placebo

One size does not fit all: Does the brain ‘remember’ antidepressants?

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Study offers more proof for the pow­er of place­bo, say UCLA researchers (UCLA press release):
— “While the rela­tion­ship between pri­or treat­ment and the brain’s response to sub­se­quent treat­ment is unknown, a new study by UCLA researchers sug­gests that how the brain responds to anti­de­pres­sant med­ica­tion may be influ­enced by its remem­ber­ing of past anti­de­pres­sant expo­sure.” [Read more…] about One size does not fit all: Does the brain ‘remem­ber’ antidepressants?

Update: Can Brain Science Enhance Living?

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Spon­sored Ad (How to Adver­tise on SharpBrains.com)

Time for our month­ly eNewslet­ter track­ing recent news and devel­op­ments on how the neu­ro­science of cog­ni­tion and emo­tions can inform edu­ca­tion and health across the lifes­pan. Let us try to be as con­cise as pos­si­ble, so you can spend as much time as pos­si­ble con­nect­ing with your Loved Ones instead of with the World Wide Web.

Wish­ing you a won­der­ful end of 2011 and a hap­py and suc­cess­ful 2012!

PS: thir­ty-nine peo­ple have reg­is­tered since this past Tues­day to par­tic­i­pate in the upcom­ing Online Course: How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach in 2012. Please remem­ber we will only be able to acco­mo­date the first two hun­dred reg­is­trants, so please take a look soon to see if you are inter­est­ed in joining!

Transcript: Dr. Gary Small on Enhancing Memory and the Brain

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Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion today on mem­ory, mem­ory tech­niques and brain-healthy lifestyles with Dr. Gary  Small, Direc­tor of UCLA’s Mem­ory Clin­ic and Cen­ter on Aging, and author of The Mem­ory Bible. You can learn more about his book  Here, and learn more about upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions Here.

Per­haps one of the best ques­tions and answers was:

2:55
Ques­tion: Gary, you’ve worked many years in this field. Let us in on the secret. What do YOU do you, per­son­al­ly, to pro­mote your own brain fitness?
2:57
Answer: I try to get at least 30 min­utes of aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing each day; try to min­i­mize my stress by stay­ing con­nect­ed with fam­i­ly and friends; gen­er­al­ly eat a brain healthy diet (fish, fruits, veg­eta­bles), and try to bal­ance my online time with my offline time. Which reminds me, I think it is almost time for me to sign off line. [Read more…] about Tran­script: Dr. Gary Small on Enhanc­ing Mem­o­ry and the Brain

Encephalon #61: Brain & Mind Reading for the Holidays

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Wel­come to the 61st edi­tion Encephalon brain blog carnivalof Encephalon, the blog car­ni­val that offers some of the best neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy blog posts every oth­er week.

We do have an excel­lent set of arti­cles today. cov­er­ing much ground. Enjoy the reading:

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Neu­ro­science and Society 

Neu­roan­thro­pol­o­gy,
by Greg Downey		 The Fly­nn Effect: Trou­bles with Intelligence
Aver­age IQ test scores had risen about 3 points per decade and in some cas­es more. Tests of vocab­u­lary, arith­metic, or gen­er­al knowl­edge (such as the sorts of facts one learns in school) have showed lit­tle increase, but scores have increased marked­ly on tests thought to mea­sure gen­er­al intelligence.
Mind­Hacks,
by Vaugh­an Bell		 Med­ical jar­gon alters our under­stand­ing of disease
Under­stand­ing how pop­u­lar ideas influ­ence our per­son­al med­ical beliefs is an essen­tial part of under­stand­ing med­i­cine itself.
Cog­ni­tive Dai­ly,
by Dave Munger		 Is it sex­ist to think men are angri­er than women?
Are we more like­ly to per­ceive a male face as angry and a female face as hap­py? A recent study sheds light on the issue.
Neu­r­o­crit­ic Crime, Pun­ish­ment, and Jer­ry Springer
Judges and jurors must put aside their emo­tion­al­ly-dri­ven desire for revenge when com­ing to an impar­tial ver­dict. Does neu­roimag­ing (fMRI) add any­thing to our under­stand­ing of justice?

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Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and Neu­rocog­ni­tive Health [Read more…] about Encephalon #61: Brain & Mind Read­ing for the Holidays

Mind Hacks and the Placebo Effect

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Placebo effect, mind hacksIn the ETech pan­el a few days ago, we dis­cussed some futur­is­tic and some emerg­ing ways in which we can “hack our minds”, most­ly from a tech­nol­o­gy point of view.

Nei­ther myself nor the oth­er pan­elists thought of sug­gest­ing the most obvi­ous and inex­pen­sive method, proven in thou­sands of research studies.

The secret com­pound?: Belief. Also called “the place­bo effect”. Let’s see what Wikipedia says:

[Read more…] about Mind Hacks and the Place­bo Effect

More on Neurofeedback’s Brain Training Value

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(Note: neu­ro­feed­back is a form of biofeed­back that mea­sures brain waves and that, accord­ing to prac­ti­tion­ers, pro­vides good “brain train­ing” for spe­cif­ic clin­i­cal conditions).
A few weeks ago Dr. David Rabin­er wrote a great post on How Strong is the Research Sup­port for Neu­ro­feed­back in Atten­tion Deficits?, con­clud­ing that

- “It is for these rea­sons that neu­ro­feed­back is under­stand­ably regard­ed as an unproven treat­ment approach for ADHD at this time by many ADHD researchers.

- How­ev­er, these stud­ies do pro­vide a sol­id basis for sug­gest­ing that if par­ents choose to pur­sue neu­ro­feed­back for their child, there is a rea­son­able chance that their child will ben­e­fit even though we can’t be sure that it is the spe­cif­ic EEG train­ing that is respon­si­ble for the ben­e­fits. Thus, although the effi­ca­cy of neu­ro­feed­back has yet to be con­clu­sive­ly con­firmed in a ran­dom­ized, place­bo-con­trolled tri­al, it is impor­tant to place this lim­i­ta­tion in the con­text of the sup­port­ive research evi­dence that has been accumulated.

[Read more…] about More on Neurofeedback’s Brain Train­ing Value