Why “Untrained Brains Are A Bit Like Puppies,” And How To Put Together the Building Blocks of a Smarter, Happier Mind

— As a child, I was con­vinced that my dad just went to work to play. My father was a neu­ro­sci­en­tist at Bay­lor Uni­ver­si­ty, and his office was full of bright­ly col­ored blocks to test intel­li­gence, books by MC Esch­er to study per­cep­tion, and even a sound­proof room cov­ered in blue foam that I thought was…

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Top 30 Highlights from the 2013 SharpBrains Virtual Summit: The latest on Brain Research, Health and Innovation

Over 30 speak­ers and 170 reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed the lat­est on brain research, health and inno­va­tion at the fourth annu­al Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit, held in Sep­tem­ber 2013. Here are some of the fas­ci­nat­ing high­lights* that can help iden­ti­fy emerg­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and pre­pare for sig­nif­i­cant changes like­ly to occur in the next 3–5 years. What surprised/ impressed…

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How Do Words, such as Yes and No, Change Our Brains and Lives?

The neu­ro­science of lan­guage, con­scious­ness, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion rais­es many fun­da­men­tal ques­tions, the answers to which con­sis­tent­ly defy def­i­n­i­tion. For exam­ple: when we speak, where do our words come from? Our brain, or our mind? And what do we mean by mind? Sim­i­lar dilem­mas arise when we try to study the nature of con­scious­ness. What is…

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Update: On Brain Training, Positive Psychology and the FDA

Time for the Sep­tem­ber edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, start­ing with a good brief New Sci­en­tist arti­cle, Mak­er of cog­ni­tive train­ing game seeks FDA approval: Imag­ine walk­ing away from a doctor’s office with a pre­scrip­tion to play a video game. Brain Plas­tic­ity, the devel­oper of a cog­ni­tive train­ing game, has begun talks with the Food and…

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A Course Correction for Positive Psychology: A Review of Martin Seligman’s Latest Book

(Editor’s Note: we are pleased to bring you this arti­cle thanks to our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Greater Good Sci­ence Cen­ter). A Course Cor­rec­tion for Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy A review of Mar­tin Seligman’s lat­est book, Flour­ish: A Vision­ary New Under­stand­ing of Hap­pi­ness and Well-Being. — By Jill Sut­tie As pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion in 1998, Mar­tin Selig­man challenged…

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