Brain Fitness News: Posit Science, Slate

By Alvaro Fernandez | April 25, 2007

A cou­ple of quick links DISCOVER Mag­a­zine, May 2007 issue, brings a great arti­cle titled “The Elas­tic Brain: Michael Merzenich believes you can tone your mind and stave off mem­o­ry loss. All it takes is time in his men­tal gym”. The arti­cle (which is not avail­able online) pro­vides a great overview of the amaz­ing work of…

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Resources for brain fitness and applied neuroplasticity

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 26, 2007

Here you can find a range of resources for life­long brain fit­ness and applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: Brain Train­ing Pro­gram Eval­u­a­tion Check­list Brain & Mind Inter­view Series Online Course: How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach AARP’s Brain Fit­ness Best Books List Sharp­Brains blog Free, Month­ly Sharp­Brains e‑Newsletter

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Brain Awareness Week

By Alvaro Fernandez | March 7, 2007

When is Brain Aware­ness Week? March 12–18, 2007 What Will Hap­pen The Brain Aware­ness Week is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about how the brain func­tions and how to cul­ti­vate a healthy brain. The Dana Foun­da­tion and mul­ti­ple part­ners, such as Sharp­Brains, will lead out­reach events world­wide. In the blog of the Dana Foun­da­tion we…

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Can Thoughts and Action Change Our Brains?

By Alvaro Fernandez | February 27, 2007 |

We final­ly had time to hear and enjoy the 35-minute inter­view with WSJ sci­ence writer Sharon Beg­ley about her new book, Train Your Mind Change Your Brain. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed. (Thanks Beate!) NPR Talk of the Nation, Feb­ru­ary 2, 2007: “For years, sci­en­tists believed the brain’s struc­ture could­n’t be changed. The new sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty says…

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Enhancing Cognition and Emotions for Learning — Learning & The Brain Conference

By Caroline Latham | February 26, 2007

Alvaro and I had the good for­tune to attend a great con­fer­ence last week called Learn­ing & The Brain: Enhanc­ing Cog­ni­tion and Emo­tions for Learn­ing.… Some top­ics were meant to be applied imme­di­ate­ly, but many were food for thought — dis­cus­sions on where sci­ence and edu­ca­tion are headed.Using dra­mat­ic new imag­ing tech­niques, such as fMRIs, PET, and SPECT, neu­ro­sci­en­tists are gain­ing valu­able infor­ma­tion about learn­ing. This pio­neer­ing knowl­edge is lead­ing not only to new ped­a­go­gies, but also to new med­ica­tions, brain enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies, and ther­a­pies. Dis­cov­er how new adven­tures could change edu­ca­tion, learn­ing dis­or­der inter­ven­tions, and even soci­ety itself in the future.

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Is physical fitness important to your brain fitness?

By Caroline Latham | February 26, 2007 |

Here is ques­tion 18 of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Questions.Question:Is phys­i­cal fit­ness important?Key Points: Exer­cise improves learn­ing through increased blood sup­ply and growth hormones.Exercise is an anti-depres­sant by reduc­ing stress and pro­mot­ing neurogenesis.Exercise pro­tects the brain from dam­age and dis­ease, as well speed­ing the recovery.Answer:Yes. Accord­ing to Fred Gage, PhD, of the Salk Insti­tute for Bio­log­i­cal Stud­ies, “We now know that exer­cise helps gen­er­ate new brain cells, even in the aging brain.”According to the research of Richard Smeyne, PhD at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hos­pi­tal in Mem­phis, with just two months of exer­cise there are more brain cells and that high­er lev­els of exer­cise were sig­nif­i­cant­ly more ben­e­fi­cial than low­er amounts, although any exer­cise was bet­ter than none.

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