Football: Even “minor” hits can cause brain damage

By Dr. Pascale Michelon | November 1, 2010 |

Today the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy (AAN) “is call­ing for any ath­lete who is sus­pect­ed of hav­ing a con­cus­sion to be removed from play until the ath­lete is eval­u­at­ed by a physi­cian with train­ing in the eval­u­a­tion and man­age­ment of sports con­cus­sion.” At the same time, an arti­cle in Sports Illus­trat­ed reports a new study in…

Read More

Montessori classroom for Alzheimer’s disease patients

By Alvaro Fernandez | November 2, 2008

A beau­ti­ful ini­tia­tive, fea­tured in the New York Times today: Com­ing Full Cir­cle: — “In a typ­i­cal Montes­sori class­room, teach­ers use cat­e­­go­ry-sort­ing exer­cis­es to help young stu­dents see pat­terns and con­nec­tions. But the par­tic­i­pants in this group were most­ly in their 80s and on the oth­er side of the cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment curve. They are res­i­dents at…

Read More

Can food improve brain health?

By Dr. Pascale Michelon | September 8, 2008 |

In oth­er words, may some foods be specif­i­cal­ly good for brain func­tion? For a great in-depth review of the effects of food on the brain you can check out Fer­nan­do Gomez-Pinil­la’s recent arti­cle in Nature Reviews Neu­ro­science (ref­er­ence below). Here is an overview of the state off the research. Sev­er­al com­po­nents of diet seem to…

Read More

Cognitive Health News Roundup

By Alvaro Fernandez | July 8, 2008 |

July is shap­ing up to be a fas­ci­nat­ing month, full of cog­ni­tive health research reports and appli­ca­tions. Here you have a roundup, cov­er­ing food for the brain, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, men­tal train­ing and DNA, and more. 1) Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain func­tion (Nature Neu­ro­science) “Brain foods: the effects of nutri­ents on brain function”,…

Read More

On The Brain

By Alvaro Fernandez | October 11, 2007 |

Very intense week, and very fun. I will be writ­ing more about this week’s 3 speak­ing events, but let me say now that our key mes­sages 1) our brains remain flex­i­ble dur­ing our life­times, 2) we can refine our brains with tar­get­ed prac­tice, 3) good brain exer­cise, or “men­tal cross-training”, requires nov­el­ty, vari­ety, and increas­ing level…

Read More