Andreas Engvig

Memory Training Reduces Brain Atrophy

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Numer­ous stud­ies show ben­e­fits of cog­ni­tive train­ing in old­er adults, despite a recent study ques­tion­ing their valid­i­ty. The debate on the effects of spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions is not settled.

A find­ing that researchers do seem to agree on is that aging is accom­pa­nied by brain and cog­ni­tive decline. These reduc­tions seem to be mod­i­fi­able through cog­ni­tive and phys­i­cal exer­cise. In this vein, our lab recent­ly demon­strat­ed that old­er adults involved in an 8‑week mem­o­ry train­ing pro­gram show less brain atro­phy. This gives some hope for old­er adults won­der­ing whether their train­ing efforts are real­ly worth­while. [Read more…] about Mem­o­ry Train­ing Reduces Brain Atrophy

Lifelong Learning: Changing My Brain

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Hi!Andreas Engvig
This is Andreas, the Nor­we­gian MD/PhD in neu­ro­science can­di­date who worked as an intern at Sharp­Brains a few months ago. Now I’m back in chilly Oslo where I’ve just begun my PhD pro­gram on cog­ni­tive train­ing for patients with mem­o­ry problems.

Today I felt it was time to reflect upon my 3 month stay in San Fran­cis­co ear­li­er this year. It all start­ed when in April when the Nor­we­gian school of entre­pre­neur­ship said: You’ve got a tick­et to San Fran­cis­co, now you got to find the per­fect start-up com­pa­ny to work for.

Being inter­est­ed in brain train­ing, I googled Brain fit­ness San Fran­cis­co and guess what I found? I got in touch with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, the co-founder of SharpBrains.com and two months lat­er I start­ed work­ing with him and his team.

As a sci­en­tist, being placed in an excit­ing start-up com­pa­ny in a nov­el mar­ket like brain fit­ness was a huge learn­ing expe­ri­ence that gave me hands-on knowl­edge of busi­ness and entre­pre­neur­ial cul­ture. Being a neu­ro­science stu­dent, I know that learn­ing phys­i­cal­ly changes my brain, strength­en­ing it.

Here’s a list of some of the key things I’ve learned:

1) First of all, one of key rules for brain fit­ness is learn­ing. In Sharp­Brains I imme­di­ate­ly got to expe­ri­ence what a great learn­ing cul­ture can be all about  from key insights in entre­pre­neur­ship to how to make cre­ative videos and writ­ing for the web. The urge for con­stant learn­ing is both fun and stim­u­lat­ing  and I appre­ci­ate Alvaro’s sug­ges­tion to write this post.
[Read more…] about Life­long Learn­ing: Chang­ing My Brain