Update: Videogames or Meditation?; Internship Program @ SharpBrains

by

First of all, an announce­ment. We are start­ing a Vir­tu­al Intern­ship Pro­gram @ Sharp­Brains, allow­ing full-time under­grad and grad stu­dents and post­docs to lead 100-hour projects joint­ly defined by them­selves and by Sharp­Brains. Inter­est­ed can­di­dates should Con­tact Us indi­cat­ing a) a pre­lim­i­nary project pro­pos­al (200 words or less), and b) brief bio and qual­i­fi­ca­tions (200 words or less). Intern­ships don’t require trav­el and will be paid in-kind, with access to Sharp­Brains reports and con­fer­ence record­ings. Sharp­Brains will select a lim­it­ed num­ber of Interns based on fit between can­di­dates’ pro­pos­al and bio and Sharp­Brains mis­sion and activities.

Let’s now explore the lat­est edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, start­ing with a com­pre­hen­sive per­spec­tive on the edu­ca­tion­al val­ue and lim­i­ta­tions of videogames, writ­ten by Mar­shall Wein­stein, a senior at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity who will be a Sharp­Brains Intern dur­ing the Fall.

Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion and Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing To Enhance Exec­u­tive Func­tions: Two very inter­est­ing new research studies…but please don’t miss the thought-pro­vok­ing com­ments by read­er Jay Kay.

Unlock­ing Dyslex­ia in Japan­ese: New clues emerge based on the obser­va­tion that some dyslex­ics have an eas­ier time with visu­al lan­guages like Japan­ese and Chinese.

Does ADHD med­ica­tion treat­ment in child­hood increase adult employ­ment?: A very insight­ful com­men­tary by Dr. David Rabin­er.

Boomers’ Abil­i­ty to Make Finan­cial Deci­sions Often Declines With Age: A new report by Cana­di­an bank BMO illus­trates the need for inno­v­a­tive brain fit­ness inter­ven­tions focused on main­tain­ing tar­geted cog­ni­tive func­tion­al­ity. What the report presents as inex­orable decline, it is not.

Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Aware­ness, Test­ing and Pre­ven­tion:  New data rein­forc­e the need to pay­ seri­ous atten­tion to lifestyle-based and non-inva­sive cog­ni­tive and emo­tional health inter­ven­tions, and the need to per­son­al­ize interventions.

Think­ing glob­al­ly to improve men­tal health: The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health and the Glob­al Alliance for Chron­ic Dis­eases announce a Grand Chal­lenges in Glob­al Men­tal Health Ini­tia­tive. We will keep you post­ed on this.

Have a great month of August and, as always, feel free to share this enewslet­ter with friends and col­leagues… and with poten­tial can­di­dates for the new Vir­tu­al Intern­ship Pro­gram @ SharpBrains!