Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Memory-Training

Matthew Barrett: Human memory is not a recording device

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Matthew Barrett
Matthew Bar­rett

What excites you the most about your job?
As a Pro­fes­sor and the founder of Brain Train­ers Men­tal Fit­ness LLC, I love see­ing how the right infor­ma­tion can have a life-chang­ing effect on peo­ple.

Please tell us about your inter­est in applied brain sci­ence. What areas are you most inter­est­ed in? What moti­vat­ed you to pur­sue work in your field?
I’m an edu­ca­tor first and fore­most: I like to see peo­ple empow­ered with clear, accu­rate, and use­ful infor­ma­tion about their brains. Just under­stand­ing more about diet, exer­cise and sleep could rev­o­lu­tion­ize our soci­ety. Beyond edu­ca­tion, I’m espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in biofeed­back, neu­ro­feed­back, mind­ful­ness, men­tal ath­let­ics, and lucid dream­ing.

What are 1–2 key things you’d like every per­son to under­stand regard­ing his/ her own brain and mind, that you think is com­mon­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed or not addressed in the pop­u­lar media?

Peo­ple just expect too much of human mem­o­ry. It’s not a record­ing device. I can’t count the num­ber of times some­one has come to me think­ing there was some­thing “wrong” with their mem­o­ry, only to describe lim­i­ta­tions that are per­fect­ly nor­mal. I’m con­sid­er­ing putting this on my tomb­stone: “There is noth­ing wrong with you!” [Read more…] about Matthew Bar­rett: Human mem­o­ry is not a record­ing device

Update: Connecting technology, healthy living, healthcare, concussions, and the Brain

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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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Tech­nol­o­gy & the Brain:

Healthy Liv­ing & the Brain:

Health­care & the Brain:

Con­cus­sions & the Brain:

Have a great month of Octo­ber!

Pic cour­tesy of Big­Stock­Pho­to

Monitoring EEG Brain Activity to Personalize Memory Training

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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 more…] about Mon­i­tor­ing EEG Brain Activ­i­ty to Per­son­al­ize Mem­o­ry Train­ing

Transcript: Dr. Gary Small on Enhancing Memory and the Brain

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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 more…] about Tran­script: Dr. Gary Small on Enhanc­ing Mem­o­ry and the Brain

December Update: Wishing You and Yours a Very Brain-Fit Decade

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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 more…] about Decem­ber Update: Wish­ing You and Yours a Very Brain-Fit Decade

Memory Training Reduces Brain Atrophy

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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 more…] about Mem­o­ry Train­ing Reduces Brain Atro­phy