Mixed reaction to new BRAIN initiative

Map­ping the mind—smart think­ing for brain health? (The Lancet):  “…Will the real­i­ty match the ambi­tion? Reac­tion has been mixed…Given that our brains change, learn, think, remem­ber, and are shaped by our expe­ri­ences, inter­ac­tions with oth­er peo­ple, and soci­ety, map­ping the elec­tri­cal spikes in the brain seems an over­ly restric­tive bio­med­ical approach to under­stand­ing the most…

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TEDWeekends: Retooling Brain Care With Low-Cost, Data-Driven Technologies

I was asked to con­tribute to this week­end’s TED­Week­end on how “Sim­ple Solu­tions Can Heal the Mass­es,” by com­ment­ing on a great TEDTalk by Max Lit­tle, “A Test For Parkin­son’s With A Phone Call.” Enjoy, share, and please add your two cents to my arti­cle: Retool­ing Brain Care With Low-Cost, Data-Dri­ven Tech­nolo­gies (The Huff­in­g­ton Post)

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Fast cycling can help Parkinson’s Disease patients strengthen brain connectivity for motor ability

Exer­cise Rate Relat­ed to Improve­ments in Parkinson’s Dis­ease (RSNA release): “Peo­ple with Parkin­son’s dis­ease ben­e­fit from exer­cise pro­grams on sta­tion­ary bicy­cles, with the great­est effect for those who ped­al faster, accord­ing to a study pre­sent­ed today at the annu­al meet­ing of the Radi­o­log­i­cal Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca (RSNA). Func­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing (fcM­RI) data…

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Michael Merzenich on Brain Training, Assessments, and Personal Brain Trainers

Inter­view with Dr. Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor at UCSF, a lead­ing pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invent­ed the cochlear implant. In 1996, he was the found­ing CEO of Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Nas­daq: SCIL), and in 2004 became co-founder and Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer of Posit Sci­ence. He was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in 1999 and to the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine this year. He retired as Fran­cis A. Sooy Pro­fes­sor and Co-Direc­tor of the Keck Cen­ter for Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San Fran­cis­co in 2007. You may have learned about his work in one of PBS TV spe­cials, mul­ti­ple media appear­ances, or neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty-relat­ed books.

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Closing the Circuit: Helen Mayberg’s research could revolutionize depression treatment

At some point in their lives, 5 to 12 per­cent of Amer­i­can men and 10–25 per­cent of women will suf­fer an episode of depres­sion, mak­ing it the most com­mon­ly diag­nosed men­tal dis­or­der today. Unlike nor­mal sad­ness, which pass­es with time, depres­sion feels unstop­pable and caus­es peo­ple to lose inter­est in near­ly all activ­i­ties. Because it…

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Improving Driving Skills and Brain Functioning- Interview with ACTIVE’s Jerri Edwards

Today we are for­tu­nate to inter­view Dr. Jer­ri Edwards, an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­si­ty of South Flori­da’s School of Aging Stud­ies and Co-Inves­ti­­ga­­tor of the influ­en­cial ACTIVE study. Dr. Edwards was trained by Dr. Kar­lene K. Ball, and her research is aimed toward dis­cov­er­ing how cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties can be main­tained and even enhanced with advanc­ing age.…

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