Brain Scientists Identify Links between Arts, Learning

By Dana Foundation | May 24, 2009 |

Arts edu­ca­tion influ­ences learn­ing and oth­er areas of cog­ni­tion and may deserve a more promi­nent place in schools, accord­ing to a wave of recent neu­ro­science research.One recent study found that chil­dren who receive music instruc­tion for just 15 months show strength­ened con­nec­tions in musi­cal­ly rel­e­vant brain areas and per­form bet­ter on asso­ci­at­ed tasks, com­pared with…

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

By Alvaro Fernandez | April 24, 2009 |

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…

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Brain Health News: Top Articles and Resources in March

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 27, 2009 |

There’s such a flood of very sig­nif­i­cant research stud­ies, edu­ca­tion­al resources and arti­cles relat­ed to brain health, it’s hard to keep track — even for us! Let me intro­duce and quote some of the top Brain Health Stud­ies, Arti­cles and Resources pub­lished in March: 1) Cog­ni­tive Decline Begins In Late 20s, Study Sug­gests (Sci­ence Dai­ly) — “These patterns…

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Learning about Learning: an Interview with Joshua Waitzkin

By Scott Barry Kaufman | January 21, 2009 |

In 1993, Para­mount Pic­tures released Search­ing for Bob­by Fis­ch­er, which depicts Joshua Wait­zk­in’s ear­ly chess suc­cess as he embarks on a jour­ney to win his first Nation­al chess cham­pi­onship. This movie had the effect of weak­en­ing his love for the game as well as the learn­ing process. His pas­sion for learn­ing was reju­ve­nat­ed, how­ev­er, after…

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Epigenetics: Nature vs. Nurture?

By Alvaro Fernandez | October 19, 2008 |

In yes­ter­day’s inter­view with Michael Pos­ner, he says: — “There is a grow­ing num­ber of stud­ies that show the impor­tance of inter­ac­tion between our genes and each of our envi­ron­ments. Epi­ge­net­ics is going to help us under­stand that ques­tion bet­ter, but let me share a very inter­est­ing piece of research from my lab where we found…

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