December Update: Wishing You and Yours a Very Brain-Fit Decade

How can we help younger gen­er­a­tions find the right path to life­long brain health and per­for­mance — espe­cial­ly as they will live longer, and in more dynam­ic, com­plex envi­ron­ments? We cre­at­ed the Brain Health across the Lifes­pan series to curate reli­able sources of infor­ma­tion, and here you can  check out  the Top 10 Resources to Bet­ter Under­stand the Teenage Brain.

Wish­ing you and your fam­i­ly a very brain-fit decade…please enjoy the Decem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly eNewslet­ter:

Research Bites

Mem­o­ry Train­ing Reduces Brain Atro­phy: Andreas Engvig, a for­mer Sharp­Brains intern and cur­rent neu­ro­sci­en­tist, gives us a unique peak into his lab’s work on how mem­ory train­ing can both improve mem­o­ry per­for­mance and decrease brain mat­ter reduc­tion in old­er adults’ brains.

Cog­ni­tive Train­ing can Boost Sense of Con­trol: Rea­son­ing and speed of pro­cess­ing brain train­ing can improve­ the sense of con­trol over one’s life — one of the most cru­cial mark­ers of suc­cess­ful aging.

Can Resis­tance Train­ing Pro­tect the Brain? Aer­o­bic exer­cise is not the only type of exer­cise to ben­e­fit the brain: A strength train­ing exer­cise pro­gram shows cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits one year after the training.

Lit­er­a­cy Re-wires the Brain: Learn­ing to read changes the brain regions involved in vision.

Resources and Tips

The Ten Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Brains: To help us all refine those Brain Fit­ness Res­o­lu­tions…

10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn: Explore ways to opti­mize  the learn­ing process.

Top 10 Brain Train­ing Trends: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez shares with us the 10 main brain fit­ness trends fore­casted for the next 5 years.

Debunk­ing 10 cognitive/ brain fit­ness myths: Do genes ‑or our age- deter­mine our cog­ni­tive vital­i­ty? Should we just wait for a “mag­ic pill” to solve all our brain chal­lenges? Are all brain exer­cises equal? 10 Brain and Brain Fit­ness Myths, debunked.

New Books

Using Brain Plas­tic­i­ty to help Chil­dren with Learn­ing Dis­abil­i­ties: This new book from Eaton Arrow­smith School’s founder and direc­tor Howard Eaton presents a new approach to help chil­dren with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties over­come edu­ca­tional obstacles.

Council Insights

2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: 27 indus­try and research lead­ers have already con­firmed speak­ing at the Sum­mit. Lat­est addi­tions include pio­neers at AARP, AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty, UC-San­ta Bar­bara Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute, and Unit­ed BioSource.

Brain Teasers

Test your Reac­tion Time: A fun way to assess your brain speed of pro­cess­ing, in milliseconds.

A Brain Game to Tease your Frontal Skills: Try this chal­leng­ing teas­er to stim­u­lat­e the exec­u­tive func­tions of your frontal lobes: Deci­sion-mak­ing, prob­lem-solv­ing, inhibit­ion and work­ing memory.

Top Ten Brain Teasers and Games for Kids and Adults alike: Explore this selec­tion of the ten most pop­u­lar brain teasers among Sharp­Brains readers.

Look­ing for­ward to a great 2011. Have a great Hol­i­day Sea­son, and please don’t for­get to engage via Face­book and Twit­ter!

- The Sharp­Brains Team