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Cognitive-Training

Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

June 30, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use 🙂

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

“Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact of dif­fer­ent types of screen time (watch­ing, social­iz­ing, or gam­ing) on children’s intel­li­gence while con­trol­ling for the con­found­ing effects of genet­ic dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tion and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus … Broad­ly, our results are in line with research on the mal­leabil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties from envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, such as cog­ni­tive train­ing and the Fly­nn effect.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing! Hav­ing said that…

#2. Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

“Social inter­ac­tion is huge­ly impor­tant. One study found that the size of our social group is actu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the vol­ume of the orbitofrontal cor­tex (involved in social cog­ni­tion and emo­tion). But how many friends do we need? … It is hard to argue with the fact that humans are social ani­mals and gain enjoy­ment from con­nect­ing with oth­ers, what­ev­er age we are. But, as we are increas­ing­ly uncov­er­ing, it also cru­cial for the health of our cognition.”

#3. UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

“Some peo­ple do very well in train­ing, such as play­ing a video game, but they don’t show near trans­fer, per­haps because they are using high­ly spe­cif­ic strate­gies,” said first author Anja Pahor … “For these peo­ple, far trans­fer is unlike­ly. By bet­ter under­stand­ing why this type of mem­o­ry train­ing or ‘inter­ven­tion’ works for some peo­ple but not oth­ers, we can move for­ward with a new gen­er­a­tion of work­ing-mem­o­ry train­ing games or use approach­es that are more tai­lored to indi­vid­u­als’ needs”

#4. Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

“In our ongo­ing large-scale study (note: the one right above) we aim to recruit 30,000 adults who are moti­vat­ed and will­ing to help us bet­ter under­stand the fac­tors that under­lie learn­ing out­comes using a vari­ety of train­ing par­a­digms and out­come mea­sures. Our endeav­or will ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the per­son­al­iza­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing so that, hope­ful­ly, any­one who would like to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing will be able to choose the approach that may fit them best.” — researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Irvine/ Riverside

#5. Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

Esports are bor­row­ing a page from Pro Sports’ book … we would­n’t be sur­prised to see the inverse tak­ing place too in just a few years.

#6. Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

“For those with­out severe men­tal ill­ness, app-based ther­a­py may be help­ful in match­ing clients with a pro­fes­sion­al famil­iar with a range of prob­lems and stres­sors. This makes apps attrac­tive to those with anx­i­ety and mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion. They also appeal to peo­ple who wouldn’t ordi­nar­i­ly seek out office-based ther­a­py, but who want help with life issues such as mar­i­tal prob­lems and work-relat­ed stress.”

#7. AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

Let’s talk!

#8. And here’s the Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and fun summer!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain health, brain-teaser, chronic pain, cognition, cognitive, cognitive-functioning, Cognitive-tests, Cognitive-Training, depression, emotion, FDA, mental health, mental health care, neuroimaging, social isolation, videogames, work-related stress, working-memory-training, Wysa

Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Citizen Science project on cognitive training

June 28, 2022 by Susanne Jaeggi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Leave a Comment

Word­cloud derived from the two papers ref­er­enced in this blog (by Susanne Jaeg­gi & Aaron Seitz)

How can we cut through the con­tro­ver­sies around brain train­ing and unlock the excit­ing poten­tial as sug­gest­ed by the numer­ous pub­lished stud­ies show­ing exam­ples of cog­ni­tive train­ing ben­e­fits? [Read more…] about Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain Game Center, brain training, Brain-games, cognitive-functioning, Cognitive-Training, near transfer, personalization

Trend: Esports teams harness cognitive tests to better match player to task and to identify training opportunities

June 15, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

I Took An Esports Brain Test. I’m Not Even Close to Being a Pro Gamer (CNET):

Neu­rOlympics is a decep­tive­ly sim­ple test.

The 60-minute assess­ment guides peo­ple through four uncom­pli­cat­ed video games. One involves remem­ber­ing dis­ap­pear­ing icons. Anoth­er is an exer­cise in rapid reac­tion time. A per­son­’s per­for­mance on the test is then run through an algo­rithm that eval­u­ates per­for­mance in mem­o­ry, speed and oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics. [Read more…] about Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

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Filed Under: Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain--test, Cognitive-Training, intelligence, NeurOlympics, NeuroTracker, situational awareness, video-games, Wonderlic test

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

June 1, 2022 by The Conversation Leave a Comment

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)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: cognition, cognitive, cognitive-abilities, cognitive-development, Cognitive-tests, Cognitive-Training, digital media, executive-function, flexible thinking, free time, intelligence, Learning, learning ability, screen time, self-control, social-media, video-games, visual-spatial processing, watching TV, Working-memory

Helping young brains fight off anxiety by training and raising cognitive control

July 23, 2021 by Greater Good Science Center

Anx­i­ety is one of the most com­mon child­hood men­tal dis­or­ders. About 7% of chil­dren suf­fer from it at any giv­en time, with near­ly 1 in 3 ado­les­cents expe­ri­enc­ing it some­time dur­ing their teen years.

For an anx­ious child, seem­ing­ly nor­mal activ­i­ties can be hard. Wor­ried kids have trou­ble adjust­ing to school, mak­ing friends, and learn­ing. They can feel inhib­it­ed, avoid­ing chal­lenges by run­ning away or retreat­ing into them­selves. While par­ents may feel des­per­ate to help, their approach­es can back­fire. For exam­ple, try­ing to talk kids out of their feel­ings or keep them away from anx­i­ety-pro­duc­ing sit­u­a­tions may inad­ver­tent­ly make the anx­i­ety worse. [Read more…] about Help­ing young brains fight off anx­i­ety by train­ing and rais­ing cog­ni­tive control

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, brain markers, brain training, childhood, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, cognitive-capacities, cognitive-control, cognitive-skills, Cognitive-Training, frontal-lobes, Kate Fitzgerald, Kid Power program, Learning, mental-disorders, National-Institutes-of-Health, neurochemicals, neuroscience, Working-memory

Emerging applications of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS): e‑sports skills training, cognitive enhancement in older adults

April 16, 2021 by SharpBrains

10 Min­utes of Elec­tri­cal Stim­u­la­tion Dur­ing Gam­ing Helps Improve e‑Sports Skills (Tech­nol­o­gy Networks):

Researchers at Lero, the Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Ire­land Research Cen­tre for Soft­ware and Uni­ver­si­ty of Lim­er­ick (UL), have found video gamers can sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve their esport skills by train­ing for just 10 min­utes a day.

The research team at Lero’s Esports Sci­ence Research Lab (ESRL) at UL also found novice gamers ben­e­fit­ed most when they wore a cus­tom head­set deliv­er­ing tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) for 20 min­utes before train­ing ses­sions. [Read more…] about Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

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Filed Under: Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: cognitive-enhancement, cognitive-performance, Cognitive-Training, e-sports, electrical stimulation, Gaming, Halo Neuroscience, healthy older adults, Lero, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation

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