Time for Sharp­Brains’ Sep­tem­ber 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing lead­ing-edge research and insights to help con­nect the dots among tech­nol­o­gy, healthy liv­ing, healthare, con­cus­sions, and–our protagonist–the brain.

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• Is the Inter­net mak­ing us dumb­er? (Nope, just dif­fer­ent)
• Increas­ing cog­ni­tive loads on min­ers’ brains: good exam­ple of where soci­ety is head­ing
• Brain fit­ness meets HRV and EEG bio­met­rics
• Employ­ee Assis­tance Pro­grams enhance cor­po­rate well­ness with brain train­ing
• The NIH Toolbox:First Com­pre­hen­sive & Stan­dard­ized Tests of Brain Func­tion
• MMSE®/MMSE®-2™ Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment Screen­er, Now a Mobile App

Healthy Liv­ing & the Brain:

• Why do Super­Agers Main­tain Mem­o­ry and a Thick Cor­tex?
• Will Medicare’s Annu­al Well­ness Vis­it enhance phys­i­cal & cog­ni­tive health? Prob­a­bly — if peo­ple go
• Health val­ue of Omega‑3 sup­ple­ments is increas­ing­ly ques­tioned
• Good Q&A on Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment

Health­care & the Brain:

• Map­ping the Brain To Bet­ter Enhance and Treat the Mind
• Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py or med­ica­tion? Brain scans may help per­son­al­ize treat­ments
• Mon­i­tor­ing EEG Brain Activ­i­ty to Per­son­al­ize Mem­o­ry Train­ing
• Train­ing Atten­tion and Mem­o­ry after Bypass Surgery
• MRI scan tech­ni­cians can expe­ri­ence neg­a­tive neu­rocog­ni­tive effects

Con­cus­sions & the Brain:

• Retool­ing cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion for mil­i­tary patients with trau­mat­ic brain injury
• NFL donates $30 mil­lion to improve con­cus­sion & brain injury care

Pic cour­tesy of Big­Stock­Pho­to

San­dia shows mon­i­tor­ing brain activ­i­ty dur­ing study can help pre­dict test per­for­mance (press release):

“The team mon­i­tored test sub­jects’ brain activ­i­ty while they stud­ied word lists, then used the EEG (elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy) to pre­dict who would remem­ber the most infor­ma­tion. Because Read the rest of this entry »

Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion today on mem­ory, mem­ory tech­niques and brain-healthy lifestyles with Dr. Gary  Small, Direc­tor of UCLA’s Mem­ory Clin­ic and Cen­ter on Aging, and author of The Mem­ory Bible. You can learn more about his book  Here, and learn more about upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions Here.

Per­haps one of the best ques­tions and answers was:

2:55
Ques­tion: Gary, you’ve worked many years in this field. Let us in on the secret. What do YOU do you, per­son­al­ly, to pro­mote your own brain fit­ness?
2:57
Answer: I try to get at least 30 min­utes of aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing each day; try to min­i­mize my stress by stay­ing con­nect­ed with fam­i­ly and friends; gen­er­al­ly eat a brain healthy diet (fish, fruits, veg­eta­bles), and try to bal­ance my online time with my offline time. Which reminds me, I think it is almost time for me to sign off line. Read the rest of this entry »

How can we help younger gen­er­a­tions find the right path to life­long brain health and per­for­mance — espe­cial­ly as they will live longer, and in more dynam­ic, com­plex envi­ron­ments? We cre­at­ed the Brain Health across the Lifes­pan series to curate reli­able sources of infor­ma­tion, and here you can  check out  the Top 10 Resources to Bet­ter Under­stand the Teenage Brain.

Wish­ing you and your fam­i­ly a very brain-fit decade…please enjoy the Decem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly eNewslet­ter: Read the rest of this entry »

Numer­ous stud­ies show ben­e­fits of cog­ni­tive train­ing in old­er adults, despite a recent study ques­tion­ing their valid­i­ty. The debate on the effects of spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions is not set­tled.

A find­ing that researchers do seem to agree on is that aging is accom­pa­nied by brain and cog­ni­tive decline. These reduc­tions seem to be mod­i­fi­able through cog­ni­tive and phys­i­cal exer­cise. In this vein, our lab recent­ly demon­strat­ed that old­er adults involved in an 8‑week mem­o­ry train­ing pro­gram show less brain atro­phy. This gives some hope for old­er adults won­der­ing whether their train­ing efforts are real­ly worth­while. Read the rest of this entry »