brain-blog

Upcoming: Grand Rounds Blog Carnival and Brain Fitness Q&A

by

Just a quick note to announce that next Tues­day, Novem­ber 15th, SharpBrains.com will be host­ing two great resources:

1- Grand Rounds Blog Car­ni­val: the week­ly col­lec­tion of what’s best in the health and med­ical blo­gos­phere (see great lat­est edi­tion Here). If you want to con­tribute your own blog post, please do so via this Con­tact Us form.
2- Live Q&A Ses­sion with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, coau­thor of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (recent­ly select­ed as one of the Best Books on Brain Fit­ness by AARP). Ses­sion will take place at 11am Pacif­ic Time/ 2pm East­ern Time, and will be mod­er­at­ed by Har­ry Moody, Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­m­ic Affairs at AARP. To learn more click Here.

Please make sure to vis­it us Tuesday!

    Debunking 10 Cognitive Health and Fitness Myths

    by

    As part of the research behind the book The Sharp­Brains Guide for Brain Fit­ness we inter­viewed dozens of lead­ing cog­ni­tive health and fit­ness sci­en­tists and experts world­wide to learn about their research and thoughts, and have a num­ber of take-aways to report.

    What Santiago Ramon y Cajal can we clear­ly say today that we could­n’t have said only 10 years ago? That what neu­ro­science pio­neer San­ti­a­go Ramon y Cajal claimed in the XX cen­tu­ry, “Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculp­tor his own brain”, may well become real­i­ty in the XXI.

    And trans­form Edu­ca­tion, Health, Train­ing, and Gam­ing in the process, since [Read more…] about Debunk­ing 10 Cog­ni­tive Health and Fit­ness Myths

    Encephalon #61: Brain & Mind Reading for the Holidays

    by

    Wel­come to the 61st edi­tion Encephalon brain blog carnivalof Encephalon, the blog car­ni­val that offers some of the best neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy blog posts every oth­er week.

    We do have an excel­lent set of arti­cles today. cov­er­ing much ground. Enjoy the reading:

    —

    Neu­ro­science and Society 

    Neu­roan­thro­pol­o­gy,
    by Greg Downey    		 The Fly­nn Effect: Trou­bles with Intelligence
    Aver­age IQ test scores had risen about 3 points per decade and in some cas­es more. Tests of vocab­u­lary, arith­metic, or gen­er­al knowl­edge (such as the sorts of facts one learns in school) have showed lit­tle increase, but scores have increased marked­ly on tests thought to mea­sure gen­er­al intelligence.
    Mind­Hacks,
    by Vaugh­an Bell    		 Med­ical jar­gon alters our under­stand­ing of disease
    Under­stand­ing how pop­u­lar ideas influ­ence our per­son­al med­ical beliefs is an essen­tial part of under­stand­ing med­i­cine itself.
    Cog­ni­tive Dai­ly,
    by Dave Munger    		 Is it sex­ist to think men are angri­er than women?
    Are we more like­ly to per­ceive a male face as angry and a female face as hap­py? A recent study sheds light on the issue.
    Neu­r­o­crit­ic Crime, Pun­ish­ment, and Jer­ry Springer
    Judges and jurors must put aside their emo­tion­al­ly-dri­ven desire for revenge when com­ing to an impar­tial ver­dict. Does neu­roimag­ing (fMRI) add any­thing to our under­stand­ing of justice?

    —

    Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and Neu­rocog­ni­tive Health [Read more…] about Encephalon #61: Brain & Mind Read­ing for the Holidays

    MetaCarnival #1: a conversation across the blogosphere

    by

    Wel­come to the first edi­tion of MetaCar­ni­val: a Car­ni­val of Car­ni­vals (announced here), the new, sycamore treemonth­ly, and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary gath­er­ing of blogs and blog carnivals.

    Let’s pic­ture all par­tic­i­pants in the shad­ow of an expan­sive sycamore tree, con­duct­ing a live­ly Q&A lunch discussion.

    Gen­er­al Advice 

    Q: What would you rec­om­mend to live as long as pos­si­ble, and as healthy as pos­si­ble?
    - Hour­glass (biol­o­gy of aging): Try Not To Stab Your­self Repeat­ed­ly. Or smoke. Or eat that much fast food…you get the idea.  “The vast major­i­ty of peo­ple are quite com­fort­able engag­ing in habits that cause great harm to the old per­son they will one day be, cut­ting off years or even decades of health.”

    Q: Can blog­ging help, too?
    - I and the Bird (birds): Indeed. Just read about these life-chang­ing moments in the Kenyan high­lands, brought togeth­er spon­ta­neous­ly as a col­lab­o­ra­tion between researchers, con­ser­va­tion­ists, blog­gers. And, yes, birds.


    Sports (Well… Brain and Sports) 

    Q: Tell me some­thing inter­est­ing about ath­letes and “The Zone”. 
    - Encephalon (neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy): why don’t we review this recent study on the Momen­tum Chain in Sports. You can con­duct your own mini exper­i­ment while watch­ing TV: watch the reac­tions of the play­ers and the teams right after “pre­cip­i­tat­ing events” to see if they actu­al­ly lead to game-chang­ing moments.

    Med­i­cine

    Q: Should patients be patient?. 
    - SurgeX­pe­ri­ences (sur­gi­cal expe­ri­ences): Patience in indeed a virtue, espe­cial­ly [Read more…] about MetaCar­ni­val #1: a con­ver­sa­tion across the blogosphere

    Searching for Brain Health and Fitness Information?

    by

    A cou­ple of quick notes about our blog:

    1- We have just added a Search box to allow you eas­i­ly find con­tent in our 600+ arti­cle archive. Take a look at the top of the right side­bar, and let us know if you have any feed­back! Btw, feel free to say Thank You to our read­er Luc…whose feed­back gave a new impe­tus to this Search option.

    2–  You will also find a but­ton named BOOKMARK at the bot­tom of all blog posts, includ­ing this one. This allows you to eas­i­ly sub­mit blog posts to the social media sites where you have accounts: Face­book, Digg, Red­dit, Stum­ble­Upon, Del.ic.ious, you name it. We appre­ci­ate your help in let­ting more peo­ple know about our arti­cles and teasers!

    As always, any feed­back is welcome.

    Brain, Mind and Body Blogs

    by

    A cou­ple of great blog car­ni­val editions (col­lec­tions of blog posts around spe­cif­ic topics):

    - Encephalon: neu­ro­science and psychology.

    - Grand Rounds: health and medicine. 

    And a good Radar Roundup of brain-relat­ed news. Note: our esti­mate for the whole mar­ket in 2007 is $225m, not $110m; and the Con­sumer Seg­ment (most­ly Nin­ten­do Brain Age/ Acad­e­my, but not all) accounts for $80m.

    ÂÂ