Alvaro Fernandez

Update: Promote brain plasticity by taking your daily exercise pill — physical and cognitive

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By lordzg/ shutterstock.com

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain health.

#1. A must-read, and must-prac­tice: Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill”

#2. If cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion came in a pill it’d be worth a quadrillion, give or take a few tril­lions: Study finds that cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia by 5 years

#3. “A young child with low cog­ni­tive con­trol is also more like­ly to devel­op anx­i­ety lat­er on in child­hood, while one with a high­er capac­i­ty will be more resilient to stress. Rais­ing cog­ni­tive con­trol could both treat anx­i­ety in young chil­dren and poten­tial­ly pre­vent it from becom­ing worse over time” — Help­ing young brains fight off anx­i­ety by train­ing and rais­ing cog­ni­tive control

#4. The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

“In a nation­al sur­vey last fall, 36% of adults in the U.S. – includ­ing 61% of young adults – report­ed feel­ing “seri­ous lone­li­ness” dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Sta­tis­tics like these sug­gest peo­ple would be itch­ing to hit the social scene. But if the idea of mak­ing small talk at a crowd­ed hap­py hour sounds ter­ri­fy­ing to you, you’re not alone. Near­ly half of Amer­i­cans report­ed feel­ing uneasy about return­ing to in-per­son inter­ac­tion regard­less of vac­ci­na­tion status.”
“The stress of the pan­dem­ic has made an exist­ing men­tal health cri­sis even more alarm­ing. We’re see­ing this first­hand in ado­les­cents in class­rooms across the coun­try and in adults who are report­ing symp­toms of anx­i­ety and depres­sion at a rate four times pre-pan­dem­ic lev­els” — Ian Chiu, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Owl Ventures

#7. Study shows promis­ing results of EEG-based brain train­ing in help­ing adults with ADHD

“The study demon­strates for the first time the ben­e­fi­cial neu­robe­hav­ioral effect of a sin­gle NFB ses­sion in adult ADHD, and rein­forces the notion that Event-relat­ed poten­tials (ERPs) could serve as use­ful diagnostic/prognostic mark­ers of exec­u­tive dysfunction.”

#8. Sys­tem­at­ic review calls for ear­ly tar­get­ed inter­ven­tions to help babies and tod­dlers with cere­bral pal­sy har­ness time win­dow with max­i­mum brain plasticity

“Cur­rent­ly, ear­ly diag­no­sis of high-risk CP offers the oppor­tu­ni­ty for ear­ly inter­ven­tion at a crit­i­cal devel­op­men­tal plas­tic­i­ty win­dow. The ear­li­er we inter­vene, the bet­ter the out­come is.”

“Sup­port for men­tal health has need­ed improve­ment for many years in the UK. The path­ways for access­ing ser­vices are con­vo­lut­ed, wait­ing lists are exten­sive, and out­comes are poor over the long term … Com­ing up with new ways to main­tain good men­tal health, in a pre­ven­ta­tive way, will be as essen­tial as pro­vid­ing tools for acute care and we believe tech­nol­o­gy has a sig­nif­i­cant role to play.” — Dr Peter Bloom­field, FCC’s head of Pol­i­cy and Research

Wish­ing you a hap­py and healthy month of August,

The Sharp­Brains Team

NB: Please remem­ber that, if you’re look­ing for some fun and var­ied cog­ni­tive exer­cise, you can always try these 25 Brain Teasers, Puz­zles & Games that Sharp­Brains read­ers have enjoyed the most.

“Never stop wondering” — Sharon Begley, science journalist, RIP

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We are deeply sad­dened to hear that Sharon Beg­ley, one of the most exem­plary sci­ence jour­nal­ist of our times, died on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 16th.

She was always full of curios­i­ty, high stan­dards and excel­lent writ­ing about all things sci­ence, with a long­stand­ing inter­est in brain and mind research. May she rest in peace, and may her mind­ful­ness remain with us all. [Read more…] about “Nev­er stop won­der­ing” — Sharon Beg­ley, sci­ence jour­nal­ist, RIP

On becoming a psychotherapy pioneer and bestselling writer: A fantastic memoir by, and window into, the unique mind of Irvin D. Yalom

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If you’re inter­est­ed in the life of the mind, here you have an awe­some win­dow into a unique mind — a pro­found mem­oir by best­selling writer and psy­chother­a­py pio­neer Irvin D. Yalom. It was pub­lished back in 2017 but, like good wine, it has aged well and is more rel­e­vant today than ever.

Irvin D. Yalom, MD, is an emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty and a psy­chi­a­trist in pri­vate prac­tice in San Fran­cis­co. He is the author of many books, includ­ing Love’s Exe­cu­tion­er, The The­o­ry and Prac­tice in Group Psy­chother­a­py, and When Niet­zsche Wept. He lives with his wife in Palo Alto, California.

Descrip­tion: Irvin D. Yalom has made a career of inves­ti­gat­ing the lives of oth­ers. In this pro­found mem­oir, he turns his writ­ing and his ther­a­peu­tic eye on him­self. He opens his sto­ry with a night­mare: He is twelve, and is rid­ing his bike past the home of an acne-scarred girl. Like every morn­ing, he calls out, hop­ing to befriend her, “Hel­lo Measles!” But in his dream, the girl’s father makes Yalom under­stand that his dai­ly greet­ing had hurt her. For Yalom, this was the birth of empa­thy; he would not for­get the les­son. [Read more…] about On becom­ing a psy­chother­a­py pio­neer and best­selling writer: A fan­tas­tic mem­oir by, and win­dow into, the unique mind of Irvin D. Yalom

Read, Play, Train: 3 Resolutions and 36 Gift Ideas for a Happier & Healthier 2021

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Dear read­er,

We’d like to share some­thing spe­cial. As we start to cel­e­brate the hol­i­days and wel­come a much need­ed new year, we asked our team and trust­ed advi­sors to com­pile a list of gift (and self-gift) ideas to help us stay sane and healthy in the months ahead, pri­or­i­tiz­ing three habits which have been shown to pro­mote brain health, resilience and pos­i­tive neuroplasticity:

Read: Here’s a selec­tion of 12 fas­ci­nat­ing books to add healthy nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge to our read­ing lives — and there­fore to our brains and minds

Play: Here are 12 cre­ative and (most­ly) col­lab­o­ra­tive board games. A peace­ful upgrade from the clas­sic Monop­oly and Risk … we know you know what we mean 🙂

Train: A selec­tion of the equip­ment we have relied on the most to stay fit, resilient and pur­pose­ful this year

For each and every sug­ges­tion, at least one col­league has tried it and tru­ly loved it; and we have ver­i­fied they have many and very pos­i­tive reviews. We are link­ing to their respec­tive pages in Ama­zon web store so that you can com­plete your research there, read­ing the details and user reviews, and because, as an Ama­zon Asso­ciate, we earn a small fee from qual­i­fy­ing purchases.

Hap­py & Healthy Hol­i­days; Hap­py & Healthy New Year!

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

Update: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 14 research find­ings, resources and tips for brain health … and start­ing with this fas­ci­nat­ing study:

#1. Wow. The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a placebo

#2. Beat­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease will require a com­bined physical/ men­tal approach: From the ten fac­tors found to increase AD risk in the most com­pre­hen­sive evi­dence review to date,

#3. “The health­i­est peo­ple are the ones who grow with age and expe­ri­ence; even in times of trou­ble like these.” — Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa, MD, Pres­i­dent of the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion. On Stress, Yoga Med­i­ta­tion, and The Evo­lu­tion Revolution

#4. “Accep­tance that Alzheimer’s dis­ease is a lifestyle dis­ease, lit­tle dif­fer­ent from oth­er age-relat­ed dis­eases, that is the sum of a life­time is the most impor­tant break­through of the decade.” — George Per­ry, PhD, Edi­tor-in-Chief of the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. High­er body mass index (BMI) linked to low­er blood sup­ply to the brain in large neu­roimag­ing study

#5. “Atten­tion is a scarce resource. Think about your atten­tion­al focus as the beam of a light. If the light is on an object it can­not be on oth­er objects at the same time with the same inten­si­ty … Although we typ­i­cal­ly have the feel­ing that mul­ti­task­ing saves us time, it is often not the case.” Sim­ple, quick brain teas­er to test the lim­its of multitasking

#6. If it appears to rotate, RT ? Fun opti­cal illu­sion to tease your mind

#7. Every cloud has a sil­ver lin­ing: How and when will the telemed­i­cine surge reach men­tal healthcare?

#8. Not a minute too soon: Mag­el­lan Health is test­ing biofeed­back videogame Might­i­er to help chil­dren bet­ter self-reg­u­late stress

#9. “In a time when emo­tions like stress, anx­i­ety, bore­dom, and anger are hard to avoid, a new study sug­gests that a par­tic­u­lar med­i­ta­tion prac­tice can help us face them.” Study: Med­i­ta­tion prac­tice, both for­mal and infor­mal, helps devel­op equa­nim­i­ty over time

#10. Ever since dis­cov­er­ing Bar­bara Arrow­smith-Young’s life tra­jec­to­ry via Nor­main Doidge’s fan­tas­tic book The Brain That Changes Itself, we have been impressed by her cre­ativ­i­ty, sta­mi­na and courage. Com­ing soon: Vir­tu­al World Tour at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, edu­ca­tion and learn­ing difficulties

#11. “Neur­al sig­nals will be used to devel­op algo­rithms that will help researchers deter­mine the opti­mal brain state under which indi­vid­u­als can receive infor­ma­tion. From there, the team will deter­mine the most effec­tive means of enhanc­ing the sub­jects’ abil­i­ty to intake and process infor­ma­tion. This could range from non-inva­sive neuromodulation—or brain stimulation—techniques to the use of aug­ment­ed real­i­ty to alter per­ceived envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.” Air Force announces research plat­form to har­ness closed-loop neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and accel­er­ate learn­ing “on the fly”

#12. Good to hear that “ensur­ing the pri­va­cy and secu­ri­ty of study par­tic­i­pants’ data is a high pri­or­i­ty for both UCLA and Apple. UCLA will process and main­tain study data in a secure envi­ron­ment … UCLA and Apple will ana­lyze the data only after they are cod­ed and stripped of names and oth­er con­tact infor­ma­tion.” UCLA launch­es major men­tal health study col­lect­ing & ana­lyz­ing data from Apple wear­ables to bet­ter under­stand depres­sion and anxiety

#13. Flex­i­bil­i­ty is good except when it isn’t: Study finds how sci­en­tists can reach dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions ana­lyz­ing the same brain scans

#14. “I have so much to accom­plish today that I must med­i­tate for two hours instead of one” — Gand­hi, as quot­ed in Sev­en evi­dence-based rea­sons to start med­i­tat­ing yesterday

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy September,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on behalf of the Sharp­Brains Team