language

Brain Teaser: Ready to stimulate those neurons in your temporal lobes?

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Lan­guage is pri­mar­i­ly processed in the tem­po­ral lobes–on the sides of your brain, next to you tem­ples, most­ly on the left side–and dif­fer­ent areas in the tem­po­ral lobes deal with dif­fer­ent aspects of lan­guage. For exam­ple, the Wer­nicke area sup­ports your abil­i­ty to under­stand words, where­as the Bro­ca area allows you to pro­duce lan­guage or artic­u­late words.

Let’s try a fun brain teas­er to help you exer­cise a good range of those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes… [Read more…] about Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

Study: Brain scans mapping language and memory areas can help guide epilepsy-related surgeries

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---Language task fMRI and resting-state fMRI data from a presurgical patient with left temporal lobe epilepsy. Copyright Bradley Goodyear, Einat Liebenthal and Victoria Mosher.
—Lan­guage task fMRI and rest­ing-state fMRI data from a presur­gi­cal patient with left tem­po­ral lobe epilep­sy. Copy­right Bradley Goodyear, Einat Lieben­thal and Vic­to­ria Mosher.

Can brain scans help doc­tors nav­i­gate epilep­sy surgery? (UPI)

“…When med­ica­tion does­n’t effec­tive­ly con­trol epilep­sy, surgery may be rec­om­mend­ed. Doc­tors can remove the part of the brain that trig­gers seizures or use cer­tain pro­ce­dures to con­trol seizure activity.

Before surgery, how­ev­er, the brain must be “mapped” to ensure the regions respon­si­ble for lan­guage and mem­o­ry aren’t dam­aged dur­ing [Read more…] about Study: Brain scans map­ping lan­guage and mem­o­ry areas can help guide epilep­sy-relat­ed surgeries

To boost attention and other cognitive skills, learn AND continually practice a second language

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language learningStudy: Short-term lan­guage learn­ing boosts cog­ni­tive agili­ty (UPI):

“Stud­ies have shown learn­ing a sec­ond lan­guage can improve a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive functions…Scottish researchers found that stu­dents demon­strat­ed improved atten­tion abil­i­ties after just a week of lan­guage learn­ing [Read more…] about To boost atten­tion and oth­er cog­ni­tive skills, learn AND con­tin­u­al­ly prac­tice a sec­ond language

Under new CEO, Lumosity to expand brain training platform with focus on applied skills and broader social, wellness factors

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lumosityLumosity’s Stum­ble Reveals How We Think About Think­ing (Buz­zFeed News):

“The ads were per­va­sive, pop­ping up on CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Google search­es. And they were per­sua­sive: Play­ing Lumos­i­ty games would do your brain good…But these claims sound­ed a lit­tle too rosy to the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion, which [Read more…] about Under new CEO, Lumos­i­ty to expand brain train­ing plat­form with focus on applied skills and broad­er social, well­ness factors

4 Essential (and Overlooked) Facts About Your Brain and Your Mind

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NeuronsAn aspir­ing clar­inetist begins by get­ting a sense of the way the instrument’s sounds are pro­duced by the air she blows through it. A dri­ver must be acquaint­ed with var­i­ous vehi­cle fun­da­men­tals, such as adding gas, accel­er­at­ing, and read­ing the speedome­ter. It is no dif­fer­ent with the brain. Max­i­miz­ing your brain’s health and per­for­mance begins with a basic under­stand­ing of how it works and how it evolves across the lifespan.

The human brain evolved to help us oper­ate in com­plex, chang­ing envi­ron­ments by con­tin­u­al­ly learn­ing and adapt­ing. Suc­cess­ful­ly doing so involves [Read more…] about 4 Essen­tial (and Over­looked) Facts About Your Brain and Your Mind

Master a new language and grow hippocampus and cerebral cortex

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Learn­ing New Lan­guages Helps The Brain Grow (Med­ical News):

“The learn­ing of lan­guages allows the brain to stay “in shape”, by caus­ing cer­tain parts of the brain to grow, includ­ing the hip­pocam­pus and three areas of the cere­bral cortex…This find­ing came from sci­en­tists at Lund Uni­ver­si­ty, after exam­in­ing young recruits with a tal­ent for acquir­ing lan­guages who were able to speak in Ara­bic, Russ­ian, or Dari flu­ent­ly after just 13 months of learn­ing, before which they had no knowl­edge of the lan­guages [Read more…] about Mas­ter a new lan­guage and grow hip­pocam­pus and cere­bral cortex