Update: Harness Neuroplasticity with Enthusiasm, Exercise & Personalized Medicine

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 28, 2012

Time for Sharp­Brains’ Feb­ru­ary 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing in this occa­sion mul­ti­ple and com­ple­men­tary per­spec­tives on how to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: with enthu­si­asm, BOTH phys­i­cal AND cog­ni­tive exer­cise, and (once tools become bet­ter stan­dard­ized and wide­ly avail­able) brain-based per­son­al­ized med­i­cine. Fea­tured Per­spec­tives: To Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Start with Enthu­si­asm, by Dr. Hele­na Popovic Q&A with Dr. Yaakov Stern on Brain Reserve,…

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Enhance Metacognition and Problem-Solving by Talking Out Loud to Yourself

By Judith C. Tingley, PhD | February 9, 2012

The MC at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan’s reunion din­ner encour­aged audi­ence mem­bers to reveal the most sig­nif­i­cant take-away from their under­grad­u­ate nurs­ing edu­ca­tion. The great­est ben­e­fit was quick­ly clear to me — prob­lem-solv­ing think­ing. Mem­o­ry pro­duced a mind video: a short, dark-haired, nurs­ing instruc­tor lec­tur­ing a small group of first year stu­dents in an empty…

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Do Crossword Puzzles Help to Counteract the Aging Process? If so, Which Ones and How?

By Nick Almond | February 4, 2011 |

Recent­ly there has been an ongo­ing debate as to whether attempt­ing cross­words reg­u­lar­ly can stave off cog­ni­tive decline, which is the hall­mark of healthy aging and demen­tia. As with many areas of psy­chol­o­gy the answer to this ques­tion may not be as clear-cut as one would hope. Before con­sid­er­ing the evi­dence for whether cross­word participation…

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