Study: Playing board games like Chess, Mahjong, Go, helps slow cognitive decline as we age (but with clear differences in neurobiology and improved function)

Play­ing Board Games May Slow Cog­ni­tive Decline, Improve QoL (Med­scape): Play­ing chess or oth­er board games slows cog­ni­tive decline and improves qual­i­ty of life in old­er patients, results of a new sys­tem­at­ic review sug­gest. … After search­ing the pub­lished lit­er­a­ture, Pozzi and his col­leagues select­ed 15 stud­ies for the review. The stud­ies assessed the impact…

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Study: For better memory and thinking skills at age 70 (and beyond), play cards and board games from age 11

___ Cards, board games could ward off cog­ni­tive decline (UPI): “Play­ing cards and board games like chess, bin­go and Scrab­ble might be the men­tal work­out you need to keep your wits as you age, Scot­tish researchers sug­gest. Peo­ple in their 70s who reg­u­lar­ly play board games score high­er on tests of mem­o­ry and think­ing skills…

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Brain/ Cognitive Enhancement with drugs… and cereal?

Sev­er­al recent arti­cles and news: Brain Gain: the under­ground world of “neu­roen­hanc­ing” drugs (The New York­er) — “Alex remains enthu­si­as­tic about Adder­all, but he also has a slight­ly jaun­diced cri­tique of it. “It only works as a cog­ni­tive enhancer inso­far as you are ded­i­cat­ed to accom­plish­ing the task at hand,” he said. “The num­ber of times…

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Learning about Learning: an Interview with Joshua Waitzkin

In 1993, Para­mount Pic­tures released Search­ing for Bob­by Fis­ch­er, which depicts Joshua Wait­zk­in’s ear­ly chess suc­cess as he embarks on a jour­ney to win his first Nation­al chess cham­pi­onship. This movie had the effect of weak­en­ing his love for the game as well as the learn­ing process. His pas­sion for learn­ing was reju­ve­nat­ed, how­ev­er, after…

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