5 Tips on Lifelong Learning and Neuroplasticity for the Adult Brain

. Learn­ing & the Brain is a con­fer­ence that gets marked on my cal­en­dar annu­al­ly because I always return home hav­ing either been exposed to new infor­ma­tion, or with a new per­spec­tive on an old top­ic. Last mon­th’s con­fer­ence in Cam­bridge, MA, themed Using Emo­tions Research to Enhance Learn­ing & Achieve­ment, was no excep­tion. As…

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Darwin’s adult neuroplasticity

Charles Dar­win (1809–1882)‘s auto­bi­og­ra­phy (full text free online) includes some very insight­ful refec­tions on the evo­lu­tion of his own mind dur­ing his mid­­dle-age, show­cas­ing the pow­er of the brain to rewire itself through expe­ri­ence (neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty) dur­ing our whole life­­times-not just when we are youngest. He wrote these paragraphs at the age of 72 (I have bold­ed some key…

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Feed Your Brain with Fun Neuroscience

To all new read­­ers-Wel­­come!. The Digg Tsuna­mi has brought over 40,000 vis­i­tors so far…and it con­tin­ues. We need to thank Andrey for his excel­lent tech­ni­cal work in help­ing us ride such a beau­ti­ful wave. Let me give you an overview of what you can find in our blog, bridg­ing neu­ro­science research and brain health/ “brain exercise”…

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Working Memory Training from a pediatrician perspective, focused on attention deficits

Today we inter­view Dr. Arthur Lavin, Asso­ciate Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor of Pedi­atrics at Case West­ern School of Med­i­cine, pedi­a­tri­cian in pri­vate prac­tice, and one of the first providers of Cogmed Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing in the US (the pro­gram whose research we dis­cussed with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg and Dr. Bradley Gib­son). Dr. Lavin has a long standing…

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Brain Training: the Art and the emerging Science

Tom alerts us (thanks!) of a fun book review in the New York Times today, by Abi­gail Zuger, titled The Brain: Mal­leable, Capa­ble, Vul­ner­a­ble, on the book The Brain That Changes Itself (Viking, $24.95) by psy­chi­a­trist Nor­man Doidge. Some quotes: “In book­stores, the sci­ence aisle gen­er­al­ly lies well away from the self-help sec­tion, with hard…

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Cogmed Working Memory Training

Notre Dame Pro­fes­sor Bradley Gib­son, whom we inter­viewed a few months ago (see below) pre­sent­ed the results from his study recent­ly at the Soci­ety for Research in Child Devel­op­ment (SRCD): Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame Pro­fes­sor and Research Team are First in U.S. to Val­i­date Break­through Study on the Effec­tive­ness of Work­ing Mem­o­ry Train­ing in Improving…

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