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working-memory-training

Combined tDCS neurostimulation and cognitive training found to improve working memory among older adults–especially those with lower starting capacity

October 25, 2022 by SharpBrains

Giv­ing mem­o­ry a lift: Can games and brain stim­u­la­tion do it? (Med­ical­New­sTo­day):

A person’s work­ing mem­o­ry may decline with age or if they have demen­tia, Parkinson’s dis­ease, or have had a stroke. When this occurs, the loss can affect their day-to-day qual­i­ty of life, turn­ing even sim­ple tasks into often-demor­al­iz­ing chal­lenges. [Read more…] about Com­bined tDCS neu­rostim­u­la­tion and cog­ni­tive train­ing found to improve work­ing mem­o­ry among old­er adults–especially those with low­er start­ing capacity

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, brain stimulation, Brain-Plasticity, COGNISANT, cognitive needs, cognitive-functioning, cognitive-skills, Cognitive-Training, dementia, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, neuroplasticity, Parkinsons-disease, prefrontal-cortex, strengthen working memory, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation, Working-memory, working-memory-training

Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

June 30, 2022 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use 🙂

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

“Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact of dif­fer­ent types of screen time (watch­ing, social­iz­ing, or gam­ing) on children’s intel­li­gence while con­trol­ling for the con­found­ing effects of genet­ic dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tion and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus … Broad­ly, our results are in line with research on the mal­leabil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties from envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, such as cog­ni­tive train­ing and the Fly­nn effect.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing! Hav­ing said that…

#2. Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

“Social inter­ac­tion is huge­ly impor­tant. One study found that the size of our social group is actu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the vol­ume of the orbitofrontal cor­tex (involved in social cog­ni­tion and emo­tion). But how many friends do we need? … It is hard to argue with the fact that humans are social ani­mals and gain enjoy­ment from con­nect­ing with oth­ers, what­ev­er age we are. But, as we are increas­ing­ly uncov­er­ing, it also cru­cial for the health of our cognition.”

#3. UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

“Some peo­ple do very well in train­ing, such as play­ing a video game, but they don’t show near trans­fer, per­haps because they are using high­ly spe­cif­ic strate­gies,” said first author Anja Pahor … “For these peo­ple, far trans­fer is unlike­ly. By bet­ter under­stand­ing why this type of mem­o­ry train­ing or ‘inter­ven­tion’ works for some peo­ple but not oth­ers, we can move for­ward with a new gen­er­a­tion of work­ing-mem­o­ry train­ing games or use approach­es that are more tai­lored to indi­vid­u­als’ needs”

#4. Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

“In our ongo­ing large-scale study (note: the one right above) we aim to recruit 30,000 adults who are moti­vat­ed and will­ing to help us bet­ter under­stand the fac­tors that under­lie learn­ing out­comes using a vari­ety of train­ing par­a­digms and out­come mea­sures. Our endeav­or will ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the per­son­al­iza­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing so that, hope­ful­ly, any­one who would like to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing will be able to choose the approach that may fit them best.” — researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Irvine/ Riverside

#5. Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

Esports are bor­row­ing a page from Pro Sports’ book … we would­n’t be sur­prised to see the inverse tak­ing place too in just a few years.

#6. Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

“For those with­out severe men­tal ill­ness, app-based ther­a­py may be help­ful in match­ing clients with a pro­fes­sion­al famil­iar with a range of prob­lems and stres­sors. This makes apps attrac­tive to those with anx­i­ety and mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion. They also appeal to peo­ple who wouldn’t ordi­nar­i­ly seek out office-based ther­a­py, but who want help with life issues such as mar­i­tal prob­lems and work-relat­ed stress.”

#7. AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

Let’s talk!

#8. And here’s the Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and fun summer!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain health, brain-teaser, chronic pain, cognition, cognitive, cognitive-functioning, Cognitive-tests, Cognitive-Training, depression, emotion, FDA, mental health, mental health care, neuroimaging, social isolation, videogames, work-related stress, working-memory-training, Wysa

UC study finds near-transfer of cognitive training to be necessary (yet not sufficient) for far-transfer, broader benefits

June 21, 2022 by SharpBrains

Guicheng “Ariel” Tan / UCI Work­ing Mem­o­ry & Plas­tic­i­ty Lab

Who ben­e­fits from brain train­ing, and why? (UCI release):

If you are skilled at play­ing puz­zles on your smart­phone or tablet, what does it say about how fast you learn new puz­zles, or more broad­ly, how well can you focus in school or at work? In the lan­guage of psy­chol­o­gists, does “near trans­fer” pre­dict “far transfer”?

A team of psy­chol­o­gists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, River­side reports in Nature Human Behav­ior that peo­ple who show near trans­fer are more like­ly to show far trans­fer. For a per­son skilled at play­ing a game, such as Wor­dle, near trans­fer refers to being skilled at sim­i­lar games, such as a cross­word puz­zle. An exam­ple of far trans­fer for this per­son would be the abil­i­ty to bet­ter focus on dai­ly life activ­i­ties. [Read more…] about UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain training, Brain-Plasticity, brain-training-games, cognitive-abilities, far transfer, games, Memory-Training, near transfer, neuroplasticity, puzzles, video-game, working-memory-training

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

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

Why stress regulation and working memory are core building blocks of lifelong resilience

June 23, 2020 by SharpBrains

How anx­i­ety affects your focus (BBC Worklife):

Feel like you can’t con­cen­trate on any­thing at the moment? You’re not alone. The extra anx­i­ety caused by the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic has impaired our work­ing mem­o­ry, experts say … What’s hap­pen­ing is a mal­func­tion of work­ing mem­o­ry: the abil­i­ty to grasp incom­ing infor­ma­tion, form it into a cohe­sive thought, and hold onto it long enough to do what you need to with it.

In oth­er words, work­ing mem­o­ry is the abil­i­ty to rea­son in real time, and it’s a big part of what makes the human brain so pow­er­ful. But research has showed that rapid­ly chang­ing cir­cum­stances, wor­ry and anx­i­ety can all have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on your abil­i­ty to focus.

[Read more…] about Why stress reg­u­la­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry are core build­ing blocks of life­long resilience

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, Brain Teasers, cognitive-skills, focus, human-capital, noncognitive skills, resilience, Working-memory, working-memory-training

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