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Martin-Buschkuehl

Study: Working memory training can improve fluid intelligence

June 14, 2011 by Alvaro Fernandez

Very inter­est­ing new study on com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing (or brain train­ing), well sum­ma­rized in LA Times arti­cle Mem­o­ry train­ing improves intel­li­gence in some chil­dren, report says. Quote:

The train­ing pro­gram used by Jaeg­gi and co-work­ers focused on ramp­ing up work­ing mem­o­ry: the abil­i­ty to hold in mind a hand­ful of infor­ma­tion bits briefly, and to update them as need­ed. Cog­ni­tive sci­en­tists con­sid­er work­ing mem­o­ry a key com­po­nent of intel­li­gence. But they have [Read more…] about Study: Work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can improve flu­id intelligence

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain, Brain-Training, Cognitive-Training, Computerized-cognitive-training, information-overload, intelligence, Martin-Buschkuehl, math, overflowing-brain, Susanne-Jaeggi, Torkel-Klingberg, Working-memory, working-memory-training

Update: Live Well to 100 by Using Your Brain

November 30, 2009 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you have the Novem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter cov­er­ing 107px-gray1197thumbnailcog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page.

Liv­ing Well to 100

100 is the new 65: Why do some peo­ple live, and well, to 100? Researchers are try­ing to find out, reports Meera Lee Sethi at Greater Good Mag­a­zine. They are dis­cov­er­ing that genet­ic fac­tors may account for only 20 to 30 per­cent of a per­son­’s lifes­pan, while envi­ron­men­tal and behav­ioral fac­tors can dic­tate the oth­er 70 to 80 percent.

Does cof­fee boost cog­ni­tive func­tions over time? Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon weighs the evi­dence and reports good and bad news. The good news: long-term effects seem more pos­i­tive than neg­a­tive, so cof­fee leads to no clear harm. The bad news: there are no clear ben­e­fi­cial effects on gen­er­al brain func­tions (impli­ca­tion for pro­po­nents of “smart pills”: don’t use cof­fee as the analogy).

10 Inno­va­tions for the Aging Soci­ety: In the Thanks­giv­ing’s spir­it, we want to thank 10 pio­neers for emerg­ing inno­va­tions that may help mil­lions of peo­ple alive today to keep our brains in top shape per­haps till we are 100 or more. Many of those pio­neers will par­tic­i­pate in the inau­gur­al Sharp­Brains Sum­mit.

In Autopi­lot?

Train your autopilot.…and how to turn it off: Madeleine Van Hecke, Ph.D shares an excerpt from The Brain Advan­tage, in which she encour­ages main­tain­ing men­tal “autopi­lot” when it’s work­ing well, yet shift­ing to more con­scious delib­er­a­tions when needed.

Sci­en­tia Pro Pub­li­ca:  A good way to turn off autopi­lot is to enjoy some great sci­ence and nature blog­ging, cour­tesy of Sci­en­tia Pro Pub­li­ca blog car­ni­val. Addi­tion­al­ly, you can enjoy read­ing some of the best neu­ro­science, psy­chol­o­gy and med­ical blog­ging at the first ever com­bined Grand Rounds/ Encephalon edi­tion.

Games for Health

Games for Health Research: The Robert Wood John­son Foun­da­tion announced more than $1.85 mil­lion in grants for research teams to study how dig­i­tal games can improve play­ers health. One of the grantees is UCS­F’s Adam Gaz­za­ley (who will be speak­ing at the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit) to devel­op a dri­ving game for cog­ni­tive fit­ness among younger and old­er adults.

Smart indus­try-research col­lab­o­ra­tion: Lumos Labs and researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi and Mar­tin Buschkuehl announce a col­lab­o­ra­tion to make the orig­i­nal Dual N‑Back work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing pro­gram avail­able online and use it for ongo­ing research.

News

Mar­i­an C. Dia­mond to open Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Kick­ing off our Jan­u­ary 2010 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is Mar­i­an C. Dia­mond, one of the pio­neers of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty research since the 1960s. She will intro­duce us to the human brain, its anato­my and func­tion, and impli­ca­tions of  neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for brain health and per­for­mance at any age.

The Sharp­Brains Guide’s reviews and inter­views: a col­lec­tion of links to inter­views and reviews of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion (mem­bers-only): Dis­cus­sion on the future of com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py; Unit­ed BioSource acquires Cog­ni­tive Drug Research; inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ship between Nav­i­gen­ics and Posit Sci­ence; new research on brain impact of Tetris; how a drop in visu­al skills may pre­cede Alzheimer’s Dis­ease;  excel­lent report by the Nation­al Acad­e­mies for the US Army avail­able for free now.

Brain Teas­er

Who will you believe, me or your own eyes? dis­cov­er the 3 Win­ners of the 2009 Best Visu­al Illu­sion of the Year Con­test. Neu­ro­sci­en­tists Susana Mar­tinez-Conde and Stephen Mack­nik, who help orga­nize the con­test, will give a fun demo on Mag­ic and the Brain at Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, to dis­cuss the lim­its of human per­cep­tion and cognition.

Enjoy the final month of 2009!

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Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: Alzheimers-disease, Blog-Carnivals, boost cognitive functions, brain, Brain-Plasticity, brain-teaser, coffee, cognitive, Cognitive-Drug-Research, Cognitive-functions, encephalon, games for health research, Games-for-Health, genetic factors, Grand-Rounds, innovation, lumos-labs, magic, Martin-Buschkuehl, National Academies, neuroplasticity, RWJF, Scientia Pro Publica, smart pills, Susanne-Jaeggi, Tetris, United-BioSource, US-Army

Brain fitness & training heads towards its tipping point

January 19, 2009 by Dr. Gerard Finnemore

How do you know when some­thing is fast mov­ing towards a Glad­wellian tip­ping point? When health insur­ance com­pa­nies and pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers launch sig­nif­i­cant initiatives.

For exam­ple, the gov­ern­ment of Ontario recent­ly announced a $10 mil­lion invest­ment with Bay­crest Research Cen­tre who will part­ner with MaRS Ven­ture Group to devel­op and com­mer­cialise brain fit­ness tech­nolo­gies. The invest­ment was matched by an addi­tion­al $10 mil­lion from pri­vate sources.

Anoth­er impor­tant devel­op­ment was the $18 mil­lion agree­ment between the Aus­tralian-based Brain Resource Com­pa­ny (ASX:BRC) and OptumHealth in the US. This will allow for the pro­vi­sion of web-based cog­ni­tive assess­ments as part of a clin­i­cian’s deci­sion sup­port systems.

These are some ini­tia­tives cov­ered in a webi­nar Top Ten Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 pre­sent­ed in Decem­ber for Sharp­Brains’ clients. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez described the state of play and main dri­vers behind the growth of the bur­geon­ing brain fit­ness mar­ket — which I will try and sum­ma­rize here.

The key dri­vers seem to be [Read more…] about Brain fit­ness & train­ing heads towards its tip­ping point

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: ACE, aging-society, Allstate, baby-boomer, Baycrest, Brain-Fitness, Brain-health, Brain-Resource-Company, Brain-Training, cognifit, cognitive-assessments, cognitive-deficits, cognitive-enhancement, cognitive-fitness, cognitive-screenings, Dakim, FirstMark-Capital, fitbrains, Galen-Partners, ginkgo-biloba, Gladwell, health-insurance, intelligym, luminosity, lumos-labs, Lumosity, MaRS, Martin-Buschkuehl, mental-sharpness, Milk-Capital, neurobabble, neuroplasticity, Norman-Doidge, Norwest, Ontario, OptumHealth, Physical-Exercise, Posit-Science, public-policy, tipping-point, USA-Hockey, venture-capital, Vivity-Labs

Top 30 Brain Health and Fitness Articles of 2008

December 23, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here brain teasers job interview you have Sharp­Brains’ 30 most pop­u­lar arti­cles, ranked by the num­ber of peo­ple who have read each arti­cle in 2008.

Please note that, since the first arti­cle already includes most of our most pop­u­lar brain teasers, we have exclud­ed teasers from the rest of the rank­ing. (If those 50 are not enough for you, you can also try these brain teasers).

—

Blog Chan­nel
Arti­cle
Brain teasers
1. Top 50 Brain Teasers and Games to Test your Brain
It is always good to stim­u­late our minds and to learn a bit about how our brains work. Here you have a selec­tion of the 50 Brain Teasers that peo­ple have enjoyed the most.
Health & Wellness
2. The Ten Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Brains
Let’s review some good lifestyle options we can fol­low to main­tain, and improve, our vibrant brains. My favorite: don’t out­source your brain (even to us).
Cog­ni­tive Neuroscience
3. Why do You Turn Down the Radio When You’re Lost?
You’re dri­ving through sub­ur­bia one evening look­ing for the street where you’re sup­posed to have din­ner at a friend’s new house. You slow down to a crawl, turn down the radio, stop talk­ing, and stare at every sign. Why is that? Nei­ther the radio nor talk­ing affects your vision. Or do they?
Cog­ni­tive Neuroscience
4. Brain Plas­tic­i­ty: How learn­ing changes your brain
You may have heard that the brain is plas­tic. As you know the brain is not made of plas­tic! Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty or brain plas­tic­i­ty refers to the brain’s abil­i­ty to CHANGE through­out life.
Brain Fit­ness Industry
5. Top 10 Brain Train­ing Future Trends
In an emerg­ing mar­ket like brain fit­ness train­ing, it is dif­fi­cult to make pre­cise pro­jec­tions. But, we can observe a num­ber of trends that exec­u­tives, con­sumers, pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers, and the media should watch close­ly in the com­ing years, as brain fit­ness and train­ing becomes main­stream, new tools appear, and an ecosys­tem grows around it.

[Read more…] about Top 30 Brain Health and Fit­ness Arti­cles of 2008

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: adhd, brain, Brain Teasers, brain-age, Brain-Fitness, brain-fitness-market, brain-fitness-software, Brain-games, Brain-health, Brain-Plasticity, brain-software, brain-tests, brain-tips, Brain-Training, brain-training-games, brain-training-market, cognitive, cognitive-development, cognitive-health, Cognitive-Training, Elkhonon-Goldberg, exercise, fitness, health, improve-memory, intelligence, Judith-Beck, lifestyle, Martin-Buschkuehl, meditation, mental-workout, mindfulness-meditation, Neurofeedback, neuroplasticity, PBS, Physical-Exercise, Posit-Science, test-your-brain, Tetris, Working-memory

Can Intelligence Be Trained? Martin Buschkuehl shows how

May 13, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Today I had a great con­ver­sa­tion with Mar­tin Buschkuehl, one of the Uni­ver­si­ty Martin Buschkuehl of Michi­gan Cog­ni­tive Neu­roimag­ing Lab researchers  involved in the cog­ni­tive train­ing study that has received much media atten­tion (New York Times, Wired, Sci­ence News…) since late April, when the study was pub­lished at the Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sciences.

Ref­er­ence: Jaeg­gi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Per­rig, W. J. (2008). Improv­ing Flu­id Intel­li­gence With Train­ing on Work­ing Mem­o­ry. Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, 105(19), 6829–6833 (You can read it here, with subscription).

Before you keep read­ing, let me clar­i­fy a cou­ple of terms:

[Read more…] about Can Intel­li­gence Be Trained? Mar­tin Buschkuehl shows how

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: BrainTwister, cognitive-benefits, Computerized-cognitive-training, fluid-intelligence, John-Joindes, Martin-Buschkuehl, mental-exercise, n-back-task, Physical-Exercise, Proceedings-of-the-National-Academy-of-Sciences, psychologists, Susanne-Jaeggi, Working-memory

Brain Exercise: Software vs. Crosswords

May 6, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Today I had a great con­ver­sa­tion with Mar­tin Buschkuehl, one of the U Michi­gan researchers involved in the cog­ni­tive train­ing study that has received much media atten­tion since ear­ly last week, when the study was pub­lished at the Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences.

I will pub­lish the inter­view notes next week. For the moment, let me para­phrase his answer to the ques­tion: “Why are com­put­er­ized pro­grams like the one you used fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from, say, sim­ply doing many cross­word puzzles?”.

[Read more…] about Brain Exer­cise: Soft­ware vs. Crosswords

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: assessments, brain-age, brain-exercise, cognitive-health, crosswords, IQ-test, Martin-Buschkuehl, Neurosoftware, Physical-Fitness, PNAS, smarter, software, stress-management, technology

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