Update: To honor Brain Awareness Week 2017, let’s highlight 10 Key Facts To Harness Neuroplasticity And Improve Brain Fitness

– Giant neu­ron iden­ti­fied in mouse brain via nov­el brain imag­ing tech­nique. Study linked below.

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Last week was Brain Aware­ness Week, so let’s first of all dis­cuss these 10 Key Facts to Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty & Improve Brain Fit­ness com­ing from the hun­dreds of sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical stud­ies we ana­lyzed to pre­pare the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Improve Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age.

And here’s the rest of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter explor­ing the lat­est in brain health and men­tal performance.

New research:

• Mind­ful­ness train­ing for teach­ers can result in a bet­ter learn­ing envi­ron­ment for students
• Rates of ADHD diag­no­sis and med­ica­tion treat­ment con­tin­ue to increase substantially
• New brain imag­ing meth­ods help detect giant, super­con­nect­ed neu­rons such as this one (in a mouse’s brain)

New thinking:

• Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty as seen by one of its ear­li­est sci­en­tif­ic pro­po­nents: Neu­ro­science pio­neer San­ti­a­go Ramón y Cajal
• Cana­di­an teacher Mag­gie Mac­Don­nell wins annu­al $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize
• 100 new­ly rec­og­nized Young Glob­al Lead­ers train their brains (and oth­ers’) by tack­ling com­plex chal­lenges with inno­v­a­tive approaches

New tools (via SharpBrains’ analysis of neurotech patents):

• The future of per­son­al­ized brain stim­u­la­tion via enhanced cog­ni­tive-emo­tive profiles
• Tai­lor­ing com­put­ing expe­ri­ence based on user’s men­tal state and qual­i­ty of attention
• Treat­ing sleep-relat­ed breath­ing conditions–such as sleep apnea–via EEG brain­wave analysis
• Facil­i­tat­ing clin­i­cal treat­ments via Tran­scra­nial Mag­net­ic Stim­u­la­tion (TMS)

Final­ly, here’s a brain teas­er to test your pat­tern recog­ni­tion and oth­er cog­ni­tive skills: The Emp­ty Tri­an­gle.

Have a nice Spring!

The Sharp­Brains Team