, Mak­er of cog­ni­tive train­ing game seeks FDA approval: — “Imag­ine walk­ing away from a doc­tor’s office with a pre­scrip­tion to play a video game. Brain Plas­tic­i­ty, the devel­op­er of a cog­ni­tive train­ing game, has begun talks with the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) to mar­ket the game as a ther­a­peu­tic drug.”…

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