• 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

Washington-University

Education builds Cognitive Reserve for Alzheimers Disease Protection

December 13, 2008 by Dr. Pascale Michelon

Giv­en the grow­ing media cov­er­age men­tion­ing the terms Cog­ni­tive Reserve and Brain Reserve, you may be ask­ing your­self, “What exact­ly is my Cog­ni­tive (or Brain) Reserve?”

The cog­ni­tive reserve hypoth­e­sis, test­ed in mul­ti­ple stud­ies, states that indi­vid­u­als with more cog­ni­tive reserve can expe­ri­ence more Alzheimer’s dis­ease pathol­o­gy in the brain (more plaques and tan­gles) with­out devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease symptoms.

How does that work? Sci­en­tists are not sure but two pos­si­bil­i­ties are considered.
1. One is that more cog­ni­tive reserve means more brain reserve, that is more neu­rons and con­nec­tions (synaps­es) between neu­rons. Indi­vid­u­als with more synaps­es would then have more synaps­es to lose before the crit­i­cal thresh­old for Alzheimer’s Dis­ease is reached.
2. Anoth­er pos­si­bil­i­ty is that more cog­ni­tive reserve means more com­pen­sato­ry process­es. The brain of indi­vid­u­als with more cog­ni­tive reserve would use more alter­na­tive net­works to com­pen­sate for the dam­ages caused by the pathol­o­gy in pre­vi­ous­ly used networks.

In a new­ly pub­lished study, Roe and col­leagues brain fitness event from Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in St. Louis, used the num­ber of years of edu­ca­tion as a mea­sure of cog­ni­tive reserve. Why years of edu­ca­tion? Because pre­vi­ous stud­ies have shown that peo­ple who have more edu­ca­tion also exhib­it a greater resis­tance to Alzheimer’s symp­toms, even while patho­log­i­cal changes are occur­ring in the brain (see Ben­nett el al., 2003 or Roe, Xiong, et al., 2008).

Roe and her col­leagues stud­ied 198 indi­vid­u­als whose mean age was 67. Out of these 198 indi­vid­u­als, 161 were non­de­ment­ed and 37 were diag­nosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.

All the par­tic­i­pants in the study took a [Read more…] about Edu­ca­tion builds Cog­ni­tive Reserve for Alzheimers Dis­ease Protection

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Alzheimers-disease, brain, brain--test, Brain-health, Brain-Imaging, brain-reserve, Clinical-Dementia, cognitive, cognitive-functioning, cognitive-reserve, Cognitive-tests, demented, dementia, hobbies, Mini-Mental-State, more-connections, more-neurons, neuroprotection, pathology, PET-scan, Physical-Exercise, plaques, Short-Blessed, synapses, Washington-University, Yaakov-Stern

Cognitive science to improve student learning

December 2, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Today’s news:

McDon­nell Foun­da­tion grant har­ness­es cog­ni­tive sci­ence to improve stu­dent learn­ing (press release)

- “Using what cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gists are dis­cov­er­ing in the lab­o­ra­to­ry to improve learn­ing in the class­room is the goal of a $6.47 mil­lion col­lab­o­ra­tive activ­i­ty grant to Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty from the James S. McDon­nell Foun­da­tion (JSMF).”

- “The aim of the grant is to take the knowl­edge that cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gists have gained about learn­ing and mem­o­ry from lab­o­ra­to­ry exper­i­men­ta­tion and to devel­op tech­niques to improve learn­ing in the class­rooms,” said Hen­ry L. “Rod­dy” Roedi­ger III, Ph.D., prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor on the grant and the James S. McDon­nell Dis­tin­guished Uni­ver­si­ty Pro­fes­sor in Arts & Sciences.

Com­ment: this is great news, but it would be even bet­ter would pub­lish­ers be the ones devel­op­ing these new tech­niques and cur­ricu­lum — it is time to start mov­ing beyond a pure­ly con­tent-based approach and intro­duce the eval­u­a­tion and enhance­ment of what we can call “cog­ni­tive func­tions for life”.

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: cognitive, Cognitive-functions, cognitive-science, curriculum, improve-learning, Learning, McDonnell-Foundation, memory, publishers, student-learning, Washington-University

Brain and Cognition Expert Contributors

May 5, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

As you have prob­a­bly noticed, a grow­ing num­ber of Expert Con­trib­u­tors are writ­ing in our blog, so that we can col­lec­tive­ly dis­cuss the lat­est research and trends on cog­ni­tive and brain health, and the impli­ca­tions of brain research in gen­er­al for our every­day lives. 

If you haven’t done so already, make sure to sub­scribe to our newslet­ter (above) and our RSS feed (on the right).

Below you have the pro­files of some of our Con­trib­u­tors and links to their best arti­cles with us so far. Enjoy!

[Read more…] about Brain and Cog­ni­tion Expert Contributors

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: altruism, Applied-Learning, attention-training, brain, brain-fitness-program, cognifit, cognition, Cognitive-Neurology, cognitive-psychology, compassion, Duke-University, Haifa, Harvard-Business-Review, Highland-Hospital, Memory-Workshops, PBS, psychiatry, Stanford, Stress, Texas-A&M-University, UCSF, University-of-Michigan, Washington-University

Jack and Elaine LaLanne and Brain Health

July 21, 2007 by Alvaro Fernandez

Very fun inter­view with Jack and Elaine LaLanne by Dave Bun­nell: read it at Meet Fit­ness Leg­ends Jack and Elaine LaLanne | ELDR.com. See some quotes:

  • In 1936, Jack opened America’s first health club in Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia, called the “Jack LaLanne Phys­i­cal Cul­ture Studio.”
  • Through tele­vi­sion shows, pub­lic appear­ances, and books—and by sell­ing health-relat­ed products—they have been the most vocal and effec­tive evan­ge­lists for pre­ven­tive health the world has ever known.
  • “Elaine works out,” Jack replies, “but I work out eight days a week. I spend an hour and a half in the gym, and then a half hour in the pool, and I change my rou­tine every 30 days completely.”
  • “You’ve got to go at it hard and work on dif­fer­ent muscles,” he con­tin­ues. “You know how you stay young, don’t you? You work your butt off. Any­thing you do in life that’s worth­while, there’s a price to pay.”

Jack recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed his 92nd birthday!

We all have to be very thank­ful for their life mis­sion: a recent arti­cle from the Soci­ety for Neu­ro­science quotes:

“Every­body knows that exer­cise is good for your heart, but in recent years we’ve gath­ered com­pelling evi­dence that exer­cise is also good for your brain,” says 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.”

You can check oth­er tips in [Read more…] about Jack and Elaine LaLanne and Brain Health

Share this:

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

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: brain-fitness-consulting, brain-fitness-exercises, Cognitive-Age, David-Brooks, Exercise-your-brain, Genetics, harm-the-brain, information-processing, Martin-Seligman, mental-fitness-training, Physical-Fitness, physical-fitness-industry, scientific-american, strategic-consulting, Washington-University

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 35,221 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