working

Complex occupations help protect our brains from aging-related cognitive decline

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Cog­ni­tive aging: Work helps our brain (AAAS):

A recent study shows that work plays an active role in keep­ing our brains healthy. “We have demon­strat­ed the role of work­ing activ­i­ty on cog­ni­tive per­for­mance”. Pro­fes­sor Raf­fael­la Rumiati says … “Many stud­ies have been focused on the fac­tors influ­enc­ing our brain aging and dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive decline have been often observed in asso­ci­a­tion with edu­ca­tion or oth­er relat­ed to qual­i­ty of life. From our analy­sis it emerges that the type of work activ­i­ty also con­tributes to the dif­fer­ences in nor­mal and patho­log­i­cal cog­ni­tive aging”. [Read more…] about Com­plex occu­pa­tions help pro­tect our brains from aging-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline

New Interview Series (Part 1 of 10): Why Care About Brain Fitness Innovation?

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Every Mon­day dur­ing the next 10 weeks we’ll dis­cuss here what lead­ing indus­try, sci­ence and pol­i­cy experts –all of whom will speak at the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (March 30th — April 1st, 2011)– have to say about emerg­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges to address, over the next 10 years, the grow­ing brain-relat­ed soci­etal demands.

With­out fur­ther ado, here you have what four Sum­mit Speak­ers say…

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Alvaro Pas­cual-Leone is the Direc­tor of the Beren­son-Allen Cen­ter for Non-Inva­sive Brain Stim­u­la­tion at Har­vard Med­ical School.

1. How would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?

Phys­i­cal fit­ness can refer to an over­all or gen­er­al state of health and well-being. How­ev­er, it is also often used more specif­i­cal­ly to refer to the abil­i­ty to per­form a giv­en activ­i­ty, occu­pa­tion, or sport.

Sim­i­lar­ly brain fit­ness might be used to refer to a gen­er­al state of healthy, opti­mized brain func­tion, or a more spe­cif­ic brain-based abil­i­ty to process cer­tain, spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion, enable cer­tain motor actions, or sup­port cer­tain cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Impor­tant­ly though, I would argue [Read more…] about New Inter­view Series (Part 1 of 10): Why Care About Brain Fit­ness Innovation?