—–

For Effec­tive Brain Fit­ness, Do More Than Play Sim­ple Games (The New York Times):

“…Legions of baby boomers already use com­put­ers or apps to stim­u­late the brain, but they should be thought of as part of a larg­er engage­ment with the world…Finding new ways to chal­lenge your­self every day, Mr. Rebok said, is a good idea. This can include lots of ordi­nary activ­i­ties like doing men­tal cal­cu­la­tions rather than reach­ing for a cal­cu­la­tor, or tak­ing a new dri­ving route or eat­ing with the oppo­site hand…

Mr. Fer­nan­dez of Sharp­Brains said he would like to see a more sys­tem­at­ic way to mea­sure cog­ni­tion, such as annu­al men­tal health check­ups. “If we had bet­ter assess­ments, we could empow­er con­sumers,” he said. “That’s the next fron­tier.”

To learn more:

• Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging

Nike Moves into Brain Train­ing with Launch of Pro Genius (Cre­ativ­i­ty):

“Nike has made its first move into the world of men­tal train­ing with the launch of Pro Genius, a series of tools and tech­niques designed to help young soc­cer play­ers devel­op the men­tal side of their game Read the rest of this entry »

(Editor’s Note: In order to help read­ers famil­iar­ize them­selves with the work and think­ing of Dr. Michael Merzenich, one of the win­ners of the 2016 Kavli Prize in Neu­ro­science for ground­break­ing work on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, we are con­dens­ing and repub­lish­ing the com­pre­hen­sive con­ver­sa­tion that Dr. Merzenich and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez had in 2009, in prepa­ra­tion for the inau­gur­al Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit.)

Dr. Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor at UCSF, is a lead­ing pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invent­ed the cochlear implant. In 1996, he was the found­ing CEO of Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, and in 2004 became co-founder and Read the rest of this entry »

Learn­ingRx To Pay $200K For Alleged­ly Unproven Claims That Brain Train­ing Can Improve Income, Treat Autism & ADHD (Con­sumerist):

“The com­pa­ny behind the Learn­ingRX “brain train­ing” pro­gram has agreed to pay a $200,000 set­tle­ment and to stop mak­ing claims that its sys­tem is clin­i­cal­ly proven to treat seri­ous health con­di­tions, or that it can Read the rest of this entry »

– An MRI image of the brain show­ing the struc­ture of white mat­ter. Cred­it 3D Slicer/Wikimedia Com­mons.

In prepa­ra­tion for the new sea­son of Nation­al Geographic’s Brain Games, their pro­duc­ers asked me to par­tic­i­pate in a vir­tu­al round­table around this thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tion:

Do you think indi­vid­u­als can train their brain to respond in a par­tic­u­lar way to cer­tain sit­u­a­tions, or do you think our brain’s innate “star­tle response” is too hard­wired to alter?

My short answer: Yes, we can train our brains.

My long answer: Not only we can, but we SHOULD train our brains to respond in par­tic­u­lar ways to cer­tain sit­u­a­tions. That’s why we have a human brain to begin with…Keep read­ing arti­cle The Real Brain Game: Har­ness­ing Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty to Upgrade Our Men­tal Equip­ment (The Cre­ativ­i­ty Post)