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Brain Teasers

The Do’s and Don’ts of Harnessing Technology (and Anxiety) for Good

February 28, 2022 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills and more…

#1. Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health

“Tech­nol­o­gy can not only help us grow out of unhealthy habits, it is also pos­si­ble to expand human men­tal capac­i­ties … although it will be nec­es­sary to ana­lyze “the how and when” of these uses: they must be eth­i­cal­ly sound and ensure that results are ben­e­fi­cial to soci­ety.” — our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez, hop­ing you all agree 🙂

If you pre­fer to read the arti­cle in Span­ish: Cómo hac­er de la tec­nología un ali­a­do en el cuida­do de la salud mental

#2. On neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, young brains, and smartphones

“As with any tool, behav­ior, activ­i­ty, or tech­nol­o­gy, smart phones have the poten­tial to be either a use­ful and high­ly con­struc­tive asset or a destruc­tive and harm­ful diver­sion from life … What is the impact on brain devel­op­ment dur­ing the first 25 years of life when a sig­nif­i­cant part of each day is spent look­ing into a smart phone and the result­ing cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al experiences?”

#3. Explor­ing links between hear­ing loss, demen­tia and the ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ — plus the role of hear­ing aids

“Cer­tain types of demen­tia, par­tic­u­lar­ly vas­cu­lar demen­tia, are caused when there is less blood flow reach­ing the brain. This can dam­age our brain cells. Recent stud­ies have also shown that the parts of our brain that process sounds (our audi­to­ry sys­tem) have many blood ves­sels and are vul­ner­a­ble to dam­age … Anoth­er area of research is look­ing at whether hear­ing loss indi­rect­ly affects demen­tia risk by mak­ing it hard­er for peo­ple to stay con­nect­ed. Social iso­la­tion is anoth­er known risk fac­tor for dementia.”

#4. Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py (CCBT) may out­per­form Treat­ment as Usu­al (TAU) in help­ing patients reduce depres­sion, improve 6‑month remis­sion rates

“The find­ings of this ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­al sug­gest that CCBT with a mod­est amount of clin­i­cian sup­port has poten­tial for wider-spread imple­men­ta­tion as an effec­tive, accept­able, and effi­cient treat­ment for depres­sion in pri­ma­ry care.”

#6. Wear­able EEG mon­i­tor­ing start-up Epi­tel rais­es $12.5M to mar­ket seizure detec­tion system

“It is time that EEGs for the brain become as acces­si­ble as EKGs for the heart to patients through­out the coun­try. For too long essen­tial neu­ro­log­i­cal ser­vices have been inac­ces­si­ble to large parts of our pop­u­la­tion” — Dr. Chaud­ery, Prin­ci­pal at Genoa Ven­tures (co-lead investor)

#7. Otsu­ka and Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty start-up Jol­ly Good sign $43M deal to pro­mote Social Skills Train­ing (SST) ther­a­pies, help­ing schiz­o­phre­nia patients first

“The com­bi­na­tion of SST and a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­i­men has been proven in stud­ies to reduce the recur­rence of men­tal dis­or­ders, the com­pa­nies said. Their first joint­ly devel­oped pro­gram will be direct­ed toward schiz­o­phre­nia patients, and they’re pre­dict­ing that the immer­sive nature of Jol­ly Good’s VR will make the SST ther­a­py more engag­ing and effec­tive than stan­dard methods.”

#8. Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

“Most peo­ple have all heard of the fight-or-flight system—that’s the stress sys­tem, it makes your heart rate go up and you can run away real­ly fast. Well, peo­ple don’t real­ize that through evo­lu­tion in par­al­lel with the fight-or-flight sys­tem evolved an equal and oppo­site part of our ner­vous sys­tem that’s nick­named the “rest-and-digest” part of the ner­vous sys­tem, or parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. It’s basi­cal­ly the de-stress­ing part of our ner­vous sys­tem. That is what we need to acti­vate to bring our­selves back to equi­lib­ri­um when we’re in a stress­ful state.”

 

Final­ly, as promised, a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills–and more. Enjoy!

#9. Test your mem­o­ry and rea­son­ing skills with these proverbs

#10. Brain teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#11. Did you notice the jump? Good rea­son­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing often requires prop­er atten­tion to detail…

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and safe March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, En Español, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain, brain-development, cCBT, cognitive, computer-assisted cognitive behavior therapy, dementia, emotional, Epitel, health, hearing aids, Jolly Good, mental capacities, mental health, neuroplasticity, Otsuka, parasympathetic nervous system, technology, wearable EEG, Wendy Suzuki

Let’s Thank our unique Human Brains and Minds with a few family-friendly riddles

November 25, 2021 by Keith Perreur-Lloyd

 

 

Q: What is a sure way of sus­tain­ing a friend­ly and socia­ble feel­ing towards the whole world?
A: Con­sort only with strangers.

Q: What beats regret­ting what you said?
A: Trea­sur­ing what you DIDN’T say.

Q: What does, “you must come and vis­it us some­time!” actu­al­ly mean?
A: Noth­ing at all. How­ev­er, if you take it seri­ous­ly, be ready for the what-are-you-doing-here welcome!

– Kei­th Per­reur-Lloyd is an Anglo-French com­pos­er and musi­cian cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Spain. You can learn more about his clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions here.

More fun ways to challenge our brains and minds:

  • 25 fun Brain Teasers and Illu­sions for  adults of any age
  • What are cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and how to boost them?

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, family-friendly, riddles, Thanksgiving

Quick brain teaser: What do you see? And, can you unsee it?

September 23, 2021 by SharpBrains

Please describe what you see up there.

What about below, as the full scene appears? [Read more…] about Quick brain teas­er: What do you see? And, can you unsee it?

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, brain teasers for adults, brain teasers for teens, brain-teaser, illusion, mind puzzles, mind-teaser

Study examines common cognitive biases (have you tried this brain teaser?) and ways to mitigate them

August 30, 2021 by SharpBrains

Pic: Get­ty Images

A fas­ci­nat­ing new study, Tver­sky and Kahneman’s Cog­ni­tive Illu­sions: Who Can Solve Them, and Why?, probes into the cog­ni­tive “heuris­tics and bias­es” researched by Daniel Kah­ne­man and Amos Tver­sky since the late 1960s.

If you have nev­er encoun­tered the “Lin­da brain teas­er” before, please give it a try:

Lin­da is 31 years old, sin­gle, out­spo­ken, and very bright. She majored in phi­los­o­phy. As a stu­dent, she was deeply con­cerned with issues of dis­crim­i­na­tion and social jus­tice, and also par­tic­i­pat­ed in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which state­ment is more probable?

(a) Lin­da is a bank teller.

(b) Lin­da is a bank teller and is active in the fem­i­nist movement.

 

Quick! What’s your answer? [Read more…] about Study exam­ines com­mon cog­ni­tive bias­es (have you tried this brain teas­er?) and ways to mit­i­gate them

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: adults, Bayesian reasoning, Brain Teasers, brain-teaser, cognitive, cognitive biases, cognitive illusion, cognitive illusions, cognitive-abilities, cognitive-ability, cognitive-bias, free-brain-teasers, Linda problem, logical thinking, statistical reasoning

Brain teasers en español: ¿cuál es el número que falta en el cuarto triángulo?

June 4, 2021 by Caroline Latham

(Same brain teas­er in Eng­lish here)

Es viernes y quizás algunos nece­site­mos un pequeño empu­jón cog­ni­ti­vo para abor­dar el fin de semana…

Aquí va un breve desafío matemáti­co: ¿Qué número que fal­ta en el cuar­to triángulo?

Pattern Recognition Test - Empty Triangle

Avi­so a tod@s esos sharp brains: Sí, puede haber más de una respues­ta … pero asegúrate de que tu solu­ción fun­ciona bien en todos los triángulos!
[Read more…] about Brain teasers en español: ¿cuál es el número que fal­ta en el cuar­to triángulo?

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, En Español Tagged With: acertijos, brain teaser for adults, Brain Teasers, brain teasers for kids, brain teasers for teens, brain-teaser, cognitivo, desafío matemático, ejercicio cognitivo, triángulo

Five brain teasers to celebrate Brain Awareness Week 2021

March 16, 2021 by SharpBrains

Brain Aware­ness Week 2021 just start­ed. Let’s cel­e­brate by chal­leng­ing our minds with a few fun brain teasers and illusions 🙂

Here’s a selec­tion of five stim­u­lat­ing brain teasers that read­ers enjoyed the most so far in 2021:

  1. Where’s the baby? And a cou­ple oth­er sur­pris­ing illusions
  2. Please com­plete these proverbs to exer­cise your brain in famil­iar and nov­el ways
  3. Can you con­nect these pairs of words?
  4. Ready to test your stress level?
  5. Which way is the bus head­ing?

About Brain Awareness Week:

Every March, Brain Aware­ness Week (BAW) unites the efforts of part­ner orga­ni­za­tions world­wide in a cel­e­bra­tion of the brain for peo­ple of all ages. Activ­i­ties are lim­it­ed only by the orga­niz­ers’ imag­i­na­tions and include open days at neu­ro­science labs; exhi­bi­tions about the brain; lec­tures on brain-relat­ed top­ics; social media cam­paigns; dis­plays at libraries and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters; class­room work­shops; and more. This year BAW takes place March 15–21st, 2021.

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: Brain Teasers, brain-awareness-week, cognitive-skills, illusions

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