Are there herbal and vitamin supplements that will protect my memory?

By Caroline Latham | February 22, 2007 |

Omega‑3 and omega‑6 fat­ty acids found in cold-water fish may be help­ful to long term brain health.Folic acid may also be help­ful to both cog­ni­tive func­tion and hearing.Ginkgo bilo­ba and DHEA do not appear to help your brain.There is still more research to be done and nev­er dis­miss the place­bo effect!Omega‑3 fat­ty acids found in cold-water fish such as mack­er­el, her­ring, salmon, and tuna look more promis­ing. Giu­liano Fontani’s work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Siena in Italy asso­ci­at­ed omega‑3 sup­ple­men­ta­tion with improved atten­tion­al and phys­i­o­log­i­cal func­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those involv­ing com­plex cor­ti­cal processing.

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Brain Training and SharpBrains in the news

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 21, 2007 |

Sev­er­al recent sto­ries on brain train­ing and Sharp­Brains: 1) New brain games may improve mind fit­ness by Kevin Koster­man (U of Wis­con­sin Oshkosh’s Advance-Titan) “Any­time we learn, we are train­ing, chang­ing, our brain,” Fer­nan­dez said. “The three key core ele­ments for effec­tive brain exer­cise are nov­el­ty, vari­ety and con­stant chal­lenge, sim­i­lar to increas­ing the level…

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Brain Fitness Blog Carnival #2

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 19, 2007 |

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 19, 2007 edi­tion of brain fit­ness. Today we want to high­light an excel­lent Inter­view with Aaron Beck on the His­to­ry of Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py sub­mit­ted by the Beck Insti­tute. Dr. Beck was 83 when he gave this inter­view. To the ques­tion “Do you have a view about age­ing?”, he responds “I can…

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The Upside of Aging-WSJ

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 19, 2007

Sharon Beg­ley writes anoth­er great arti­cle on The Upside of Aging — WSJ.com (sub­scrip­tion required) “The aging brain is sub­ject to a drea­ry litany of changes. It shrinks, Swiss cheese-like holes grow, con­nec­tions between neu­rons become spars­er, blood flow and oxy­gen sup­ply fall. That leads to trou­ble with short-term mem­o­ry and rapid­ly switch­ing atten­tion, among other…

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Brain Health Newsletter, February Edition, and Brain Awareness Week

By Caroline Latham | February 17, 2007 |

Press: see what CBS and Time Mag­a­zine are talk­ing about. Sharp­Brains was intro­duced in the Birm­ing­ham News, Chica­go Tri­bune and in a quick note car­ried by the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion news service.Website and Blog Summary.We hope you enjoy our new Home Page.Cognitive Neu­ro­science­Brain Fit­ness Glos­saryCog­ni­tive Reserve and Lifestyle­Heart Rate Vari­abil­i­ty as an Index of Reg­u­lat­ed Emo­tion­al Respond­ingNeu­ro­science Inter­view Series: on learn­ing and “brain gyms“EducationCounseling cen­ter offers biofeed­back to help decrease stressLife­long learn­ing, lit­er­al­ly: neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for stu­dents, boomers, seniors…Health & Well­ness­Want to Improve Mem­o­ry?… Do I need any­thing else?Learning Slows Phys­i­cal Pro­gres­sion of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease­Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­mentIm­prov­ing Your Brain Tools: Read­ing Emo­tion­al Mes­sages in the FaceEn­hanc­ing the Trader’s Self-Control.Brain Teasers.Exercise Your Brains — Visu­al Log­ic Brain Teaser­Brain Work­out for Your Frontal Lobes­Blog Car­ni­vals: col­lec­tion of best blog arti­cles around par­tic­u­lar topics.We host­ed Encephalon #15: Neu­ro­science and Psy­chol­o­gy Blog Carnival.And launched Brain Fit­ness Blog Car­ni­val #1.

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New brain cells in the adult brain

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 15, 2007 |

BBC News reports that Brain cre­ates ‘new’ nerve cells: “Researchers have dis­cov­ered a type of brain cell that con­tin­u­ous­ly regen­er­ates in humans.” “Experts said the find­ings, pub­lished in Sci­ence, opened up the poten­tial for research into repair­ing brains in con­di­tions such as Alzheimer’s dis­ease” “Dr Mark Bax­ter, Well­come Trust senior research fel­low at Oxford University,…

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