executive functioning

Ballroom dancing can reduce aging-related brain atrophy in the hippocampus (and, more than treadmill walking!)

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Social ball­room danc­ing can improve cog­ni­tive func­tions and reduce brain atro­phy in old­er adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. That’s the key find­ing of my team’s recent­ly pub­lished study in the Jour­nal of Aging and Phys­i­cal Activity.

In our study, we enrolled 25 adults over 65 years of age in either six months of twice-week­ly ball­room danc­ing class­es or six months of twice-week­ly tread­mill walk­ing class­es. None of them were engaged in for­mal danc­ing or oth­er exer­cise pro­grams. [Read more…] about Ball­room danc­ing can reduce aging-relat­ed brain atro­phy in the hip­pocam­pus (and, more than tread­mill walking!)

Can brain scans identify ADHD and help predict treatment response?

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AdultADHDBrain—

Inside the adult ADHD brain (MIT News):

“About 11 per­cent of school-age chil­dren in the Unit­ed States have been diag­nosed with atten­tion deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD). While many of these chil­dren even­tu­al­ly “out­grow” the dis­or­der, some [Read more…] about Can brain scans iden­ti­fy ADHD and help pre­dict treat­ment response?

Study: For cognitive training to work, it must induce neuroplasticity in brain regions that matter

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connectomeOver the last sev­er­al years, cog­ni­tive train­ing has received large amounts of pub­lic inter­est and sup­port because reli­ably improv­ing cog­ni­tive per­for­mance would have wide reach­ing appli­ca­tions in clin­i­cal pop­u­la­tions, old­er adults, and the pub­lic at large. For exam­ple, cog­ni­tive train­ing could [Read more…] about Study: For cog­ni­tive train­ing to work, it must induce neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty in brain regions that matter

Study: Does Mindfulness Meditation training help adults with ADHD?

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MeditationAs aware­ness of ADHD in adults increas­es, so do efforts to devel­op effec­tive treat­ments for adults that can com­ple­ment, or sub­sti­tute for, med­ica­tion. One promis­ing treat­ment is mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion train­ing. [Read more…] about Study: Does Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion train­ing help adults with ADHD?