Book review of Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined

By Alvaro Fernandez | July 25, 2013

Just a cou­ple weeks ago I had a dis­cus­sion with sev­er­al psy­chol­o­gists and neu­rol­o­gists who seemed to share the opin­ion that “brain fit­ness” is a mean­ing­less con­cept and pur­suit. On the one hand, they thought, intel­li­gence is a fixed trait and no inter­ven­tion has shown so far to reli­ably increase it. On the oth­er hand,…

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Are we intelligent about developing human intelligence?

By Scott Barry Kaufman | June 13, 2013

When it comes to our under­stand­ing of human intel­li­gence, for too long, there has been a mis­match between the­o­ry and prac­tice. The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, the two main threads run­ning through def­i­n­i­tions of intel­li­gence have been (a) adap­ta­tion to the envi­ron­ment, and (b) the cog­ni­tive, affec­tive, and voli­tion­al char­ac­ter­is­tics that enable that adap­ta­tion. Prac­ti­cal­ly, IQ tests mea­sure an…

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Sensible decisions over hard prescriptions for lifelong brain health

By SharpBrains | June 7, 2013

Intel­li­gence tests offer insight into age­ing brain (BBC News): “Six­­ty-six years ago today, more than 70,000 10 and 11-year-old chil­dren across Scot­land took an intel­li­gence test…now they have formed the foun­da­tion of a remark­able research project which is pro­duc­ing valu­able insights into what lies behind cog­ni­tive decline — or age­ing of the brain…

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Why our brains weigh 1.3 kilograms, have ~100 billion neurons, consume 20% of the oxygen we breathe

By SharpBrains | April 12, 2012

Team­work Builds Big Brains (Sci­ence Now): — “The aver­age adult human’s brain weighs about 1.3 kilo­grams, has 100 bil­lion or so neu­rons, and sucks up 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe. It’s much big­ger than an ani­mal our size needs. Accord­ing to a new com­put­er mod­el, the brains of humans and relat­ed pri­mates are so large…

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Update: Time to become mental capitalists and invest in our brains?

By Alvaro Fernandez | November 30, 2011

Time for the Novem­ber edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of resources and insights on how to invest in our brains, includ­ing top­ics such as brain health, med­i­ta­tion, neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy, brain train­ing games, chemo brain, dyslex­ia, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, cog­ni­tive bias­es, stress, and more. Not to for­get a cou­ple of fun teasers. Enjoy! Brain Fit­ness Q&A…

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