10 Brain Fitness New Year’s Resolutions

You have sur­vived the 2007 shop­ping and eat­ing sea­son. Con­grat­u­la­tions! Now it’s time to shift gears and focus on 2008…whether you write down some New Year res­o­lu­tions or con­tem­plate some things that you want to let go of from last year and set inten­tions and goals for this year — as is a friend’s tradition…

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Alzheimer’s Prevention and Diagnostic Tests

Roundup of sev­er­al insight­ful arti­cles and recent research: Fish Oil May Help Pre­vent Alzheimer’s (Wash­ing­ton Post) — “The omega‑3 fat­ty acids found in fish oil might play an impor­tant role in pre­vent­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease, accord­ing to a research team at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les (UCLA).” — “Pub­lish­ing in the Dec. 26 issue of the…

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Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs

I hope you are hav­ing hap­py hol­i­days, and are get­ting ready for New Year cel­e­bra­tions. Best wish­es to you and your loved ones. Via Med­Jour­nal­Watch we just found this inter­est­ing paper, Asso­ci­a­tions of job demands and intel­li­gence with cog­ni­tive per­for­mance among men in late life. Guy G. Pot­ter PhD*, Michael J. Helms BS, and Bren­da L. Plassman…

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Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and other stress management techniques

We have explained before how men­tal stim­u­la­tion is impor­tant if done in the right sup­port­ive and engag­ing envi­ron­ment. Stan­ford’s Robert Sapol­sky and oth­ers’ have shown that chron­ic stress and cor­ti­cal inhi­bi­tion, which may be aggra­vat­ed due to imposed men­tal stim­u­la­tion, may prove coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Hav­ing the right moti­va­tion is essen­tial. A promis­ing area of sci­en­tif­ic inquiry…

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