Study: Actual, sustained practice–not mere knowledge–is needed to harness neuroplasticity and improve cognition over time

Lifestyle improve­ments may lessen cog­ni­tive decline (Wiley): ” … 19 indi­vid­u­als old­er than 65 years of age who were expe­ri­enc­ing cog­ni­tive decline were ran­dom­ized to a con­trol group or an inter­ven­tion group for 8 weeks. The con­trol group received online infor­ma­tion relat­ed to demen­tia and lifestyle risk fac­tors, Mediter­ranean diet, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, and cog­ni­tive engagement.…

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Study finds surprising correlation between states’ elevation and ADHD prevalence

Who would have thought that chil­dren liv­ing at high­er alti­tudes have low­er risk of devel­op­ing ADHD than peers at low­er ele­va­tion lev­els? As the research described below sug­gests, how­ev­er, this may be the case. The impe­tus for this study is the well-doc­u­­men­t­ed region­al vari­a­tion in the preva­lence of ADHD in youth. For exam­ple, nation­al data for…

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Quick brain teaser to prove the limits of multitasking

How often do you dis­cuss office gos­sip via chat while par­tic­i­pat­ing in a Zoom meet­ing? Or read a great arti­cle while talk­ing on the phone with a client? Or, wait, think about work prob­lems while help­ing your child with home­work? Yup, it is not easy to stay focused and be tru­ly productive. 

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Study: Across all ideological groups, higher cognitive ability and intellectual humility predicts support for free speech

Free­dom of Speech: A Right for Every­body, or Only for Like-Mind­ed Peo­ple? (Het­ero­dox Acad­e­my): Free­dom of speech is often con­sid­ered key to a well-func­­tion­al democ­ra­cy. In many coun­tries, free­dom of speech is con­sid­ered a more impor­tant demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ue than reg­u­lar elec­tions. But do peo­ple gen­uine­ly believe in the virtues of open debates by sup­port­ing freedom…

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Five quick brain teasers to flex those Attention and Working Memory mental muscles

. Look­ing for some fun cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion to kick­start the week? Below you’ll find a few brain teasers to chal­lenge your atten­tion and your work­ing mem­ory–the abil­ity to keep infor­ma­tion in your mind while manip­u­lat­ing mul­ti­ple units of infor­ma­tion at the same time. Give them a try … they are not as easy as they may sound :-)

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