Brain Fitness Blog Carnival #1

Wel­come to the inau­gur­al edi­tion of the Brain Fit­ness Blog Car­ni­val. The tim­ing could­n’t be bet­ter  you have prob­a­bly seen the fea­tured CBS News/TIME Series on Brain Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty. Thanks to the over 40 peo­ple who sub­mit­ted posts. We have had to select the posts we enjoyed the most to help facil­i­tate an engag­ing and informed…

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Brain fitness programs: why are so many appearing now?

Question:Why are so many brain fit­ness pro­grams appear­ing now?Key Points:Research on cog­ni­tive exer­cise and its clin­i­cal appli­ca­tions and tools have been around for a long time in hos­pi­tals and the military.Gaming has become so pop­u­lar and wide­spread, that it is an easy and nat­ur­al medi­um to uti­lize for brain fitness.Science is being pub­lished that shows how brain exer­cise can lead to enhanced neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty (growth of new neu­rons and con­nec­tions between them) through­out life.

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CBS News/TIME Series on Brain Neuroplasticity and Memory Exercises

CBS News and TIME mag­a­zine are team­ing up for a five-part series on the “The Com­pli­cat­ed, Mes­mer­iz­ing World of the Brain”.If you want to catch it:The CBS News reports began Wednes­day, Jan. 17, with three parts to air on the CBS Evening News (6:30–7 p.m. ET) and two parts on The Ear­ly Show (7–9 a.m. ET/PT), as well as extend­ed, Web-exclu­sive reports on CBSNews.com and com­pan­ion pro­gram­ming on CBS Radio News.

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Improving Your Brain Tools: Reading Emotional Messages in the Face

Con­cealed emo­tions, microex­pres­sions, are the fleet­ing expres­sions that peo­ple make when they are con­scious­ly or uncon­scious­ly try­ing to hide their true emo­tion­al response.In con­scious microex­pres­sions they may be try­ing to lie, while with uncon­scious expres­sions, they may not even be aware of what they are tru­ly feeling.Ekman has made a study of these microex­pres­sions and can pro­vide you the train­ing you need to rec­og­nize them, and the coun­sel­ing you need on how to use that insight appropriately.According to Ekman, “These expres­sions tend to be very extreme and very fast. Eighty to 90 per­cent of peo­ple we test­ed don’t see them.”

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Cogmed, Freeze-Framer, IntelliGym, MindFit, Posit Science

We are spend­ing more time talk­ing to jour­nal­ists these days. A fre­quent ques­tion we receive is, “OK, which com­put­er-based pro­grams do you con­sid­er to be Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams, not just “games” for pure fun”?. Our answer: the rate of devel­op­ment of new pro­grams by neu­ro­sci­en­tists world­wide is real­ly increas­ing, and there are already a few out there…

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