UC study finds near-transfer of cognitive training to be necessary (yet not sufficient) for far-transfer, broader benefits

Who ben­e­fits from brain train­ing, and why? (UCI release): If you are skilled at play­ing puz­zles on your smart­phone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puz­zles, or more broad­ly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the lan­guage of psy­chol­o­gists, does “near trans­fer” pre­dict “far…

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Update: Promote brain plasticity by taking your daily exercise pill — physical and cognitive

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain health. #1. A must-read, and must-prac­tice: Pro­mote brain plas­tic­i­ty and keep your mind at ease by tak­ing your dai­ly “exer­cise pill” #2. If cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion came in a pill it’d be worth a quadrillion, give or…

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Brain Teaser: What shirt size you need now?

You have been invit­ed to a fundrais­ing gala and decide that this black-tie event demands an ele­gant white Ital­ian shirt — just like the one you got years ago for your wed­ding. When you find and brave­ly try the wed­ding shirt (size 16) on, you and your wife notice that the col­lar suf­fo­cates you —…

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Tough brain teasers, with answers, courtesy of NSA employees

—– Accord­ing to NSA’s Puz­zle Peri­od­i­cal, “Intel­li­gence. It’s the abil­i­ty to think abstract­ly. Chal­lenge the unknown. Solve the impos­si­ble. NSA employ­ees work on some of the world’s most demand­ing and exhil­a­rat­ing high-tech engi­neer­ing chal­lenges. Apply­ing com­plex algo­rithms and express­ing dif­fi­cult cryp­to­graph­ic prob­lems in terms of math­e­mat­ics is part of the work NSA employ­ees do every day.”…

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Brain Fitness Conversations in November: Live Q&A with Book Authors

AARP recent­ly released a list of Top 5 Best Books for Brain Fit­ness. SharpBrains.com is hon­ored to have pub­lished one of those Top 5 books and to present this Live Q&A Series for you to ask ques­tions to the authors of 3 of those best books on brain fit­ness. Par­tic­i­pants will sub­mit writ­ten ques­tions, mod­er­a­tors will…

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