Busy schedules linked to better memory and cognition among middle-aged and older adults

——- Being Super Busy May* Be Good For Your Brain (Smith­son­ian Mag­a­zine): “There has­n’t been much sci­en­tif­ic research on busy­ness itself, although it’s some­thing that we talk about so often,” explains Sara Fes­ti­ni, a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­sci­en­tist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Dal­las Cen­ter for Vital Longevi­ty, a co-author of the new research pub­lished this week

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Virtual “Brain Games” roundtable: Why we can, and SHOULD, train our brains

In prepa­ra­tion for the new sea­son of Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s Brain Games, start­ing this Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 14th, their pro­duc­ers asked us to par­tic­i­pate in a vir­tu­al round­table around this thought-pro­­vok­ing ques­tion: Do you think indi­vid­u­als can train their brain to respond in a par­tic­u­lar way to cer­tain sit­u­a­tions, or do you think our brain’s innate “star­tle response”…

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Study: Cognitive deficits continue long term in cancer survivors in domains important for social and executive functioning

Cog­ni­tive Deficits Con­tin­ue Long Term in Can­cer Sur­vivors (Med­scape): “Although can­cer patients fre­quent­ly expe­ri­ence short-term cog­ni­tive deficits, lit­tle is known about how long these deficits last or whether they wors­en over time. Now, data from a large nation­al sam­ple sug­gest that cog­ni­tive deficits may per­sist long term.

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Quick brain teasers to train your attention and working memory

— Here you have a few fun men­tal exer­cis­es to train your atten­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry (the capac­i­ty to hold mul­ti­ple pieces of infor­ma­tion in the mind, and to use them real-time). Giv­en them a try today and over the weekend…they are not as easy as they may sound! Say the days of the week back­wards, then in alphabetical…

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