Here is a fun and interactive version of the famous Stroop test, often used in neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tions to mea­sure response inhibition and cognitive flex­i­bil­ity. Performing well on the test requires strong concentration and self-regulation. Read the rest of this entry »

–Richard Davidson at the Mindfulness & Well-Being at Work conference on November 13-14, 2015, in Berkeley, California. Photo: Auey Santos

There’s a backlash brewing against mindfulness at work.

“Corporations have jumped on the mindfulness bandwagon because it conveniently shifts the burden onto the individual employee,” write Ron Purser and David Loy in the Huffington Post. “Stress is framed as a personal problem, and mindfulness is offered as just the right medicine to help employees work more efficiently and calmly within toxic environments.” Read the rest of this entry »

My colleague Dr. Murali Doraiswamy just wrote an excellent opinion piece for The New York Times: With Age Comes Wisdom, and Some Concerns For Candidates.

He ends it up saying that, “As Henry Ford noted, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” We should shift the debate away from worrying about the age of our candidates and focus instead on their cognitive skill set and practical wisdom.”

I couldn’t agree more with those wise words.

But, I do disagree with the words just preceding them: “Warren Buffett, at the age of 85, would still be a highly viable candidate, should he choose to run.”

To see why I disagree–and why it matters–let me synthesize some recent research on brain health, cognition and aging. Read the rest of this entry »

Neuroeducation: 25 Findings Over 25 Years (Innovation Excellence):

“To celebrate the progress of this monumental discipline, we have compiled a list of the 25 most significant findings in neuroscience education over the past 25 years..” Read the rest of this entry »

Just a couple weeks ago I had a discussion with several psychologists and neurologists who seemed to share the opinion that “brain fitness” is a meaningless concept and pursuit. On the one hand, they thought, intelligence is a fixed trait and no intervention has shown so far to reliably increase it. On the other hand, nothing has been shown to prevent the pathology of Alzheimer’s Disease. According to this mindset…why bother?

Well, what if such mental framework was wrong or, worse, misleading? Read the rest of this entry »