neocortex

Understanding the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”

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From Macro to Micro: A Visu­al Guide to the Brain (IEEE Spectrum)

In the human brain, high­er-lev­el infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing occurs in the neo­cor­tex, neur­al tis­sue that forms the out­er lay­er of the cere­bral cor­tex. In its intri­cate folds, brain cells work togeth­er to inter­pret sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion and to form thoughts and plans. The neo­cor­tex is divid­ed into regions that take the lead on dif­fer­ent types of pro­cess­ing. How­ev­er, much of today’s neu­ro­science research focus­es on map­ping the con­nec­tome: the neur­al con­nec­tions between regions…Keep Read­ing Arti­cle.

To learn more:

Transcript: Paul Nussbaum on Meditation, Neuropsychology and Thanksgiving

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Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion yes­ter­day on holis­tic brain health with clin­i­cal neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Dr. Paul Nuss­baum, author of Save Your Brain. You can learn more about the full Brain Fit­ness Q&A Series Here.

Per­haps one of the best exchanges was: [Read more…] about Tran­script: Paul Nuss­baum on Med­i­ta­tion, Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and Thanksgiving

10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn — Ideas for New Year Resolutions

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My inter­est in the brain stems from want­i­ng to bet­ter under­stand both how to make school more palat­able for stu­dents, and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment more mean­ing­ful for fac­ul­ty. To that end, I began my Neu­rons Fir­ing blog in April, 2007, have been doing a lot of read­ing, and been attend­ing work­shops and con­fer­ences, includ­ing Learn­ing & the Brain.

If you agree that our brains are designed for learn­ing, then as edu­ca­tors it is incum­bent upon us to be look­ing for ways to max­i­mize the learn­ing process for each of our stu­dents, as well as for our­selves. Some of what fol­lows is sim­ply com­mon sense, but I’ve learned that all of it has a sci­en­tif­ic basis in our brains. [Read more…] about 10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn — Ideas for New Year Resolutions

Marian C. Diamond to open SharpBrains Summit

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What a bet­ter open­ing for our Jan­u­ary Sharp­Brains Sum­mit than to have Mar­i­an C. Dia­mond, one of the pio­neers of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty research since the 1960s, intro­duce us to the human brain, its anato­my and func­tion, and impli­ca­tions from neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for brain health and per­for­mance at any age.

marian_diamondMar­i­an C. Dia­mond, Ph.D., is Pro­fes­sor of Neu­ro­science and Anato­my at UC-Berke­ley  and one of the world’s fore­most researchers on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and enrich­ment since the 1960s . She is author of more than 100 sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles and three books, includ­ing Enrich­ing Hered­i­ty (Free Press/Simon and Schus­ter, 1988) and The Mag­ic Trees of the Mind (Plume, 1999). In par­tic­u­lar, she is inter­est­ed in study­ing the effects of the exter­nal envi­ron­ment, aging, and immune respons­es on the cere­bral neocortex.

You can read a num­ber of her pub­lic edu­ca­tion essays online:

To learn more sharpbrains_summit_logo_webabout the agen­da of the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit and the incred­i­ble ros­ter of speak­ers who have agreed to par­tic­i­pate in this impor­tant event, click on Sharp­Brains Sum­mit.

10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn

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My nat­ur­al rhythms are in cycle with the school cal­en­dar. Jan­u­ary 1st takes a back seat to my new year, which gets ush­ered in with the month of Sep­tem­ber when there is crisp­ness in the air that grad­u­al­ly shakes off the slow­er, more relaxed pace of summer.Conveniently, my career in teach­ing mesh­es with my nat­ur­al cycli­cal year. And as this year draws to a close, I am re-ener­gized by the pace of sum­mer, know­ing that any­thing may pop in to my mind as I engage in activ­i­ties not direct­ly relat­ed to school. But before that hap­pens, I’d like to reflect on this past year, in par­tic­u­lar as it was my first year of blog­ging about the brain.

My inter­est in the brain stems from want­i­ng to bet­ter under­stand both how to make school more palat­able for stu­dents, and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment more mean­ing­ful for fac­ul­ty. To that end, I began my Neu­rons Fir­ing blog in April, 2007, have been doing a lot of read­ing, and been attend­ing work­shops and con­fer­ences, includ­ing Learn­ing & the Brain.

If you agree that our brains are designed for learn­ing, then [Read more…] about 10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn

Your Trading Brain: Expert or Novice

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We had the for­tune to inter­view Dr. Brett Steen­barg­er on Enhanc­ing Trad­er Per­for­mance and The Psy­chol­o­gy of Trad­ing as we launched our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series.

Below, Expert Con­trib­u­tor Dr. Jan­ice Dorn pro­vides an in-depth brain-based dis­cus­sion of the top­ic, con­clud­ing that “The brain is the most pow­er­ful struc­ture in the known uni­verse and the only trad­ing tool that the trad­er needs to become an expert.”

No mat­ter whether you are a Pro or Ama­teur Trader…this will cer­tain­ly exer­cise your brain! (Dr. Dorn is prepar­ing more arti­cles on trad­ing per­for­mance and the brain…so stay tuned).

This is Your Brain On Trading

– By Dr. Jan­ice Dorn

The open­ing bell sounds, and six­ty mil­lion traders enter the great­est are­na in the world to do bat­tle with each oth­er. They put their mon­ey, beliefs and skills on the line as they make deci­sions to buy and sell. Wel­come to the finan­cial mar­kets where bil­lions of dol­lars are won and lost every day. Volatil­i­ty com­pels all to engage their brains in the con­tin­u­ous process of deci­sion mak­ing. What sep­a­rates the win­ning from los­ing traders is the way they use their most pow­er­ful trad­ing tool—the human brain.

[Read more…] about Your Trad­ing Brain: Expert or Novice