brain-based

Brain-Based Carnival of Education, 186th Edition

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Wel­come to the 186th edi­tion of the Car­ni­val of Edu­ca­tion, the week­ly vir­tu­al gath­er­ing of dozens of blog­gers to dis­cuss all things education.

Q: Why do you say this edi­tion is “brain-based”?
A: Because the Q&A frame we are using is inspired by how Chris at Ouroboros recent­ly host­ed Encephalon Brain and Mind blog car­ni­val. (Is clas­sic Greek mak­ing a comeback?).

Q: As edu­ca­tors, what inspires us to do what we do?
A: Tra­cy sug­gests, “Hope for the future”.

Q: And what may hap­pen in the future?
A: Eric pro­pos­es that the field can learn much about how ath­letes train their minds and bod­ies to max­i­mize performance.

Q: What should not hap­pen in the future?
A: Dave hopes we stop the Text­book Insan­i­ty, killing trees to cre­ate books not every­one uses.

Q: What comes first, sub­ject or learner?
A: Bogu­sia has “switched sides”. She now cen­ters her teach­ing around her stu­dents, to make sure they appre­ci­ate the beau­ty of the subject.

Q: How do you know if some­thing is devel­op­men­tal­ly appro­pri­ate?
[Read more…] about Brain-Based Car­ni­val of Edu­ca­tion, 186th Edition

Carnival of Education #159: Briefing the Next US President on 35 Issues

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Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,

Thank you for stop­ping dur­ing recess for a quick study ses­siMeditation School Studentson. 35 edu­ca­tors have col­lab­o­rat­ed to present this Car­ni­val of Edu­ca­tion as a use­ful les­son plan for you and your edu­ca­tion pol­i­cy team on what our real con­cerns and sug­ges­tions are.

In case this is your first vis­it to our Sharp­Brains blog, let me first of all point out some use­ful resources to stay sane dur­ing the rest of the cam­paign: select­ed Brain Teasers, a list of 21 great Brain Books, over a dozen inter­views with lead­ing sci­en­tists on learn­ing and brain-based top­ics, and more.

With­out fur­ther ado, let’s pro­ceed to the issues raised. We hope they pro­vide, at the very least, good men­tal stim­u­la­tion for you and your advisors.

Edu­ca­tion as a System 

Learning & The Brain Conference: discount for SharpBrains readers

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San Francisco Golden Gate BridgeCon­text: Last Feb­ru­ary we had the chance to attend a great con­fer­ence on how brain research is influ­enc­ing edu­ca­tion. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed. Car­o­line wrote our impres­sions, sum­ma­rized as “It was a fas­ci­nat­ing mix of neu­ro­sci­en­tists and edu­ca­tors talk­ing with and lis­ten­ing to each oth­er. Some top­ics were meant to be applied today, but many were food for thought — insight on where sci­ence and edu­ca­tion are head­ed and how they influ­ence each oth­er”. See some of our take-aways below.

Announce­ment: the 2008 edi­tion of this con­fer­ence, titled Using Brain Research to Enhance Learn­ing, Atten­tion & Mem­o­ry For Edu­ca­tors, Par­ents and Clin­i­cians, will take place in San Fran­cis­co, on Feb­ru­ary 7–9th, 2008. The orga­niz­ers have kind­ly invit­ed me to deliv­er a lec­ture on Inter­ven­tions to Sharp­en Minds, as part of the Brain Plas­tic­i­ty & Atten­tion track. I will pro­vide an overview of the sci­ence behind com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive train­ing inter­ven­tions and dis­cuss a num­ber of research-based pro­grams that are being used today. Let me know if you are plan­ning to attend!

Reg­is­tra­tion fees: the gen­er­al reg­is­tra­tion fees are $495 per per­son, if you reg­is­ter before Jan­u­ary 25th, 2008.

Spe­cial Dis­count for Sharp­Brains read­ers: you can reg­is­ter for $450 before that date,  mak­ing sure to write
SharpBrains1 in the com­ments sec­tion of How did you hear about the con­fer­ence? in this Reg­is­tra­tion Page.

To learn more about the con­fer­ence: [Read more…] about Learn­ing & The Brain Con­fer­ence: dis­count for Sharp­Brains readers

Brain Exercise and Fitness: September Monthly Digest

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Crossword PuzzleFol­low­ing our July and August edi­tions, here you have our Month­ly Digest of the Most Pop­u­lar Blog Posts. Today, Octo­ber 2nd, we will list the most pop­u­lar Sep­tem­ber posts. You can con­sid­er it your month­ly Brain Exer­cise Magazine.

(Also, remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive our RSS feed, check our Top­ics sec­tion, and sub­scribe to our month­ly newslet­ter at the top of this page).

Mar­ket News

Edu­ca­tion, Train­ing, Health events: some events I will blog about/ speak at over the next 2‑weeks.

Brain Fit­ness and SharpBrains.com in the Press: includ­ing a great Wash­ing­ton Post article.

Brains Way Smarter Than Ours (and yours, prob­a­bly): roundup of rel­e­vant news, includ­ing some Awards.

News you can use

10 (Sur­pris­ing) Mem­o­ry Improve­ment Tips: on the rela­tion­ship between stress and memory.

Judith Beck: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son: a cog­ni­tive ther­a­py pio­neer tells us about the lat­est appli­ca­tion of brain train­ing: diets.

Brain Well­ness: Train Your Brain to Be Hap­pi­er: our essay to par­tic­i­pate in LifeT­wo’s Hap­pi­ness week.

Research

11 Neu­ro­sci­en­tists Debunk a Com­mon Myth about Brain Train­ing: sum­ma­ry of our 11 orig­i­nal inter­views with lead­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tists and cog­ni­tive psychologists.

Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty 101 and Brain Health Glos­sary: no one is born know­ing it all…check this sum­ma­ry of con­cepts and key­words that can help nav­i­gate through the brain fit­ness field.

Work­ing Mem­o­ry: an image that says much: bad and good news.

Best of the Brain from Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can: review of this great book.

An online appli­ca­tion sys­tem is now open for the AAAS Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­cy Fellowships.

Cor­po­rate Train­ing & Leadership

Car­ni­val of the cap­i­tal­ists with a brain: we host­ed this busi­ness blog car­ni­val with a brain spice.

Exec­u­tive Func­tions and Google/ Microsoft Brain Teasers: exam­ples of what our exec­u­tive func­tions are.

Soft­ware Prod­uct News

Mind­Fit by Cog­niFit, and Baroness Susan Green­field: a brain fit­ness pro­gram start­ing to get trac­tion in Europe.

Penn Treaty First To Offer Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram: today’s press release on anoth­er brain train­ing soft­ware (Posit Science)‘s deal with an insur­ance provider.

Visu­al­iza­tion Soft­ware of IBM for the Future of Med­i­cine: Inter­view: “It’s like Google Earth for the body”. Hope­ful­ly it will include the brain.

Brain Teasers

Brain Teasers with a Neu­ro­science angle: enjoy.

Sharp­Brains Announcements

Ser­vices: we will for­mal­ly announce soon how we “help com­pa­nies, health providers, investors, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers under­stand and prof­it from the emerg­ing brain fit­ness field.” But now you know.

Speak­ing: if your orga­ni­za­tion needs a good speak­er and brain fit­ness expert, please con­tact us.

Final­ly, we are start­ing to look for qual­i­fied guest blog­gers to add their per­spec­tive. If you are inter­est­ed, please con­tact us and let us know about what you would like to write about, and include a brief bio or links to sam­ples. Thank you.

Best of the Brain from Scientific American

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Best of Brain, Scientific American

The Dana Foun­da­tion kind­ly sent us a copy of the great book Best of the Brain from Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, a col­lec­tion of 21 superb arti­cles pub­lished pre­vi­ous­ly in Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can mag­a­zine. A very nice­ly edit­ed and illus­trat­ed book, this is a must for any­one who enjoys learn­ing about the brain and spec­u­lat­ing about what the future will bring us.

Some essays, like the ones by Eric Kan­del (The New Sci­ence of Mind), Fred Gage (Brain, Repair Your­self), Carl Zim­mer (The Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy of the Self) and that by Steven Hol­lon, Michael Thase and John Markowitz (Treat­ing Depres­sion: Pills or Talk), are both intel­lec­tu­al feasts and very rel­e­vant to brain fit­ness. And final­ly start­ing to per­co­late into main­stream consciousness.

Let me quote some quotes and reflec­tions as I was read­ing the book a cou­ple of days ago, in the court­yard of a beau­ti­ful French cafe in Berkeley:

1) On Brain Plas­tic­i­ty (the abil­i­ty of the brain to rewire itself), Fred Gage says: “With­in the past 5 years, how­ev­er, neu­ro­sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered that the brain does indeed change through­out life-…The new cells and con­nec­tions that we and oth­ers have doc­u­ment­ed may pro­vide the extra capac­i­ty the brain requires for the vari­ety of chal­lenges that indi­vid­u­als face through­out life. Such plas­tic­i­ty offers a pos­si­ble mech­a­nism through which the brain might be induced to repair itself after injury or dis­ease. It might even open the prospect of enhanc­ing an already healthy brain’s pow­er to think and abil­i­ty to feel”

2)  and How Expe­ri­ence affects Brain Struc­ture: Under the sec­tion title “A Brain Work­out”, Fred Gage says “One of the mot strik­ing aspects of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (Note: the cre­ation of new neu­rons) is that expe­ri­ence can reg­u­late the rate of cell divi­sion, the sur­vival of new­born neu­rons and their abil­i­ty to inte­grate into the exist­ing neur­al circuits…The best way to aug­ment brain func­tion might not involve drugs or cell implants but lifestyle changes.”

3) Biol­o­gy of Mind: Eric Kan­del pro­vides a won­der­ful overview of the most [Read more…] about Best of the Brain from Sci­en­tif­ic American

Dr. Judith Beck on how to Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person

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(Brain Fit­ness does­n’t require the use of expen­sive equip­ment. Your brain is enough. Today, as part of our research for The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, we are hon­ored to inter­view Dr. Judith Beck on how cog­ni­tive tech­niques can be applied to improve our health and our lives)

Dr. Judith Beck is the Direc­tor of the Beck Insti­tute for Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py and Research, Clin­i­cal Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy in Psy­chi­a­try at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, and author of Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py: Basics and Beyond. Her most recent book is The Beck Diet Solu­tion: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son.

Dr. Beck, thanks for your time. What does the Beck Insti­tute do? 

We have 3 main activ­i­ties. One, we train prac­ti­tion­ers and researchers through a vari­ety of train­ing pro­grams. Two, we pro­vide clin­i­cal care. Three, we are involved in research on cog­ni­tive therapy.

Please explain cog­ni­tive ther­a­py in a few sentences 

Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py, as devel­oped by my father Aaron Beck, is a com­pre­hen­sive sys­tem of psy­chother­a­py, based on the idea that the way peo­ple per­ceive their expe­ri­ence influ­ences their emo­tion­al, behav­ioral, and phys­i­o­log­i­cal respons­es. Part of what we do is to help peo­ple solve the prob­lems they are fac­ing today. We also teach them cog­ni­tive and behav­ioral skills to mod­i­fy their dys­func­tion­al think­ing and actions.

I under­stand that cog­ni­tive ther­a­py has been test­ed for many years in a vari­ety of clin­i­cal appli­ca­tions. What moti­vat­ed you to bring those tech­niques to the weight-loss field by writ­ing The Beck Diet Solution? 

Since the begin­ning, I have pri­mar­i­ly [Read more…] about Dr. Judith Beck on how to Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person