Study: For better memory and thinking skills at age 70 (and beyond), play cards and board games from age 11

___ Cards, board games could ward off cog­ni­tive decline (UPI): “Play­ing cards and board games like chess, bin­go and Scrab­ble might be the men­tal work­out you need to keep your wits as you age, Scot­tish researchers sug­gest. Peo­ple in their 70s who reg­u­lar­ly play board games score high­er on tests of mem­o­ry and think­ing skills…

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What a brain, what a life: Marian Diamond, neuroplasticity pioneer, dies at 90

___ Mar­i­an Dia­mond, neu­ro­sci­en­tist who gave new mean­ing to ‘use it or lose it,’ dies at 90 (The Wash­ing­ton Post): “Mar­i­an Dia­mond, a path­break­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tist whose research — includ­ing a study of Albert Einstein’s pre­served brain — showed that the body’s three-pound seat of con­scious­ness was a dynam­ic struc­ture of beau­ti­ful com­plex­i­ty, capa­ble of devel­op­ment even…

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Understanding the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”

From Macro to Micro: A Visu­al Guide to the Brain (IEEE Spec­trum) In the human brain, high­­er-lev­­el infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing occurs in the neo­cor­tex, neur­al tis­sue that forms the out­er lay­er of the cere­bral cor­tex. In its intri­cate folds, brain cells work togeth­er to inter­pret sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion and to form thoughts and plans. The neo­cor­tex is…

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How to properly “Use it or Lose it”: Kundalini Yoga vs. Crossword Puzzles

Yoga bet­ter than cross­words for pre­vent­ing pre-Alzheimer’s mem­o­ry loss (The Tele­graph): “His­tor­i­cal­ly and anec­do­tal­ly, yoga has been thought to be ben­e­fi­cial in age­ing well, but this is the sci­en­tif­ic demon­stra­tion of that benefit…We’re con­vert­ing his­tor­i­cal wis­dom into the high lev­el of evi­dence required for doc­tors to rec­om­mend ther­a­py to their patients.

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How to Optimize Brain Health and Performance at Any Age

The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age from Sharp­Brains: Track­ing Brain Health Inno­va­tion You can now enjoy the slide deck Alvaro Fer­nan­dez used to present the new book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age (April 2013; 284 pages),  at the…

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