The Cognitive and Brain Fitness Benefits of Being Bilingual

The Cog­ni­tive Ben­e­fits of Being Bilin­gual (Cere­brum): “Today, more of the world’s pop­u­la­tion is bilin­gual or mul­ti­lin­gual than mono­lin­gual. In addi­tion to facil­i­tat­ing cross-cul­­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion, this trend also pos­i­tive­ly affects cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Researchers have shown that the bilin­gual brain can have bet­ter atten­tion and task-switch­ing capac­i­ties than the mono­lin­gual brain, thanks to 

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Update: New brain science leads to new tools and to new thinking

We often view mem­o­ry, think­ing, emo­tions, as com­plete­ly sep­a­rate enti­ties, but they tru­ly are part of the same process. So, if we want to improve brain health, we need to pay atten­tion to the “weak link” in that process. In today’s soci­ety, man­ag­ing stress and neg­a­tive emo­tions is often that weak link, as we discuss…

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Medicare to update reimbursement criteria for degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, MS, Parkinson’s disease

What Medicare Will Cov­er Even if You’re Not Like­ly to Get Bet­ter (The New York Times): “Should the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment cov­er the costs of many kinds of treat­ments for patients who aren’t going to get any bet­ter? It didn’t, for many years. But after the set­tle­ment of a land­mark class-action this week, Medicare will soon 

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Can biofeedback-based videogames help kids regulate anger and emotions?

Video Game With Biofeed­back Teach­es Chil­dren to Curb Their Anger (Sci­ence Dai­ly): “Chil­dren with seri­ous anger prob­lems can be helped by a sim­ple video game that hones their abil­i­ty to reg­u­late their emo­tions, finds a pilot study at Boston Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal. Results were pub­lished online Octo­ber 24 in the jour­nal Ado­les­cent Psychiatry

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Combining non-invasive brain stimulation with cognitive training to treat Alzheimer’s Disease

Israeli med­ical device offers new Alzheimer’s treat­ment (Reuters): “Accord­ing to Alvaro Pas­cual-Leone, direc­tor of the hos­pi­tal’s Beren­­son-Allen Cen­tre for Non-inva­­sive Brain Stim­u­la­tion, brain stim­u­la­tion — or tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion — involves a very low cur­rent applied to a spe­cif­ic part of the brain and

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Can brain training reduce cancer risk?

Penn Researchers Receive Major Grant to Explore Use of Brain Train­ing To Help Peo­ple Change Behav­iors that Increase Can­cer Risk (press release): “Most peo­ple know that smok­ing, a bad diet, and phys­i­cal inac­tiv­i­ty can lead to cat­a­stroph­ic per­son­al health con­se­quences, includ­ing can­cer. Yet mil­lions con­tin­ue to smoke, eat poor­ly, and fail to get enough exer­cise. A…

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