New Neurons: Good News, Bad News

Over the last year we have glad­ly seen an avalanche of news on adult neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (the cre­ation of new neu­rons in adult brains), fol­low­ing recent research reports. Fur­ther, we have seen how the news that phys­i­cal exer­cise can enhance neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis is becom­ing com­mon knowl­edge among many health sys­tems we work with. Now, the obvi­ous ques­tion that…

Read More

Use It or Lose It, and Cells that Fire together Wire together

Every­one has heard of “Use It or Lose It.” Now…what is “It”? Last week I gave a talk at the Ital­ian Con­sulate in San Fran­cis­co, and one of the areas atten­dees seemed to enjoy the most was learn­ing about what our brains are and how they work, peak­ing into the “black box” of our minds. With­out understanding…

Read More

Are there herbal and vitamin supplements that will protect my memory?

Omega‑3 and omega‑6 fat­ty acids found in cold-water fish may be help­ful to long term brain health.Folic acid may also be help­ful to both cog­ni­tive func­tion and hearing.Ginkgo bilo­ba and DHEA do not appear to help your brain.There is still more research to be done and nev­er dis­miss the place­bo effect!Omega‑3 fat­ty acids found in cold-water fish such as mack­er­el, her­ring, salmon, and tuna look more promis­ing. Giu­liano Fontani’s work at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Siena in Italy asso­ci­at­ed omega‑3 sup­ple­men­ta­tion with improved atten­tion­al and phys­i­o­log­i­cal func­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those involv­ing com­plex cor­ti­cal processing.

Read More