brain-power

Debate: What are the ethics of discouraging much-needed innovation given potential privacy concerns?

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CNN’s Ana Maria Mon­tero inter­views Ned Sahin. The dis­cus­sion about the impact of EU pri­va­cy laws starts in minute 10.

Sto­ry descrip­tion (CNN Mon­ey): Ned Sahin is founder and CEO of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy start-up Brain Pow­er, whose tool “Empow­er Me” uses smart glass­es like Google Glass to coach those with autism. It helps school­child­ren learn social and cog­ni­tive skills and can even guide adults through an inter­view process. Brain Power’s prod­uct is sold to many schools in the U.S. but may nev­er make it to mar­ket in Switzer­land [Read more…] about Debate: What are the ethics of dis­cour­ag­ing much-need­ed inno­va­tion giv­en poten­tial pri­va­cy concerns?

Good news: Apparently neither Google nor smartphones are frying our brains

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cognitive-offloading—–

Researchers look at how brain pow­er is affect­ed by dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies (CBC News):

“…how much is our reliance on smart­phones as mem­o­ry aides affect­ing the way our brains work?

Two psy­chol­o­gists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Water­loo — Evan Risko and Sam Gilbert — looked at the research that has been done in the field of “cog­ni­tive offload­ing” [Read more…] about Good news: Appar­ent­ly nei­ther Google nor smart­phones are fry­ing our brains

10 ways in which Yoga Meditation helps nourish Body, Brain and Mind

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holdingbrain—

An easy, low cost, nat­ur­al prac­tice can help us boost our brain pow­er, be health­i­er and more spir­i­tu­al­ly attuned as we age, and improve our qual­i­ty of life and hap­pi­ness. It could also reduce some of the stag­ger­ing health care costs seen today.

Curi­ous about what that prac­tice is? [Read more…] about 10 ways in which Yoga Med­i­ta­tion helps nour­ish Body, Brain and Mind

Study: Shift work chronically impairs cognition

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Long-Term Shift Work Linked To Impaired Brain Func­tion (Forbes):

“Accord­ing to results of a new study, long-term shift work may lead to impaired brain pow­er which could involve cog­ni­tive skills such as think­ing, rea­son­ing and memory…The impact was much greater after a peri­od of 10 or more years of such a work pat­tern — and seen to be much greater for those work­ing a rotat­ing shift pat­tern [Read more…] about Study: Shift work chron­i­cal­ly impairs cognition

12 Ways Yoga Meditation Helps Nourish The Body, Brain and Mind

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An easy, low cost, nat­ur­al prac­tice can help us boost our brain pow­er, be health­i­er and more spir­i­tu­al­ly attuned as we age, and improve our qual­i­ty of life and hap­pi­ness. It could also reduce some of the stag­ger­ing health care costs seen today.

Curi­ous about what that prac­tice is?

Recent­ly The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF), of which I’m the found­ing pres­i­dent and med­ical direc­tor, pre­sent­ed a sum­ma­ry of [Read more…] about 12 Ways Yoga Med­i­ta­tion Helps Nour­ish The Body, Brain and Mind

Update: How Stress and Emotions Impact Brain Performance

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Spon­sored Ad (How to Adver­tise on SharpBrains.com)

Time for the Octo­ber edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing this time sev­er­al arti­cles on the impact of stress, emo­tions, and self-reg­u­la­tion, on our brain’s struc­ture and performance.

We are pleased to bring to Sharp­Brains read­ers a new 6‑part series on the Neu­ro­bi­ol­ogy of Stress, based on a recent book by Sharp­Brains con­trib­u­tor Dr. Jerome Schultz. The first two parts are already avail­able: Part 1 — The Human Brain and How It Responds to Stress and Part 2 — Gray Mat­ters.

Brain Study Links Emo­tion­al Self-Reg­u­la­tion and Math Per­for­mance: A new study strong­ly sug­gests the need to “help stu­dents reap­praise the sit­u­a­tion and con­trol emo­tions before they even get into a task”. While the study focused on math anx­i­ety and per­for­mance, the impli­ca­tions are rel­e­vant out­side the class­room too.

Reminder: Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions in Novem­ber: As we announced a few weeks ago, we are hon­ored to present an upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Series. The first ses­sion, fea­tur­ing Dr. Gary Small, will take place Novem­ber 1st, 2011, 2–3pm US Eeast­ern Time. Please mark your cal­en­dar and join us at sharpbrains.com then! (no need to do any­thing pri­or to the session).

Music Train­ing Can Enhance Ver­bal Intel­li­gence and Exec­u­tive Func­tion: Very inter­est­ing new study pub­lished in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence on the val­ue of music train­ing (vs. sim­ply lis­ten­ing to music).

Gam­ing and Neu­ro­science: Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Chal­lenges: A sum­ma­ry of impres­sions by researcher  Aki Niko­laidis based on his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the recent con­fer­ence Enter­tain­ment Soft­ware and Cog­ni­tive Neu­rother­a­peu­tics Con­fer­ence (ESCoNS) at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia San Francisco.

Fam­i­lies’ Per­spec­tives on ADHD and its Treat­ment: Dr. David Rabin­er presents new data on fam­i­lies’ expe­ri­ence with ADHD and its treatment.

Brain Games and Opti­cal Illu­sions @ Nation­al Geo­graph­ic: Sev­eral Sharp­Brains friends rec­om­mend this recent 3‑part Nation­al Geo­graphic TV mini-series.

Math Brain Teas­er for Kids and Adults: Archimedes Grave: A fun puz­zle to exer­cise our brains a bit, sub­mit­ted by new con­trib­u­tor Maria Lan­do. Enjoy!