• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

Social-Intelligence

Why our brains weigh 1.3 kilograms, have ~100 billion neurons, consume 20% of the oxygen we breathe

April 12, 2012 by SharpBrains

Team­work Builds Big Brains (Sci­ence Now):
— “The aver­age adult human’s brain weighs about 1.3 kilo­grams, has 100 bil­lion or so neu­rons, and sucks up 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe. It’s much big­ger than an ani­mal our size needs. Accord­ing to a new com­put­er mod­el, the brains of humans and relat­ed pri­mates are so large because we evolved to be social creatures.”
— “The idea behind the so-called social intel­li­gence hypoth­e­sis is that we need [Read more…] about Why our brains weigh 1.3 kilo­grams, have ~100 bil­lion neu­rons, con­sume 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: brain, brainpower, cognitive, intelligence, Neurons, Social-Intelligence

Newsletter: Navigating Games for Health and Education

September 30, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Here you have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please brain fitness and health newsletterremem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

Quick, Are videogames good or bad?

That’s an impos­si­ble ques­tion. Good or bad for what? What  spe­cif­ic games are we talk­ing about? More impor­tant­ly, what are they sub­sti­tut­ing for, giv­en time is a lim­it­ed resource?  Con­trib­u­tor Jere­my Adam Smith, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Greater Good mag­a­zine, offers an in-depth review on the trade-offs videogames present in: Play­ing the Blame Game.

News Round-Up

Math Inno­va­tion in UK Schools: a recent (and unpub­lished) study seems to sup­port the poten­tial role for “Seri­ous Games” in edu­ca­tion. Learn­ing and Teach­ing Scot­land reports sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in pupils’ con­cen­tra­tion and behav­ior, on top of math skills, after using Nin­ten­do Brain Train­ing game.

Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia endors­es Posit Sci­ence pro­grams: this announce­ment brings to sur­face a gen­uine pub­lic health dilem­ma — do you, as an asso­ci­a­tion, pro­mote pro­grams before they have been shown to have long-term effects on Alzheimer’s pro­gres­sion and preva­lence, or do you wait until you have “per­fect” research, and then per­haps lose 10–20-30 years or use­ful con­tri­bu­tion to thousands/ mil­lions of brain’s Cog­ni­tive Reserves? In our judg­ment, it may well be worth offer­ing options today, as long as they are accom­pa­nied by inde­pen­dent mea­sure­ment of the cog­ni­tive benefits.

More Sep­tem­ber News: Sep­tem­ber has brought a wealth of addi­tion­al world­wide media cov­er­age on cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics, includ­ing the role of schools in nur­tur­ing stu­den­t’s exec­u­tive func­tions, the impor­tance of base­line neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing in sports, the need for geron­tol­ogy as a dis­ci­pline to incor­po­rate brain research, how walk­ing can enhance brain func­tion, and the val­ue of brain fit­ness pro­grams for long-term care operators.

Resources for Brain Fit­ness Navigation

Well­ness Coach­ing for Brain Health and Fit­ness: will Well­ness Coach­es expand their role and become “Brain coach­es”? We have part­nered with Sut­ter Health Part­ners, the pio­neer­ing coach­ing group of a major health sys­tem, to train their well­ness coach­es on the impli­ca­tions of emerg­ing brain research for their work: focus on the 4 pil­lars of brain health ‑bal­anced nutri­tion, phys­i­cal exer­cise, stress man­age­ment and men­tal exercise.

Eval­u­a­tion Check­list for Orga­ni­za­tions: many health­care and edu­ca­tion orga­ni­za­tions are already mak­ing pur­chase deci­sions which involve eval­u­at­ing dif­fer­ent pro­grams that make “brain train­ing” or “cog­ni­tive health” claims. Here we present our 10-Ques­tion Sharp­Brains Check­list to help orga­ni­za­tions make informed decisions.

Eval­u­a­tion Check­list for Con­sumers: if you are an indi­vid­ual inter­est­ed in pro­grams for your­self and/ or a loved one, you can use this check­list. The start­ing point is to rec­og­nize that no pro­gram is a “mag­ic pill” or “gen­er­al solu­tion”, but a tool to be used in the appro­pri­ate context.

Learn­ing to Lead, and To Think 

Round­table on Human Resources and Lead­er­ship: sev­er­al blog­gers dis­cuss lat­est news around lead­er­ship, social intel­li­gence, appli­ca­tions of brain research, and more.

Help­ing Young and Old Fish Learn How To Think: David Fos­ter Wal­lace gave a mas­ter­ful com­mence­ment speech on Life and Work to the 2005 grad­u­at­ing  class at Keny­on Col­lege.  Worth read­ing, with full attention.

Brain Teasers

Sev­en Brain teasers for Job Inter­views: A recent CNN arti­cle explains why a grow­ing num­ber of tech­nol­o­gy and con­sult­ing com­pa­nies use brain teasers and log­ic puz­zles of a type called “guessti­ma­tions” dur­ing job inter­views. What are they look­ing for? Good exec­u­tive func­tions. Here you have a few typ­i­cal questions.

Enjoy!

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: Alzheimers-Australia, baseline-testing, Brain Teasers, brain-coaches, brain-fitness-gym, brain-fitness-program, brain-fitness-programs, Brain-games, brain-research, Brain-Training, cognitive-benefits, games-for-education, Games-for-Health, gerontology, gerontology-and-brain, Leadership, Learning-and-Teaching-Scotland, Logic-Puzzles, long-term-care, neuropsychological-testing, nintendo-brain-training, Posit-Science, public-health, Serious-Games, Social-Intelligence, videogames, wellness-coaches

Should Social-Emotional Learning Be Part of Academic Curriculum?

August 22, 2008 by Greater Good Science Center

The Secret to Success
New research says social-emo­tion­al learn­ing helps stu­dents in every way.
— by Daniel Goleman

Schools are begin­ning to offer an increas­ing num­ber of cours­es in social and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence, teach­ing stu­dents how to bet­ter under­stand their own emo­tions and the emo­tions of others.

It sounds warm and fuzzy, but it’s a trend backed up by hard data. Today, new stud­ies reveal that teach­ing kids to be emo­tion­al­ly and social­ly com­pe­tent boosts their aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment. More pre­cise­ly, when schools offer stu­dents pro­grams in social and emo­tion­al learn­ing, their achieve­ment scores gain around 11 per­cent­age points.

That’s what I heard at a forum held last Decem­ber by the Col­lab­o­ra­tive for Aca­d­e­m­ic, Social, and Emo­tion­al Learn­ing (CASEL). (Dis­clo­sure: I’m a co-founder of CASEL.) Roger Weiss­berg, the orga­ni­za­tion’s direc­tor, gave a pre­view of a mas­sive study run by researchers at Loy­ola Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, which ana­lyzed eval­u­a­tions of more than 233,000 stu­dents across the country.

Social-emo­tion­al learn­ing, they dis­cov­ered, helps stu­dents [Read more…] about Should Social-Emo­tion­al Learn­ing Be Part of Aca­d­e­m­ic Curriculum?

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: academic-achievement, at-risk-kids, bullying, CASEL, classroom-discipline, Committee-for-Children, Daniel-Goleman, Education & Lifelong Learning, Egon-Zehnder-research, emotional-intelligence, George-Lucas, improve-attention, improve-learning, improve-memory, Learning, No-Child-Left-Behind, Open-Circle-Program, Richard-Davidson, social-emotional-learning, Social-Intelligence, students, teaching, train-self-discipline

The Power of Mindsight-by Daniel Goleman

March 3, 2008 by Greater Good Science Center

Daniel Gole­man requires no intro­duc­tion. Per­son­al­ly, of all his books I have read, the one I found most stim­u­lat­ing was Destruc­tive Emo­tions: A Sci­en­tif­ic Dia­logue With the Dalai Lama, a superb overview of what emo­tions are and how we can put them to good use. He is now con­duct­ing a great series of audio inter­views includ­ing one with George Lucas on Edu­cat­ing Hearts and Minds: Rethink­ing Education.

We are hon­ored to bring you a guest post by Daniel Gole­man, thanks to our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Greater Good Mag­a­zine, a UC-Berke­ley-based quar­ter­ly mag­a­zine that high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altru­ism. Enjoy!

- Alvaro

—————-

The Pow­er of Mindsight 

How can we free our­selves from pris­ons of the past?

– By Daniel Goleman

When you were young, which of these did you feel more often?

a) No mat­ter what I do, my par­ents love me;

b) I can’t seem to please my par­ents, no mat­ter what I do;

c) My par­ents don’t real­ly notice me.

[Read more…] about The Pow­er of Mind­sight-by Daniel Goleman

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: altruism, compassion, Dalai-Lama, Daniel-Goleman, Daniel-Siegel, destructive-emotions, Education & Lifelong Learning, emotional-intelligence, Emotions, George-Lucas, Greater-Good-Magazine, interpersonal-neurobiology, Joseph-LeDoux, memory, Mindsight, Social-Intelligence

Exercising Your Lexical Recall and Pattern Recognition

May 25, 2007 by Caroline Latham

Crossword Puzzle
I was sent these links to a free online cross­word puz­zle game and sudoko. While we often talk about the excel­lent com­put­er-based brain fit­ness pro­grams avail­able, puz­zles can still be good men­tal exer­cise … they are just not a com­plete work­out for your whole brain.

Word games like cross­word puz­zles and SCRABBLE® exer­cise your lex­i­cal recall (mem­o­ry for words that name things), atten­tion, mem­o­ry, and pat­tern recog­ni­tion. They can help main­tain your vocab­u­lary and avoid the frus­trat­ing tip-of-the-tongue phe­nom­e­non that all of us expe­ri­ence from time to time. Sudoko is not a math­e­mat­ics game in that you don’t actu­al­ly manip­u­late the num­bers as math­e­mat­i­cal enti­ties, but it is a pat­tern recog­ni­tion game using sym­bols (num­bers). A very legit­i­mate rea­son to play casu­al games is that they can be social and fun — which is good for reduc­ing stress.

The draw­backs to puz­zles and games is that they are hard to cal­i­brate to ensure increas­ing chal­lenge, and they gen­er­al­ly only exer­cise a lim­it­ed num­ber of brain functions.

So by all means, do puz­zles if you enjoy them! But be sure to push your­self to keep find­ing hard­er ones that fall just short of frus­trat­ing you. Also, just as you cross train your vol­un­tary mus­cles, be sure to cross train your men­tal mus­cles by bal­anc­ing your work­out with oth­er types of men­tal work (motor coor­di­na­tion, audi­to­ry, work­ing mem­o­ry, plan­ning, etc.). The com­put­er­ized pro­grams make it eas­i­er for you in the sense that they are indi­vid­u­al­ly cal­i­brat­ed for you to employ nov­el­ty, vari­ety, chal­lenge, and prac­tice to exer­cise your brain more thor­ough­ly in each session.

Fur­ther read­ing on lan­guage pro­duc­tion, com­pre­hen­sion, and goofs:

  • Lan­guage Pro­duc­tion and Perception
  • Wer­nick­e’s Area: an area of the brain where the tem­po­ral and pari­etal lobes meet that is used in under­stand­ing and com­pre­hend­ing spo­ken language
  • Bro­ca’s Area: an area in the frontal lobe of the brain that is involved in lan­guage pro­cess­ing, speech pro­duc­tion and comprehension
  • The Lan­guage Pro­duc­tion Group at the Max Planck Insti­tute for Psycholinguistics

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain Teasers Tagged With: CDC, cognitive-fitness, Dalai-Lama, Daniel-Goleman, destructive-emotions, enriching-the-brain, Mindsight, Pattern-Recognition, philosophers, Physical-Exercise, Social-Intelligence, Stress, The-Adolescent-Brain

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,620 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy