Travel and Engagement as Good Brain Exercise

Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty is defined as “the abil­i­ty of the brain to rewire itself through expe­ri­ence”. We typ­i­cal­ly sum­ma­rize a lot of brain research by encour­ag­ing Sharp­Brains read­ers is to seek for nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge, as guide­lines for “brain exer­cise” that will help build new con­nec­tions in the brain, force one to be mind­ful and pay…

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Best of the Brain from Scientific American

The Dana Foun­da­tion kind­ly sent us a copy of the great book Best of the Brain from Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, a col­lec­tion of 21 superb arti­cles pub­lished pre­vi­ous­ly in Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can mag­a­zine. A very nice­ly edit­ed and illus­trat­ed book, this is a must for any­one who enjoys learn­ing about the brain and spec­u­lat­ing about what the…

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Brain Training: MindFit workout

Just released in Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can: Mem­o­ry work­outs beat oth­er com­put­er games in study Some quotes “Train­ing the brain with a com­put­er work­out pro­gram may be bet­ter than clas­sic com­put­er games at staving off age-relat­ed men­tal decline, sci­en­tists report­ed on Fri­day.” “Researchers in Israel com­pared how one brain-train­ing pro­gram, Mind­Fit, fared ver­sus a work­out with a sampling…

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Smart Brains, Sharp Brain… new research on maintaining one

A New York Times edi­to­r­i­al print­ed today states:When test­ed five years lat­er, these par­tic­i­pants [in a cog­ni­tive train­ing study] had less of a decline in the skill they were trained in than did a con­trol group that received no cog­ni­tive train­ing. The pay­off from men­tal exer­cise seemed far greater than we are accus­tomed to get­ting for phys­i­cal exer­cise — as if 10 work­outs at the gym were enough to keep you fit five years later.and If fur­ther stud­ies show that men­tal exer­cis­es can improve every­day func­tion­ing, doc­tors may need to pre­scribe such train­ing, senior cen­ters may want to set up “brain gyms,” and aging Amer­i­cans would be wise to do brain-stretch­ing activities.

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