aerobic-exercise

Sandra Chapman: Using innovative thinking, and brain training, we can rewire the brain at every level

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Sandra Bond Chapman
San­dra Bond Chap­man, PhD

What is your cur­rent job title and orga­ni­za­tion, and what excites you the most about work­ing there? 
As the founder and chief direc­tor at the Cen­ter for Brain­Health at UT-Dal­las, what gets me excit­ed every day is being on the fore­front of defin­ing and encour­ag­ing cog­ni­tive brain health fit­ness for peo­ple of all ages. We are iden­ti­fy­ing mea­sures of brain health and what it takes to achieve it for healthy brains, injured brains and dis­eased brains. It is just as impor­tant to care for your brain when it is healthy as when it is dis­eased or injured. [Read more…] about San­dra Chap­man: Using inno­v­a­tive think­ing, and brain train­ing, we can rewire the brain at every level

What is the combined effect of physical and mental training?

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exercisePhys­i­cal exer­cise and men­tal exer­cise are both ben­e­fi­cial for the brain. Each can improve brain func­tions and decrease risks of cog­ni­tive decline over time. This rais­es the ques­tion of their com­par­a­tive and com­bined effects: Is one bet­ter than the oth­er? Are their ben­e­fits addi­tive (1 + 1 =2) or per­haps even syn­er­gis­tic (1 + 1 =3)? [Read more…] about What is the com­bined effect of phys­i­cal and men­tal training?

There’s no single silver bullet to treat depression (not even aerobic exercise)

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Exer­cise And Depres­sion Revis­it­ed (Neu­roskep­tic blog):

“A new study has found lit­tle evi­dence that aer­o­bic exer­cise helps treat depres­sion, con­trary to pop­u­lar belief…Danish researchers Krogh and col­leagues ran­dom­ly 115 assigned depressed peo­ple to one of two exer­cise pro­grams. One was a stren­u­ous aer­o­bic work­out — cycling for 30 min­utes, 3 times per week, for 3 months. The oth­er was var­i­ous stretch­ing exercises…Both groups got less depressed but there was zero dif­fer­ence between the two con­di­tions. The cyclists did get phys­i­cal­ly fit­ter than the stretch­ers, los­ing more weight and improv­ing on oth­er mea­sures. But they did­n’t feel any better…If this is true, it might mean that  [Read more…] about There’s no sin­gle sil­ver bul­let to treat depres­sion (not even aer­o­bic exercise)

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

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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 dur­ing Octo­ber Q&A ses­sion with par­tic­i­pants in Sharp­Brains’ new e‑course. Time now for Sharp­Brains’ Octo­ber 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing new sci­ence, new resources and new thinking.

New sci­ence:

New tools:

New think­ing:

That’s it for now. Have a Hap­py Halloween!

Pic cour­tesy of Big­Stock­Pho­to

Why Both Aerobic and Cognitive Exercise Promote Brain Health

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USC Davis researcher Liz Zelin­s­ki just brought to our atten­tion a very insight­ful meta-analy­sis  (sys­tem­at­ic analy­sis of pre­vi­ous sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies) titled Extend­ed prac­tice and aer­o­bic exer­cise inter­ven­tions ben­e­fit untrained cog­ni­tive out­comes in old­er adults: a meta-analy­sis.

Update: From Anti-Alzheimer’s “Magic Bullets” to True Brain Health

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Ad by 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Spon­sor Brain Resource

 

Time for Sharp­Brains’ May 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing in this occa­sion an OpEd by Dr. Peter White­house and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on the urgency to shift atten­tion and resources From Anti-Alzheimer’s “Mag­ic Bul­lets” to True Brain Health. Please read, add your two cents, and share!

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More Fea­tured Perspectives

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In the News

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Upcom­ing event next week

 

Please remem­ber that you are still in time to join the 150+ par­tic­i­pants next week @ 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Opti­miz­ing Health through Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Inno­va­tion and Data! You can Reg­is­ter Here and get 15% off by using pro­mo­tion­al code sharp2012