train-your-brain

Brain Fitness around the Globe

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A few days ago, Rajen­dra, an Indi­an read­er of our newslet­ter, told us that ASHA (the acronym for the Amer­i­can Seniors Hous­ing Asso­ci­a­tion, for whom we pre­pared this spe­cial report), means Hope in Hindi.

Asha, every­one!

Then, we saw a few excel­lent arti­cles on Brain Fit­ness and Sharp­Brains in mul­ti­ple lan­guages and con­ti­nents-time to prac­tice our lan­guage skills!:

Train your brain (Finan­cial Times Germany):

“Ob Gehirn­train­ing etwas ntzt ist nicht bewiesen. Aber in den USA boomt der Markt, Her­steller kooperieren mit Krankenkassen und Senioren­heimen. In Deutsch­land fassen die Spiele ger­ade erst Fu.”

Toman auge ejer­ci­cios que adies­tran la mente (Mile­nio, Mexico):

“La clave est¡ en encon­trar activi­dades que estim­ulen m¡s nues­tra memoria.”

Trois nou­velles tudes IDATE : Seri­ous Games (Pub­li-News, France):

“A tra­vers une analyse dtaille des car­ac­tris­tiques, des usages et des diffrentes familles de seri­ous games, cette tude met en vidence les enjeux asso­cis aux phas­es de con­cep­tion, de devel­oppe­ment et de dif­fu­sion des diffrents types de seri­ous games.”

Eng­lish-speak­ers were rep­re­sent­ed too:
An idea whose time has (final­ly) come (McK­night’s Long Term Care News):

“Like many rev­o­lu­tions, long-term care’s recent embrace of tech­nol­o­gy-based brain fit­ness tools began qui­et­ly. Then it exploded.”

Improve Memory and Enhance Post-Stroke Rehab with Exercise

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A cou­ple of recent stud­ies have rein­forced the life­long poten­tial for brain plas­tic­i­ty (the Brain Health Newsabil­i­ty of the brain to rewire itself through expe­ri­ence) and the impor­tance of phys­i­cal exer­cise for cog­ni­tive vital­i­ty. One study focused on 1) adults over 50 with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment, the oth­er one on 2) stroke survivors.

1)  Mem­o­ry prob­lems: Adults 50-years-old and over with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (an advanced form of mem­o­ry prob­lems, but pre-demen­tia) were asked to exer­cise for three 50-minute ses­sions per week for 24 weeks (a total of 60 hours). Results: there were small, but mea­sur­able, cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits even 18 months after [Read more…] about Improve Mem­o­ry and Enhance Post-Stroke Rehab with Exercise

Obesity Crisis or Cognitive Crisis?

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The arti­cle Clum­sy kids more like­ly to become obese adults: study (CBC)…

- “The study was based on tests of about 11,000 peo­ple in Britain who were test­ed for hand con­trol, co-ordi­na­tion and clum­si­ness at age sev­en and 11, and were then fol­lowed until age 33.”

- “Prof. Scott Mont­gomery of the Karolin­s­ka Insti­tutet in Stock­holm and his col­leagues at Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don in Eng­land said they pur­pose­ly chose mea­sure­ments of fine hand con­trol such as pick­ing up match­es, rather than those like­ly to be influ­enced by par­tic­i­pat­ing in sports, such as catch­ing balls.”

- “While it is often assumed that the cog­ni­tive impair­ments seen in adult obe­si­ty are a con­se­quence of excess weight, that could be putting the chick­en before the egg, the researchers say”

…reminds me of Judith Beck­’s words on how to “Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person”

- “The main mes­sage of cog­ni­tive ther­a­py over­all, and its appli­ca­tion in the diet world, is straight-for­ward: prob­lems los­ing weight are not one’s fault. Prob­lems sim­ply reflect lack of skills–skills that can be acquired and mas­tered through prac­tice. [Read more…] about Obe­si­ty Cri­sis or Cog­ni­tive Crisis?

Your Trading Brain: Expert or Novice

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We had the for­tune to inter­view Dr. Brett Steen­barg­er on Enhanc­ing Trad­er Per­for­mance and The Psy­chol­o­gy of Trad­ing as we launched our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series.

Below, Expert Con­trib­u­tor Dr. Jan­ice Dorn pro­vides an in-depth brain-based dis­cus­sion of the top­ic, con­clud­ing that “The brain is the most pow­er­ful struc­ture in the known uni­verse and the only trad­ing tool that the trad­er needs to become an expert.”

No mat­ter whether you are a Pro or Ama­teur Trader…this will cer­tain­ly exer­cise your brain! (Dr. Dorn is prepar­ing more arti­cles on trad­ing per­for­mance and the brain…so stay tuned).

This is Your Brain On Trading

– By Dr. Jan­ice Dorn

The open­ing bell sounds, and six­ty mil­lion traders enter the great­est are­na in the world to do bat­tle with each oth­er. They put their mon­ey, beliefs and skills on the line as they make deci­sions to buy and sell. Wel­come to the finan­cial mar­kets where bil­lions of dol­lars are won and lost every day. Volatil­i­ty com­pels all to engage their brains in the con­tin­u­ous process of deci­sion mak­ing. What sep­a­rates the win­ning from los­ing traders is the way they use their most pow­er­ful trad­ing tool—the human brain.

[Read more…] about Your Trad­ing Brain: Expert or Novice

Cognitive Training Clinical Trial: Seeking Older Adults

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fmri.jpgNeu­ro­sci­en­tists at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter (see our pre­vi­ous inter­view with Yaakov Stern on the Cog­ni­tive Reserve) have asked for help in recruit­ing vol­un­teers for an excit­ing clin­i­cal tri­al. If you are based in New York City, and between the ages of 60 and 75, please con­sid­er join­ing this study.

More infor­ma­tion below:

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Use it or Lose it?

Train your Brain! Healthy adults between the ages of 60 and 75 liv­ing in NYC are invit­ed to join a study of men­tal fit­ness train­ing. Qual­i­fied indi­vid­u­als will play a sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-based video game in our lab­o­ra­to­ry, and will be test­ed to deter­mine the effects on atten­tion, mem­o­ry, and cog­ni­tive performance.

You will earn up to $600 plus trans­porta­tion costs if you com­plete the 3‑month program.

This excit­ing study is being per­formed by the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Sergievsky Cen­ter at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Center.

If inter­est­ed, con­tact us today: [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Clin­i­cal Tri­al: Seek­ing Old­er Adults

Don’t Outsource Your Brain

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brainWe have sug­gest­ed before (The Ten Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Brains)…

“Don’t Out­source Your Brain. Not to media per­son­al­i­ties, not to politi­cians, not to your smart neigh­bour… Make your own deci­sions, and mis­takes. And learn from them. That way, you are train­ing your brain, not your neighbour’s.”

Well, let me add now: Don’t Out­source Your Brain to Your GPS sys­tem, either…

Read arti­cle: here (via Drudge)

- “A 32-year-old Cal­i­forn­ian whose rental car got smashed by a Metro-North train last night was issued a minor sum­mons for caus­ing the fiery crash that strand­ed rail­road com­muters for hours.”GPS

- “Bo Bai, a com­put­er tech­ni­cian from Sun­ny­vale who said he was mere­ly trust­ing his car’s glob­al posi­tion­ing sys­tem when he steered onto the tracks, was cit­ed for obstruct­ing a rail­road cross­ing, offi­cials said this afternoon.”

For­tu­nate­ly, the dri­ver was safe, and there were no injuries. The arti­cle deserves read­ing…here.