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Yaakov-Stern

Yes, It is Smart to Learn New Tricks

August 12, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Good arti­cle in the Wash­ing­ton Post today: 

Is It Real­ly Smart to Teach Old Brains New Tricks?

The reporter presents a good overview of what is happening, but framed around a high­ly arti­fi­cial choice for con­sumers: either you a) do phys­i­cal exer­cise, or b) take part in social inter­ac­tions, or c) engage in men­tal exercise.

What about switch­ing off those TVs and hav­ing time for all a, b, c, and more? Research does not sup­port a “gen­er­al solu­tion” to cog­ni­tive health but a mul­ti-pronged one, fea­tur­ing a good nutri­tion, stress man­age­ment, and both phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise. Each indi­vid­ual presents dif­fer­ent con­texts and pri­or­i­ties: for exam­ple, [Read more…] about Yes, It is Smart to Learn New Tricks

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: baby-boomers, brain-exercise, cognitive-health, cognitive-reserve, mental-exercise, new-tricks, old-brains, Physical-Exercise, prevent-Alzheimers-Disease, smart, smart-aging, smart-brains, smartbrains, social-interactions, speed-of-processing, Working-memory, Yaakov-Stern

Brain Research Interview Series

April 23, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

We are work­ing on improv­ing sev­er­al sec­tions of our web­site, espe­cial­ly our Resources sec­tion. It will look much bet­ter in a few days. Our first step has been to re-orga­nize our Neu­ro­science Inter­view Series, and below you have how it looks today.

Dur­ing the last 18 months I have had the for­tune to inter­view over 15 cut­ting-edge neu­ro­sci­en­tists and cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gists on their research and thoughts. Here are some of our favorite quotes (you can read the full inter­view notes by click­ing on the links):

[Read more…] about Brain Research Inter­view Series

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: adolescent-brain, aging-research, Alexander-Luria, Alzheimer’s-symptoms, Arthur-Lavin, Bradley-Gibson, brain-research, Brain-Training, brett-steenbarger, cognition, cognitive-reserve, Cognitive-Training, crosswords-brain-training, Daniel-Gopher, Elkhonon-Goldberg, Emotions, Eric-Jensen, Go-Hirano, gratitude-journal, happiness, James-Zull, Jerri-Edwards, Judith-Beck, Learning, Liz-Zelinski, Neurofeedback, neuroimaging, Neurons, neuropsychologist, Robert-Emmons, Robert-Sylwester, schools, Technion, Torkel-Klingberg, traders, Trading-psychology, Working-memory, Yaakov-Stern

Minding the Aging Brain

February 20, 2008 by Dr. Joshua Steinerman

Cog­ni­tive train­ing (the basis for what we call “brain fit­ness” these days) has a wide array of appli­ca­tions. The most recentneurons one, which is cap­tur­ing pub­lic’s imag­i­na­tion, monop­o­liz­ing media cov­er­age, and cre­at­ing cer­tain con­fu­sion, is Healthy Brain Aging. We are for­tu­nate to have Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man, one of our new Expert Con­trib­u­tors, offer today his great voice to this con­ver­sa­tion. Enjoy!

- Alvaro
—————————

Mind­ing the Aging Brain

– By Joshua R. Stein­er­man, M.D.

Sci­en­tists, philoso­phers, artists, and experts from all fields of human endeav­or lament: it ain’t easy get­ting old­er. It? Do they refer to frailty and dis­abil­i­ty? To bod­i­ly dis­ease? To life at its essence?

It’s all in your head

The mind is not set in stone, but it is encased by bone. It’s real­ly all about the brain, the hyphen in the mind-body conun­drum. That squishy gray neu­ronal jun­gle is the inter­face between inter­nal life and envi­ron­men­tal sen­sa­tions and stim­u­la­tion. As expect­ed, the brain shows signs of aging just as a wrin­kled brow, a stooped pos­ture, or an arthrit­ic fin­ger might. The most com­mon brain changes observed in aging and in age-asso­ci­at­ed neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­ease include:

[Read more…] about Mind­ing the Aging Brain

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: aging, aging-brain, Alzheimer’s-disease, being-alert, brain, Brain-atrophy, brain-fitness-interventions, brain-fitness-research, brain-longevity, Brain-Training, cognition, cognitive-control, cognitive-decline, cognitive-reserve, Columbia-University, dementia, executive-function, getting-older, hippocampus, Joshua-Steinerman, memory, memory-loss, Mental-Health, mind-and-brain, neurology, Neuropsychology, neuroscience, New-York-City, Parkinson’s, Plaques-and-tangles, positive-cognition, Positive-Psychology, processing-speed, proteins, stroke, successful-cognitive-aging, well-being, Yaakov-Stern

Cognitive Training Clinical Trial: Seeking Older Adults

January 10, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

fmri.jpgNeu­ro­sci­en­tists at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter (see our pre­vi­ous inter­view with Yaakov Stern on the Cog­ni­tive Reserve) have asked for help in recruit­ing vol­un­teers for an excit­ing clin­i­cal tri­al. If you are based in New York City, and between the ages of 60 and 75, please con­sid­er join­ing this study.

More infor­ma­tion below:

—————————

Use it or Lose it?

Train your Brain! Healthy adults between the ages of 60 and 75 liv­ing in NYC are invit­ed to join a study of men­tal fit­ness train­ing. Qual­i­fied indi­vid­u­als will play a sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-based video game in our lab­o­ra­to­ry, and will be test­ed to deter­mine the effects on atten­tion, mem­o­ry, and cog­ni­tive performance.

You will earn up to $600 plus trans­porta­tion costs if you com­plete the 3‑month program.

This excit­ing study is being per­formed by the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Sergievsky Cen­ter at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Center.

If inter­est­ed, con­tact us today: [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Clin­i­cal Tri­al: Seek­ing Old­er Adults

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: attention, Clinical-Trial, Cognitive Neuroscience, cognitive-fitness, cognitive-performance, cognitive-reserve, Cognitive-Training, Columbia-University-Medical-Center, Healthy-adults, healthy-aging, memory, mental-fitness-training, New-York-City, Seeking-Older-Adults, Sergievsky-Center-at-Columbia-University-Medical-Center, train-your-brain, Use-It-or-Lose-It, Yaakov-Stern

Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs

December 26, 2007 by Alvaro Fernandez

I hope you are hav­ing hap­py hol­i­days, and are get­ting ready for New Year cel­e­bra­tions. Best wish­es to you and your loved ones.

Via Med­Jour­nal­Watch we just found this inter­est­ing paper,

Asso­ci­a­tions of job demands and intel­li­gence with cog­ni­tive per­for­mance among men in late life. Guy G. Pot­ter PhD*, Michael J. Helms BS, and Bren­da L. Plass­man PhD Neu­rol­o­gy 2007.

- CONCLUSIONS: “Intel­lec­tu­al­ly demand­ing work was asso­ci­at­ed with greater ben­e­fit to cog­ni­tive per­for­mance in lat­er life inde­pen­dent of relat­ed fac­tors like edu­ca­tion and intel­li­gence. The fact that indi­vid­u­als with low­er intel­lec­tu­al apti­tude demon­strat­ed a stronger pos­i­tive asso­ci­a­tion between work and high­er cog­ni­tive per­for­mance dur­ing retire­ment sug­gests that behav­ior may enhance intel­lec­tu­al reserve, per­haps even years after peak intel­lec­tu­al activity.”

This is con­sis­tent with the Cog­ni­tive Reserve the­o­ry we dis­cussed in the inter­view with neu­ro­sci­en­tist Yaakov Stern:

- AF (Alvaro Fer­nan­dez): OK, so our goal is to build that Reserve of neu­rons, synaps­es, and skills. How can we do that? What defines “men­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties” or good “brain exercise”?

- YS (Yaakov Stern): In sum­ma­ry, we could say that “stim­u­la­tion” con­sists of engag­ing in activ­i­ties. In our research almost all activ­i­ties are seen to con­tribute to reserve. Some have chal­leng­ing lev­els of cog­ni­tive com­plex­i­ty, and some have inter­per­son­al or phys­i­cal demands. In ani­mal stud­ies, expo­sure to an enriched envi­ron­ment or increased phys­i­cal activ­i­ty result in increased neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (the cre­ation of new neu­rons). You can get that stim­u­la­tion through edu­ca­tion and/ or your occu­pa­tion. There is clear research show­ing how those two ele­ments reduce the risk. Now, what is very excit­ing is that, no mat­ter one’s age, edu­ca­tion and occu­pa­tion, our lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion in leisure activ­i­ties has a sig­nif­i­cant and cumu­la­tive effect. A key mes­sage here is that dif­fer­ent activ­i­ties have inde­pen­dent, syn­er­gis­tic, con­tri­bu­tions, which means the more things you do and the ear­li­er you start, the bet­ter. But you are nev­er stuck: bet­ter late than never.

- Read more on the Cog­ni­tive Reserve

In short, men­tal­ly and social­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties, through our edu­ca­tion, occu­pa­tion AND leisure activ­i­ties, con­tribute to build­ing a Cog­ni­tive Reserve in our brains that may help delay mem­o­ry prob­lems, Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment, and Alzheimer’s relat­ed symp­toms, and help main­tain cog­ni­tive per­for­mance over­all as we age.

If you are think­ing about New Year Res­o­lu­tions, this is one more area to con­sid­er. Hap­py 2008!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: Alzheimers-symptoms, brain-exercise, Brenda-Plassman, cognitive-performance, cognitive-reserve, Education & Lifelong Learning, Guy-Potter, Intellectually-Demanding-Jobs, intelligence, Michael-Helms, mild-cognitive-impairment, neurology, Neurons, New-Year-Resolutions, Yaakov-Stern

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and other stress management techniques

February 26, 2007 by Alvaro Fernandez

We have explained before how men­tal stim­u­la­tion is impor­tant if done in the right sup­port­ive and engag­ing envi­ron­ment. Stan­ford’s Robert Sapol­sky and oth­ers’ have shown that chron­ic stress and cor­ti­cal inhi­bi­tion, which may be aggra­vat­ed due to imposed men­tal stim­u­la­tion, may prove coun­ter­pro­duc­tive. Hav­ing the right moti­va­tion is essential.

A promis­ing area of sci­en­tif­ic inquiry for stress man­age­ment’ is Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR).’ You may have read about it in Sharon Beg­ley’s’ Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain’ book. An increas­ing num­ber of neu­ro­sci­en­tists (such as UMass Med­ical School’s Jon Kabat-Zinn and Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madis­on’s Richard David­son) have been inves­ti­gat­ing the abil­i­ty of trained med­i­ta­tors to devel­op and sus­tain atten­tion and visu­al­iza­tions and to work pos­i­tive­ly with pow­er­ful emo­tion­al states and stress through the direct­ed men­tal process­es of med­i­ta­tion prac­tices. And have put their research into prac­tice for the ben­e­fit of many hos­pi­tal patients through their MSBR programs.

A Stan­ford psy­chol­o­gist and friend recent­ly alert­ed me to a sim­i­lar pro­gram orga­nized [Read more…] about Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) and oth­er stress man­age­ment techniques

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: baby-boomers-aging, cognitive-performance, Darwin, gratitude-journal, Intellectually-Demanding-Jobs, lifelong-health, Martin-Seligman, meditation, New-Year-Resolutions, Richard-Davidson, SBT, scientific-mindset, smart-brains, stress-reduction, Trading-Performance, well-being, Yaakov-Stern

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