Are Schools (Cognitively) Nutritive for Children’s Complex Thinking?

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 10, 2008 |

Today we host a very stim­u­lat­ing essay on the impor­tance of prob­lem-solv­ing and encour­ag­ing com­plex game-play­ing for chil­dren’s com­plete “cog­ni­tive nutri­tion”. Enjoy! ——————– Chil­dren’s Com­plex Think­ing – By Tom O’Brien and Chris­tine Wal­lach Pop over to your neigh­bor­hood school and vis­it some class­rooms. Is what’s hap­pen­ing cog­ni­tive­ly nutri­tive? That is, does it sat­is­fy present needs…

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Cognitive Development and Brain Research: Articles, Books, Papers (ASA)

By Alvaro Fernandez | October 28, 2007 |

We had a very fun ses­sion titled Teach­ing Brain Fit­ness in Your Com­mu­ni­ty at an Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging (ASA) con­fer­ence for health pro­fes­sion­als a cou­ple of weeks ago. Full house, with over 60 atten­dants and very good par­tic­i­pa­tion, show­ing great inter­est in the top­ic. I can’t wait to see the eval­u­a­tions. These are some…

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Physical and Brain Exercise Boost Memory

By Alvaro Fernandez | August 6, 2007 |

Researchers at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty have just released a good paper show­ing the impor­tance of both phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise to main­tain good mem­o­ry (full text of research paper Sin­gle Enrich­ment Vari­ables Reduce Aged-relat­ed Mem­o­ry Decline in Female Mice). Some quotes from the Sci­ence Dai­ly release Exer­cise And Men­tal Stim­u­la­tion Both Boost Mouse Mem­o­ry Late In…

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Alzheimer’s Disease: too serious to play with headlines

By Alvaro Fernandez | June 21, 2007 |

We just came across an arti­cle titled Best Com­put­er Brain Games for Senior Cit­i­zens to Delay Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. The head­line makes lit­tle sci­en­tif­ic sense-and we observe this con­fu­sion often. The arti­cle men­tions a few pro­grams we have dis­cussed often in this blog, such as Posit Sci­ence and Mind­Fit, and oth­ers we haven’t because we haven’t…

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Brain training to live long and strong

By Alvaro Fernandez | June 14, 2007

If you want to live long and strong, you’ve got to do more than work out your body; you’ve got to exer­cise your brain, insists Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­o­gy at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine. While we’ve heard for years that men­tal stim­u­la­tion can stave off demen­tia and Alzheimer’s, Dr. Goldberg…

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Brain Exercise for the Frontal lobes: the McKinsey Mind

By Alvaro Fernandez | May 1, 2007 |

My first full-time job was as a strate­gic con­sul­tant at McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny. A very intense 2‑year learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Their Alum­ni News Ser­vice recent­ly inter­viewed me and pub­lished this great arti­cle on Sharp­Brains. The writer does a superb job of pro­vid­ing an overview of what we do, so I rec­om­mend you read it. I’d like…

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