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Working-memory

Study finds that playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial for children than other forms of screentime (social media, watching videos/ TV)

June 1, 2022 by The Conversation Leave a Comment

Many par­ents feel guilty when their chil­dren play video games for hours on end. Some even wor­ry it could make their chil­dren less clever. And, indeed, that’s a top­ic sci­en­tists have clashed over for years.

In our new study, we inves­ti­gat­ed how video games affect the minds of chil­dren, inter­view­ing and test­ing more than 5,000 chil­dren aged ten to 12. And the results, pub­lished in Sci­en­tif­ic Reports, will be sur­pris­ing to some. [Read more…] about Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: cognition, cognitive, cognitive-abilities, cognitive-development, Cognitive-tests, Cognitive-Training, digital media, executive-function, flexible thinking, free time, intelligence, Learning, learning ability, screen time, self-control, social-media, video-games, visual-spatial processing, watching TV, Working-memory

Helping young brains fight off anxiety by training and raising cognitive control

July 23, 2021 by Greater Good Science Center

Anx­i­ety is one of the most com­mon child­hood men­tal dis­or­ders. About 7% of chil­dren suf­fer from it at any giv­en time, with near­ly 1 in 3 ado­les­cents expe­ri­enc­ing it some­time dur­ing their teen years.

For an anx­ious child, seem­ing­ly nor­mal activ­i­ties can be hard. Wor­ried kids have trou­ble adjust­ing to school, mak­ing friends, and learn­ing. They can feel inhib­it­ed, avoid­ing chal­lenges by run­ning away or retreat­ing into them­selves. While par­ents may feel des­per­ate to help, their approach­es can back­fire. For exam­ple, try­ing to talk kids out of their feel­ings or keep them away from anx­i­ety-pro­duc­ing sit­u­a­tions may inad­ver­tent­ly make the anx­i­ety worse. [Read more…] about Help­ing young brains fight off anx­i­ety by train­ing and rais­ing cog­ni­tive control

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: anxiety, brain markers, brain training, childhood, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, cognitive-capacities, cognitive-control, cognitive-skills, Cognitive-Training, frontal-lobes, Kate Fitzgerald, Kid Power program, Learning, mental-disorders, National-Institutes-of-Health, neurochemicals, neuroscience, Working-memory

On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

October 30, 2020 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above.

#1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” – Sil­via Rodriguez-Roza­da, Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, Ham­burg. Award-win­ning image shows neu­roimag­ing progress in a century

#2. One more rea­son why life­long learn­ing mat­ters: Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

#3. It’s Fri­day; per­fect time to make some fun and healthy week­end plans: How feel­ing awe in nature can spur men­tal well-being and per­son­al growth

#4. Not a bad idea either: On cut­ting “emp­ty brain calo­ries” by read­ing a book instead of social media

#5. “…humil­i­ty helps peo­ple let go of defen­sive­ness, take in infor­ma­tion that chal­lenges their polit­i­cal views, and see the human­i­ty in peo­ple on the oth­er side of the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Though it’s not always easy to embrace—especially for those who wrong­ful­ly equate it with weak­ness or a lack of conviction—humility may be what we des­per­ate­ly need right now in the Unit­ed States.” On per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tive bias and cul­ti­vat­ing humil­i­ty ahead of next week’s vote

#6. “When it feels like the world is crash­ing down around them, giv­ing young peo­ple a moment to feel, express, and receive grat­i­tude can help—and that in itself is some­thing to be grate­ful for.” Study: A com­bined teach­ing + app grat­i­tude pro­gram helps ado­les­cents address anx­i­ety and improve men­tal health

#7. To hon­or ADHD Aware­ness Month, let’s address this most impor­tant ques­tion: What should come first to treat ADHD in chil­dren, behav­ior ther­a­py or stim­u­lant medication?

#8. Debate: Can mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion be harm­ful? Two new stud­ies answer the ques­tion in appar­ent­ly oppo­site but actu­al­ly quite com­ple­men­tary ways.

#9. Study: Over-the-counter “brain enhance­ment” sup­ple­ments in the US found both to a) con­tain mul­ti­ple unap­proved drugs and b) lack some ingre­di­ents list­ed on the label. Your take?

#10. “…new study fund­ed by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health that aims to recruit 30,000 vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in a mem­o­ry train­ing study that com­pares mul­ti­ple approach­es to train work­ing mem­o­ry”: Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

#11. “Vir­tu­al real­i­ty is a promis­ing skills-based behav­ioral med­i­cine that has been shown to have high patient engage­ment and sat­is­fac­tion,” said Beth Dar­nall, PhD, AppliedVR’s chief sci­ence advi­sor. “How­ev­er, chron­ic pain patients to date have had very lim­it­ed access to it, so we’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing with the FDA to devel­op our plat­form and get it into the mar­ket faster.” The FDA clears Applied­VR head­set to help treat fibromyal­gia and chron­ic pain

#12. “Hav­ing run a media com­pa­ny in a tough mar­ket with a young, mil­len­ni­al work­force, we wit­nessed first-hand how there was a com­plete lack of invest­ment in help­ing this gen­er­a­tion with their men­tal health in a way that they’re used to: a com­mu­ni­ty prod­uct that is mobile-first and video-led. We want to make the world a hap­pi­er place by mak­ing work­ing on your men­tal health as nor­mal as going to the gym.” — Adnan Ebrahim, co-founder and CEO of Mind­Labs. What will the ‘Pelo­ton for men­tal health’ look like five years from now? And, who will devel­op it?

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy November,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter Tagged With: awe, behavior-therapy, brain-enhancement, cognitive-bias, FDA, humility, Lifelong-learning, medication, meditation, Memory-Training, mental health, mindfulness, Neurons, neuroscience, supplements, virtual-reality, Working-memory

Given cognitive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain training may work best for each person and under which conditions?

September 29, 2020 by SharpBrains

Does ‘Brain Train­ing’ Actu­al­ly Work? (Sci­en­tif­ic American):

If there were an app on your phone that could improve your mem­o­ry, would you try it? Who wouldn’t want a bet­ter mem­o­ry? After all, our rec­ol­lec­tions are frag­ile and can be impaired by dis­eases, injuries, men­tal health con­di­tions and, most acute­ly for all of us, aging. [Read more…] about Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, Brain Game Center, brain training, Brain-exercises, Brain-games, cognitive decline, cognitive needs, cognitive strengths, cognitive-benefits, cognitive-skills, improve your memory, improve-memory, Memory-Training, mental-fitness, National-Institutes-of-Health, public-health, Working-memory, working-memory-training

Debate: Should heads of state and candidates to high office pass a cognitive/ mental fitness test?

July 22, 2020 by Alvaro Fernandez

Wow, that was quite a dis­cus­sion over at Face­book groups on Neu­ro­science, Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, Psy­chi­a­try & Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy, Sin­gu­lar­i­ty and beyond as a response to the ques­tion Should heads of state and can­di­dates to high office pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test?

Here are (light­ly edit­ed, ran­dom­ly ordered, anonymized) some of the sharpest com­ments among the 100+ sub­mit­ted; some Pro, some Con, and many “it depends:” [Read more…] about Debate: Should heads of state and can­di­dates to high office pass a cognitive/ men­tal fit­ness test?

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: cognitive metrics, cognitive-fitness, Cognitive-tests, mental-fitness, political, Working-memory

Large UC study to investigate when and how brain training transfers (or does not) to broader cognitive and health benefits

July 16, 2020 by SharpBrains

Anja Pahor and Aaron Seitz

Nation­wide project seeks to under­stand how brain exer­cis­es pro­duce cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits (UC press release):

How does mem­o­ry train­ing lead to cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits? Aaron Seitz, direc­tor of the Brain Game Cen­ter for men­tal fit­ness and well-being at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side, has wres­tled with this ques­tion for sev­er­al years.

Now he and Susanne Jaeg­gi, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the UC Irvine School of Edu­ca­tion; and Anja Pahor, for­mer­ly a post­doc­tor­al researcher at UCR; are ready to address it by launch­ing a nation­wide project that seeks to engage 30,000 peo­ple in dif­fer­ent vari­ants of mem­o­ry train­ing through apps devel­oped by the Brain Game Center.

[Read more…] about Large UC study to inves­ti­gate when and how brain train­ing trans­fers (or does not) to broad­er cog­ni­tive and health benefits

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Brain Game Center, Brain-exercises, Brain-games, cognitive decline, cognitive-benefits, cognitive-skills, Memory-Training, mental-fitness, public-health, Working-memory, working-memory-training

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