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Memory-Training

UC study finds near-transfer of cognitive training to be necessary (yet not sufficient) for far-transfer, broader benefits

June 21, 2022 by SharpBrains

Guicheng “Ariel” Tan / UCI Work­ing Mem­o­ry & Plas­tic­i­ty Lab

Who ben­e­fits from brain train­ing, and why? (UCI release):

If you are skilled at play­ing puz­zles on your smart­phone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puz­zles, or more broad­ly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the lan­guage of psy­chol­o­gists, does “near trans­fer” pre­dict “far transfer”?

A team of psy­chol­o­gists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side reports in Nature Human Behav­ior that peo­ple who show near trans­fer are more like­ly to show far trans­fer. For a per­son skilled at play­ing a game, such as Wor­dle, near trans­fer refers to being skilled at sim­i­lar games, such as a cross­word puz­zle. An exam­ple of far trans­fer for this per­son would be the abil­i­ty to bet­ter focus on dai­ly life activ­i­ties. [Read more…] about UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain training, Brain-Plasticity, brain-training-games, cognitive-abilities, far transfer, games, Memory-Training, near transfer, neuroplasticity, puzzles, video-game, working-memory-training

On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

October 30, 2020 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above.

#1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” – Sil­via Rodriguez-Roza­da, Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, Ham­burg. Award-win­ning image shows neu­roimag­ing progress in a century

#2. One more rea­son why life­long learn­ing mat­ters: Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

#3. It’s Fri­day; per­fect time to make some fun and healthy week­end plans: How feel­ing awe in nature can spur men­tal well-being and per­son­al growth

#4. Not a bad idea either: On cut­ting “emp­ty brain calo­ries” by read­ing a book instead of social media

#5. “…humil­i­ty helps peo­ple let go of defen­sive­ness, take in infor­ma­tion that chal­lenges their polit­i­cal views, and see the human­i­ty in peo­ple on the oth­er side of the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Though it’s not always easy to embrace—especially for those who wrong­ful­ly equate it with weak­ness or a lack of conviction—humility may be what we des­per­ate­ly need right now in the Unit­ed States.” On per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tive bias and cul­ti­vat­ing humil­i­ty ahead of next week’s vote

#6. “When it feels like the world is crash­ing down around them, giv­ing young peo­ple a moment to feel, express, and receive grat­i­tude can help—and that in itself is some­thing to be grate­ful for.” Study: A com­bined teach­ing + app grat­i­tude pro­gram helps ado­les­cents address anx­i­ety and improve men­tal health

#7. To hon­or ADHD Aware­ness Month, let’s address this most impor­tant ques­tion: What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant medication?

#8. Debate: Can mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion be harm­ful? Two new stud­ies answer the ques­tion in appar­ent­ly oppo­site but actu­al­ly quite com­ple­men­tary ways.

#9. Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhance­ment” sup­ple­ments in the US found both to a) con­tain mul­ti­ple unap­proved drugs and b) lack some ingre­di­ents list­ed on the label. Your take?

#10. “…new study fund­ed by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health that aims to recruit 30,000 vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in a mem­o­ry train­ing study that com­pares mul­ti­ple approach­es to train work­ing mem­o­ry”: Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

#11. “Vir­tu­al real­i­ty is a promis­ing skills-based behav­ioral med­i­cine that has been shown to have high patient engage­ment and sat­is­fac­tion,” said Beth Dar­nall, PhD, AppliedVR’s chief sci­ence advi­sor. “How­ev­er, chron­ic pain patients to date have had very lim­it­ed access to it, so we’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing with the FDA to devel­op our plat­form and get it into the mar­ket faster.” The FDA clears Applied­VR head­set to help treat fibromyal­gia and chron­ic pain

#12. “Hav­ing run a media com­pa­ny in a tough mar­ket with a young, mil­len­ni­al work­force, we wit­nessed first-hand how there was a com­plete lack of invest­ment in help­ing this gen­er­a­tion with their men­tal health in a way that they’re used to: a com­mu­ni­ty prod­uct that is mobile-first and video-led. We want to make the world a hap­pi­er place by mak­ing work­ing on your men­tal health as nor­mal as going to the gym.” — Adnan Ebrahim, co-founder and CEO of Mind­Labs. What will the ‘Pelo­ton for men­tal health’ look like five years from now? And, who will devel­op it?

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy November,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: awe, behavior-therapy, brain-enhancement, cognitive-bias, FDA, humility, Lifelong-learning, medication, meditation, Memory-Training, mental health, mindfulness, Neurons, neuroscience, supplements, virtual-reality, Working-memory

Given cognitive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain training may work best for each person and under which conditions?

September 29, 2020 by SharpBrains

Does ‘Brain Train­ing’ Actu­al­ly Work? (Sci­en­tif­ic American):

If there were an app on your phone that could improve your mem­o­ry, would you try it? Who wouldn’t want a bet­ter mem­o­ry? After all, our rec­ol­lec­tions are frag­ile and can be impaired by dis­eases, injuries, men­tal health con­di­tions and, most acute­ly for all of us, aging. [Read more…] about Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, Brain Game Center, brain training, Brain-exercises, Brain-games, cognitive decline, cognitive needs, cognitive strengths, cognitive-benefits, cognitive-skills, improve your memory, improve-memory, Memory-Training, mental-fitness, National-Institutes-of-Health, public-health, Working-memory, working-memory-training

Large UC study to investigate when and how brain training transfers (or does not) to broader cognitive and health benefits

July 16, 2020 by SharpBrains

Anja Pahor and Aaron Seitz

Nation­wide project seeks to under­stand how brain exer­cis­es pro­duce cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits (UC press release):

How does mem­o­ry train­ing lead to cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits? Aaron Seitz, direc­tor of the Brain Game Cen­ter for men­tal fit­ness and well-being at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side, has wres­tled with this ques­tion for sev­er­al years.

Now he and Susanne Jaeg­gi, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the UC Irvine School of Edu­ca­tion; and Anja Pahor, for­mer­ly a post­doc­tor­al researcher at UCR; are ready to address it by launch­ing a nation­wide project that seeks to engage 30,000 peo­ple in dif­fer­ent vari­ants of mem­o­ry train­ing through apps devel­oped by the Brain Game Center.

[Read more…] about Large UC study to inves­ti­gate when and how brain train­ing trans­fers (or does not) to broad­er cog­ni­tive and health benefits

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain Game Center, Brain-exercises, Brain-games, cognitive decline, cognitive-benefits, cognitive-skills, Memory-Training, mental-fitness, public-health, Working-memory, working-memory-training

To maximize cognitive benefits, study suggests you exercise brain and body at the same time

February 23, 2018 by SharpBrains

___

Phys­i­cal and men­tal mul­ti­task­ing may boost mem­o­ry, study sug­gests (UCLA research alert):

“Per­form­ing mem­o­ry train­ing exer­cis­es at the same time as ped­al­ing a sta­tion­ary bike led to bet­ter gains in mem­o­ry than doing the train­ing exer­cis­es after work­ing up a sweat, accord­ing to a 55-per­son study led by UCLA researchers. The find­ings sug­gest that exer­cise may tem­porar­i­ly make it eas­i­er for the brain to cre­ate new mem­o­ries [Read more…] about To max­i­mize cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits, study sug­gests you exer­cise brain and body at the same time

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aerobic-exercise, Alzheimer’s Disease, cognitive-decline, Cognitive-Training, dementia, Memory-Training, Physical-activity, subjective memory complaints

The future (of Brain Health & Enhancement) is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed

November 20, 2017 by Alvaro Fernandez

_____

“The future is already here — it’s just not very even­ly dis­trib­uted” — William Gibson

Last week we asked the ques­tion, Have you ever used–for your­self or for others–technologies or prod­ucts that you think would fall into the cat­e­go­ry of brain enhance­ment? a) If Yes, what did you use and what lessons learned can you share? b) If No, what issues would you like to see addressed before con­sid­er­ing doing so?

Thank you every­one for your great answers and comments!

They are very valu­able in help­ing us final­ize the agen­da of the the upcom­ing 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th).

As a token of appre­ci­a­tion, we are issu­ing 4 com­pli­men­ta­ry Sum­mit pass­es for Eva, A. Mark, Kitt and Gwyneth to join the Sum­mit and add their per­spec­tives and ques­tions to the mix, based on these insight­ful answers (light­ly edit­ed for clar­i­ty). [Read more…] about The future (of Brain Health & Enhance­ment) is already here — it’s just not very even­ly distributed

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Alpha-Stim, Anki, app, brain-enhancement, brain-sensing, Brain-Training, Calm, Calm app, CBT-I, dual n-back, electrostimulation, headband, heartmath, HRV biofeedback, iPad, Lumosity, Memory-Training, mindfulness-meditation, Muse, Neurofeedback, Virtual Hope Box

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