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

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+…

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

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…

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Update: Repetitive negative thinking may increase (or perhaps be caused by) Alzheimer’s pathology

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this month 13 research find­ings, resources and brain teasers for life­long brain and men­tal health. #1. “We found that peo­ple who exhib­it­ed high­er repet­i­tive neg­a­tive think­ing pat­terns expe­ri­enced more cog­ni­tive decline over a four-year peri­od. They also had spe­cif­ic declines in mem­o­ry (which is an ear­ly sign…

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

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,…

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Study finds mixed results of Adderall as cognitive enhancer (seems to boost emotion more than cognition)

Over the past 15 years there has been grow­ing aware­ness that many col­lege stu­dents with­out an ADHD diag­no­sis use ADHD drugs. On some cam­pus­es, rates of self-report­ed non-med­i­cal use have exceed­ed 30% of stu­dents. The pri­ma­ry rea­son stu­dents report tak­ing ADHD drugs is to enhance their aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. And, the strong major­i­ty of students —…

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