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Maintain Your Brain and Stay Sharp: An Upcoming Guide and Resource

April 24, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

You may be read­ing all about brain fit­ness and brain train­ing. It seems every week brings a new bar­rage of arti­cles and stud­ies which often con­tra­dict what you read the month before: Does Gingko Bilo­ba help delay Alzheimer’s Dis­ease? Can phys­i­cal exer­cise help you stay sharp as you age? Which com­put­er-based “brain fit­ness pro­grams”, if any, are worth your money?

All this cov­er­age reflects very excit­ing sci­en­tif­ic find­ings but also pos­es a key dilem­ma: How to become an informed life­long learn­er and con­sumer when there are few and con­tra­dic­to­ry author­i­ta­tive guidelines?

The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (to be pub­lished in May 2009; $24.95) aims to fill that void. This guide is the result of over a year of exten­sive research includ­ing more than a hun­dred inter­views with sci­en­tists, pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers, and a deep lit­er­a­ture review. Below you have some of the main find­ings from our effort. The guide not only cov­ers these aspects in more depth and offers prac­ti­cal guid­ance, but also includes 18 inter­views with promi­nent sci­en­tists to help you under­stand the research better.

Can we intro­duce you to your Brain?

The Guide will start at the obvi­ous start­ing point: The Human Brain. In order to make informed deci­sions about brain health, one needs to first under­stand the basic orga­ni­za­tion of the human brain and how it tends to change as we get older.

* The brain is com­posed of a num­ber of regions serv­ing dis­tinct func­tions. For­get IQ: our life and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty depend on a vari­ety of brain func­tions, not just one.

* There is noth­ing inher­ent­ly fixed in the tra­jec­to­ry of how brain func­tions evolve as we age. Your lifestyle, actions, and even thoughts, do matter.

The 4 Pil­lars of Brain Maintenance

Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty is the life­long capac­i­ty of the brain to change and rewire itself in response to the stim­u­la­tion of learn­ing and expe­ri­ence. The lat­est sci­en­tif­ic research shows that spe­cif­ic lifestyles and actions can, no mat­ter our age, improve the health and lev­el of func­tion­ing of our brains.

What fac­tors seem to have the most influ­ence? [Read more…] about Main­tain Your Brain and Stay Sharp: An Upcom­ing Guide and Resource

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, Alzheimers-disease, biofeedback, brain-exercise, Brain-Fitness, brain-fitness-programs, brain-fitness-software, brain-functions, brain-maintenance, Brain-Training, brain-training-software, cognitive-functioning, cognitive-reserve, cognitive-therapy, culture, Gingko-Biloba, human-brain, IQ, Lifelong-learning, maintain-your-brain, meditation, Neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, neuroprotective, Nutrition, Physical-Exercise, sharpbrains, SharpBrains-Guide-Brain-Fitness, smartbrains, stay-sharp, Stress

Can Google Kill Neurons and Rewire Your Whole Brain?

July 28, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

A few col­leagues and I just had an inter­est­ing exchange on the recent arti­cle at The Atlantic, Is Google Mak­ing Us Stu­pid?, which basi­cal­ly blamed Google for lit­er­al­ly rewiring our brains into more stu­pid brains (not being able to pay atten­tion, read deep books…) based on a num­ber of per­son­al anec­dotes and a lit­tle research. Is Google Making Us Stupid

My 2 cents: this is a com­plex top­ic and we’d first need to clar­i­fy the ques­tion, before look­ing for answers to sup­port or refute it. I found the Atlantic arti­cle super­fi­cial for a mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion, with its title and main premise mak­ing lit­tle sense: Google can not makes us stu­pid, in the same way that guns don’t make us vio­lent or pens don’t make us good writers.

The author of the arti­cle com­plains about hav­ing less of a num­ber of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties than he once had. Now, what is the case to make Google the main suspect?
Before we judge some­thing as “good” or “bad” or “stu­pid” we need to estab­lish: [Read more…] about Can Google Kill Neu­rons and Rewire Your Whole Brain?

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Atlantic, cognitive-abilities, Cognitive-Age, cognitive-decline, culture, David-Brooks, healthy-brains, Is-Google-Making-Us-Stupid?, Kill-Neurons, Learning, pay-attention, pedagogy, rewiring-our-brains

Peace Among Primates (Part 3)

April 20, 2008 by Greater Good Science Center

A few days ago we pub­lished the first and sec­ond install­ments of this Peace Among Pri­mates series, by neu­ro­sci­en­tist Robert Sapol­sky. Today we pub­lish the third and final one.

Peace Among Pri­mates (Part 3)

Any­one who says peace is not part of human nature knows too lit­tle about pri­mates, includ­ing ourselves.

–By Robert M. Sapolsky

Nat­ur­al born killers?

[Read more…] about Peace Among Pri­mates (Part 3)

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aggression, baboons, behavior, culture, Forest-Troop, Genetics, Greater-Good, hierarchy, Kenya, Learning, neuroscientist, peace, primates, Robert-Sapolsky

Bi-Weekly Update: Preventing Memory Loss and Public Policy

April 15, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you are have the bi-month­ly Digest of our most Pop­u­lar blog posts. (Also, remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive our blog RSS feed, or to our newslet­ter at the top of this page if you want to receive this digest by email).Crossword Puzzles Brain fitness

Brain Fit­ness News and Events

Upcom­ing Events: I will be speak­ing at five Health, Edu­ca­tion and Gam­ing events over the next cou­ple of months to intro­duce find­ings from our recent mar­ket report. Please intro­duce your­self if you attend any of these events.

Pre­vent­ing Mem­o­ry Loss-Spe­cial Issue: Con­gres­sion­al Quar­ter­ly Researcher, one of the main pub­li­ca­tions on Capi­tol Hill, pub­lished an impres­sive 24-page spe­cial issue titled Pre­vent­ing Mem­o­ry Loss. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed if you want to be on top of the lat­est research trends and their pol­i­cy implications.

[Read more…] about Bi-Week­ly Update: Pre­vent­ing Mem­o­ry Loss and Pub­lic Policy

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Baycrest, behaviors, Books, brain, brain-fitness-software, brain-wellness, Capitol-Hill, Centre-for-Brain-Fitness, cognitive, cognitive-assessments, cognitive-fitness, cognitive-health, Cognitive-Training, Congressional-Quarterly-Researcher, culture, Education & Lifelong Learning, Gaming, health, memory-loss, new-brain-games, Ontario-Government, Pascale-Michelon, Reduce-Alzheimers-Risks, Socializing

Peace Among Primates (Part 2)

April 12, 2008 by Greater Good Science Center

(Edi­tor’s Note: A few days ago we pub­lished the first install­ment of this Peace Among Pri­mates series, by neu­ro­sci­en­tist Robert Sapol­sky. Today we pub­lish the sec­ond install­ment. Next Sat­ur­day, April 19th, you can come back and read the third and final part in the series.)

Peace Among Pri­mates (Part 2)

Any­one who says peace is not part of human nature knows too lit­tle about pri­mates, includ­ing ourselves.

–By Robert M. Sapolsky

Left behind

In the ear­ly 1980s, “For­est Troop,” a group of savan­na baboons I had been studying—virtually liv­ing with—for years, was going about its busi­ness in a nation­al park in Kenya when a neigh­bor­ing baboon group had a stroke of luck: [Read more…] about Peace Among Pri­mates (Part 2)

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: baboons, behavior, culture, Forest-Troop, Genetics, Greater-Good, hierarchy, Kenya, Learning, neuroscientist, peace, primates, Robert-Sapolsky

Encephalon: Briefing the Next US President on Neuroscience & Psychology

February 18, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,

We are glad to wel­come you to our blog car­ni­val. After a short hia­tus, Encephalon is backScience Debate 2008 and gath­er­ing steam. We have pre­pared this “revival” edi­tion just for you, so you can be well informed and impress us all dur­ing the upcom­ing Sci­encede­bate 2008.

With­out fur­ther ado, let’s pro­ceed to the ques­tions posed by 24 blog­gers on neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy issues. We hope they pro­vide, at the very least, good men­tal stim­u­la­tion for you and your advisors.

Big Ques­tions

Do I deserve to vote even if I don’t have Free Will? (Marc at Neu­ro­sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Challenged).

If cul­ture sculpts our brains, what can our brains do to refine our cul­ture first? (Stephanie at Brains On Purpose).

Is God more than a fly­ing brain? (Jes­si­ca at bioephemera).

Is Your brain real­ly read­ing This? (Pete at Brain Hammer).

A Few Intru­sive Questions 

Do you play any musi­cal instru­ment? (Megan at SharpBrains).

[Read more…] about Encephalon: Brief­ing the Next US Pres­i­dent on Neu­ro­science & Psychology

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: 2008-Primaries, Alzheimers-cure, autism, blog-carnival, brains, cannabis, CIA, cognitive-skills, culture, depression-treatment, driving, Emotions, encephalon, FDA, free-will, health-policy, Neurofeedback, Neuroscience-blogs, Parkinson’s-disease, presidential-candidates, Psychology-blogs, PTSD, rational, Roomba, science, Science-and-technology, Sciencedebate-2008, Stress

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