Promoting Healthy, Meaningful Aging Through Social Involvement: Building an Experience Corps

By Dana Foundation | August 30, 2011

(Editor’s note: Path­ways respon­si­ble for high­­er-order think­ing in the pre­frontal cor­tex (PFC), or exec­u­tive cen­ter of the brain, remain vul­ner­a­ble through­out life—during crit­i­cal ear­­ly-life devel­op­men­tal win­dows, when the PFC ful­ly matures in the ear­ly 20s, and final­ly from declines asso­ci­at­ed with old age. At all ages, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and PFC-nav­i­­gat­ed social con­nec­tions are essen­tial components…

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Update: Retooling Use It or Lose It at New York Public Library

By Alvaro Fernandez | September 8, 2009

Here you have the Sep­tem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page. In the cur­rent edi­tion of The Jour­nal on Active Aging, I dis­cuss why we need to Retool “Use…

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Brain Fitness Update: Best of 2008

By Alvaro Fernandez | December 31, 2008 |

Dear read­er and mem­ber of Sharp­Brains’ com­mu­ni­ty, We want to thank you for your atten­tion and sup­port in 2008, and wish you a Hap­py, Pros­per­ous, Healthy and Pos­i­tive 2009! Below you have the Decem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter. Enjoy: Best of 2008  Announc­ing the Sharp­Brains Most Impor­tant Book of 2008: Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Torkel Kling­berg has writ­ten a very…

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Are videogames good for YOU? Depends on who YOU are

By Alvaro Fernandez | December 28, 2008 |

Two recent sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished by Dr. Arthur Kramer and col­leagues present fas­ci­nat­ing results. The two stud­ies are: 1) Basak C, et al “Can train­ing in a real-time strat­e­gy video game atten­u­ate cog­ni­tive decline in old­er adults?” Psy­chol Aging 2008; DOI: 10.1037/a0013494. 2) Boot, W. R., Kramer, A. F., Simons, D. J., Fabi­ani, M. & Gratton,…

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Games for Brain Health — Novelty, Variety and Challenge

By Alvaro Fernandez | December 12, 2008

Land­mark study just pub­lished: Basak C, et al “Can train­ing in a real-time strat­e­gy video game atten­u­ate cog­ni­tive decline in old­er adults?” Psy­chol Aging 2008; DOI: 10.1037/a0013494. Play­ing com­put­er games improves brain pow­er of old­er adults, claim sci­en­tists (Tele­graph) — The team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois recruit­ed 40 adults over 60 years old, half…

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Retain older workers beyond retirement

By Alvaro Fernandez | August 26, 2008

Busi­ness­Week cov­ers a best prac­tice in a top­ic of grow­ing impor­tance: how large com­pa­nies can retain old­er work­ers in pro­duc­tive ways beyond a set arbi­trary retire­ment age. Issue: Retir­ing Employ­ees, Lost Knowl­edge (Busi­ness Week) A pilot pro­gram at Amer­i­can Express gives soon-to-be retirees less work and more time to pass along their exper­tise to younger generations -…

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