cognitive-development

Study finds that playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial for children than other forms of screentime (social media, watching videos/ TV)

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Many par­ents feel guilty when their chil­dren play video games for hours on end. Some even wor­ry it could make their chil­dren less clever. And, indeed, that’s a top­ic sci­en­tists have clashed over for years.

In our new study, we inves­ti­gat­ed how video games affect the minds of chil­dren, inter­view­ing and test­ing more than 5,000 chil­dren aged ten to 12. And the results, pub­lished in Sci­en­tif­ic Reports, will be sur­pris­ing to some. [Read more…] about Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)

Large study to study impact on early brain development of financial assistance to low-income mothers

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Does grow­ing up poor harm brain devel­op­ment? (The Economist):

“Plen­ty of evi­dence sug­gests that grow­ing up poor, liv­ing through these kinds of scrapes, has a detri­men­tal impact on child devel­op­ment. Chil­dren from rich fam­i­lies tend to have bet­ter lan­guage and mem­o­ry skills than those from poor fam­i­lies. More afflu­ent chil­dren usu­al­ly per­form bet­ter in school, and are less like­ly to end up in jail. Grow­ing up poor risks the devel­op­ment of a small­er cere­bral cor­tex. But these are asso­ci­a­tions [Read more…] about Large study to study impact on ear­ly brain devel­op­ment of finan­cial assis­tance to low-income mothers

14 new Speakers, including Rutger’s April Benasich and EMOTIV’s Olivier Oullier, at the 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit (December 5–7th)

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Proud to announce excel­lent addi­tions to the stel­lar Speak­er Ros­ter at the upcom­ing 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th).

As direc­tor of the Infan­cy Stud­ies Lab­o­ra­to­ry at the Rut­gers Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar and Behav­ioral Neu­ro­science,  Dr. April Bena­sich’s research focus­es on brain devel­op­ment in infan­cy and ear­ly child­hood, specif­i­cal­ly the neur­al process­es nec­es­sary for nor­mal lan­guage and cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment. She uses a mix of cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing mea­sure­ment of audi­to­ry evoked brain poten­tials (EEG/ERPs) and nat­u­ral­ly sleep­ing MRI/fMRI, that add con­verg­ing non­in­va­sive phys­i­o­log­i­cal mea­sures to her lab’s exten­sive behav­ioral battery.

Dr. Olivi­er Oul­li­er, just appoint­ed as the new Pres­i­dent of EMOTIV, is a neu­ro­sci­en­tist, strate­gist, and con­trib­u­tor to For­tune Mag­a­zine, He is the for­mer Head of Strat­e­gy in Glob­al Health and Health­care and Mem­ber of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, where he was in charge of an inter­na­tion­al project on val­ue-based care involv­ing more than 50 glob­al com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions. Olivi­er is a Full Pro­fes­sor of Behav­ioral and Brain Sci­ences at Aix-Mar­seille Uni­ver­si­ty and taught at the Uni­ver­si­ties of Oxford and Geneva’s exec­u­tive edu­ca­tion programs.

And, pitch­ing the lat­est think­ing and solu­tions for brain health and per­for­mance, dur­ing the Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test we will see (you can check out their bios here): [Read more…] about 14 new Speak­ers, includ­ing Rutger’s April Bena­sich and EMOTIV’s Olivi­er Oul­li­er, at the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 5–7th)

Study: Is modernity leading to a growing Cognitive Divide?

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Sub­ject dur­ing EEG study. Cour­tesy of Sapi­ens Labs

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Has Mod­ern Expe­ri­ence Changed The Human Brain? (NPR):

“The brain has evolved over evo­lu­tion­ary time scales of mil­lions of years. So, what is the like­li­hood that the rel­a­tive­ly recent advent of read­ing and writ­ing, or motor­ized trans­port, or the Inter­net, could have changed our brains? [Read more…] about Study: Is moder­ni­ty lead­ing to a grow­ing Cog­ni­tive Divide?

Study: Parents’ educational and income levels (not breastfeeding per se) account for the brain development gains in breastfed children

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Study shows no long-term cog­ni­tive ben­e­fit to breast­feed­ing (CNN):

“While the med­ical ben­e­fits of breast­feed­ing for help­ing new­borns fight infec­tions and help­ing pre-term infants get stronger are fair­ly well estab­lished, the long-term impact is much less so…a new study pub­lished in the jour­nal Pedi­atrics finds that breast­feed­ing has lit­tle impact on long-term cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment and behav­ior. [Read more…] about Study: Par­ents’ edu­ca­tion­al and income lev­els (not breast­feed­ing per se) account for the brain devel­op­ment gains in breast­fed children

How to Optimize Brain Health at Any Age

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Left to right: Howard Eaton, Alvaro Fernandez, Mark Watson.
Left to right: Howard Eaton, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, Mark Watson.

Pre­sen­ta­tion deliv­ered by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez at the Van­cou­ver JCC, on Novem­ber 3rd, host­ed by Eaton Arrowsmith.

Descrip­tion: Just like the rest of our body, the brain requires care, atten­tion and prop­er exer­cise. Yet, we often ignore this most vital organ because few know where to begin. Based on The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age, named a Best Book by AARP, co-author Alvaro Fer­nan­dez will dis­cuss exact­ly how to “use it or lose it,” offer­ing a ground break­ing new approach to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve brain health and per­for­mance at any age, from chil­dren to younger and old­er adults.