veterans

UT Dallas researcher secures $2.7m grant to better monitor and address TBI-related cognitive and functional deficits

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-- Drs. Dan Krawczyk and Kihwan Han review MRI scans. Credit: Center for BrainHealth, Randy Anderson
– Drs. Dan Kraw­czyk and Kih­wan Han review MRI scans. Cred­it: Cen­ter for Brain­Health, Randy Anderson

Sci­en­tist Gets Grant for Study of Vet­er­ans with Trau­mat­ic Brain Injuries (UT Dal­las release):

A researcher from the Cen­ter for Brain­Health at UT Dal­las has been award­ed a $2.7 mil­lion grant from the Depart­ment of Defense (DoD) under the Joint Warfight­er Med­ical Research Program.

The grant, award­ed to Dr. Daniel Kraw­czyk, deputy direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Brain­Health, will fund research, via a vir­tu­al tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, to improve cog­ni­tive and func­tion­al deficits for [Read more…] about UT Dal­las researcher secures $2.7m grant to bet­ter mon­i­tor and address TBI-relat­ed cog­ni­tive and func­tion­al deficits

Update: Time to become mental capitalists and invest in our brains?

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Time for the Novem­ber edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of resources and insights on how to invest in our brains, includ­ing top­ics such as brain health, med­i­ta­tion, neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy, brain train­ing games, chemo brain, dyslex­ia, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, cog­ni­tive bias­es, stress, and more. Not to for­get a cou­ple of fun teasers. Enjoy!

Brain Fit­ness Q&A Sessions:

The Big Picture:

New Research:

New Books:

Brain Teasers:

Thank you for your inter­est and atten­tion and have a great December.

A Course Correction for Positive Psychology: A Review of Martin Seligman’s Latest Book

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(Editor’s Note: we are pleased to bring you this arti­cle thanks to our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Greater Good Sci­ence Cen­ter).

A Course Cor­rec­tion for Pos­i­tive Psychology

A review of Mar­tin Seligman’s lat­est book, Flour­ish: A Vision­ary New Under­stand­ing of Hap­pi­ness and Well-Being.

- By Jill Suttie

As pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion in 1998, Mar­tin Selig­man chal­lenged the psy­cho­log­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty to rad­i­cal­ly change its approach. For too long, he charged, psy­chol­o­gy had been pre­oc­cu­pied sole­ly with reliev­ing symp­toms of men­tal ill­ness; instead, he believed it should explore how to thrive in life, not just sur­vive it. He called for a psy­chol­o­gy that would uncov­er what makes peo­ple cre­ative, resilient, opti­mistic, and, ulti­mate­ly, hap­py. The “pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy” move­ment was born.

Yet in his lat­est book, Flour­ish, Selig­man tries to pro­vide some­thing of a course cor­rec­tion for pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy. [Read more…] about A Course Cor­rec­tion for Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy: A Review of Mar­tin Seligman’s Lat­est Book

Gabrielle Giffords’ recovery and Cognitive Rehab Insurance Coverage Gap

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Gif­fords’ recov­ery renews focus on cov­er­age gap for vet­er­ans (Mia­mi Herald):

- “Doc­tors and reha­bil­i­ta­tion spe­cial­ists have learned a great deal from the treat­ment of trau­mat­ic brain injuries in com­bat vet­er­ans of Iraq and Afghanistan. One in five vet­er­ans of those wars has suf­fered some form of trau­mat­ic brain injury, most com­mon­ly con­cus­sions from road­side bombs.”

- “Yet vet­er­ans’ health care does­n’t con­sis­tent­ly cov­er cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion ther­a­py, the same ther­a­py that’s helped Gif­fords and oth­er well-known fig­ures — such as Sen. Tim John­son of South Dako­ta and ABC News cor­re­spon­dent Bob Woodruff — get their lives back to nor­mal after major brain traumas.”

- “Cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion can include speech and com­mu­ni­ca­tion ther­a­pies, and ther­a­pies to boost mem­o­ry and social skills and relearn rou­tine tasks such as get­ting dressed and shop­ping at the gro­cery store.”

Relat­ed resources:

Can Brain Fitness Innovation Enhance Cognitive Rehab and Driving Safety?

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Today we share must-read insights from  Kather­ine Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter, and Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty. Both of them will dis­cuss their ongo­ing work and lessons learned at the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (March 30th — April 1st, 2011). The inter­views below were con­duct­ed via email.

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Kather­ine Sul­li­van is the Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Center.

1. Kather­ine, how would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?

In our con­text (help­ing active duty ser­vice mem­bers and vet­er­ans recov­er from cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion most asso­ci­at­ed with trau­mat­ic brain injury), I’d say brain fit­ness is the out­come we work towards: the cog­ni­tive resources required to return to duty or rein­te­grate into dai­ly and pro­fes­sion­al lives as much as pos­si­ble. In this sense, [Read more…] about Can Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Enhance Cog­ni­tive Rehab and Dri­ving Safety?