Study Links Obesity and Cognitive Fitness — In Both Directions

Obe­si­ty linked to Cog­ni­tion (Health­Canal): — “Obese peo­ple tend to per­form worse than healthy peo­ple at cog­ni­tive tasks like plan­ning ahead, a lit­er­a­ture review has found, con­clud­ing that psy­cho­log­i­cal tech­niques used to treat anorex­i­cs could help obese peo­ple too.”

Read More

Comparing Working Memory Training & Medication Treatment for ADHD

Work­ing mem­o­ry (WM) is the cog­ni­tive sys­tem respon­si­ble for the tem­po­rary stor­age and manip­u­la­tion of infor­ma­tion and plays an impor­tant role in both learn­ing and focus­ing atten­tion. Con­sid­er­able research has doc­u­ment­ed that many chil­dren and adults with ADHD have WM deficits and that this con­tributes to dif­fi­cul­ties asso­ci­at­ed with the dis­or­der. For an excel­lent introduction…

Read More

Alzheimer’s Early and Accurate Diagnosis: Normal Aging vs. Alzheimer’s Disease

(Edi­tor’s Note: I recent­ly came across an excel­lent book and resource, The Alzheimer’s Action Plan: The Experts’ Guide to the Best Diag­no­sis and Treat­ment for Mem­o­ry Prob­lems, just released in paper­back. Dr. Murali Doraiswamy, one of the authors and lead­ing Alzheimer’s expert, kind­ly helped us cre­ate a 2‑part arti­cle series to share with Sharp­Brains readers…

Read More

Improving the world, and one’s brain, at the same time

My wife and I just came back from an inspir­ing Gold­man Prize Award cer­e­mo­ny, where sev­en grass­roots envi­ron­men­tal change­mak­ers were rec­og­nized for their work and resilien­cy, and shared their pas­sion and pur­pose with every­one attend­ing the event. We did hear too from Al Gore, Tra­cy Chap­man, Robert Red­ford, and the founder of the awards 20…

Read More

Neuroscience, brain development and cognitive health

Round-up of recent arti­cles on neu­ro­science, brain devel­op­ment and cog­ni­tive health: Encephalon 68: A car­ni­val of neu­ro­science: Chris hosts a great col­lec­tion of neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy posts in his sig­na­ture Q&A style. Bilin­gual Babies Get Head Start — Before They Can Talk: — Unlike the mono­lin­gual group, the bilin­gual group was able to suc­cess­ful­ly learn a…

Read More