Jon Barron's blog highlighted this recent press release from The Society for Neuroscience.

For decades, it was believed that the adult brain did not produce new neurons after birth. But that notion has been dispelled by research in the last ten years. It became clear by the mid- to late-1990's that the brain does, in fact, produce new neurons throughout the lifespan.

This phenomenon, known as neurogenesis, occurs in most species, including humans, but the degree to which it occurs and the extent to which it occurs is still a matter of some controversy, says Tracey Shors, PhD, at Rutgers University.

"However, there is no question that neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in aspects of learning and memory. Thousands of new cells are produced there each day, although many die with weeks of their birth." Shors' recent studies have shown a correlation in animal models between learning and cell survival in the hippocampus.

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Question: I enjoyed your last post on good stress vs. bad stress.  I'm a mother of 2, with a career. Are there any quick ways to reduce stress?

Brain Coach: First of all, congrats on managing two full time jobs - motherhood and a career! While the time management can be stressful, it is essential that you find a moment to just catch your breath from time to time. Even just 10 minutes a day should help.

The Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School suggests:

Mindfulness is a way of learning to relate directly to whatever is happening in your life, a way of taking charge of your life, a way of doing something for yourself that no one else can do for you — consciously and systematically working with your own stress, pain, illness, and the challenges and demands of everyday life.

In contrast, you’ve probably encountered moments of “mindlessness” — a loss of awareness resulting in forgetfulness, separation from self, and a sense of living mechanically. Restoring within yourself a balanced sense of health and well being requires increased awareness of all aspects of self, including body and mind, heart and soul. Mindfulness-based stress reduction is intended to ignite this inner capacity and infuse your life with awareness.

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Some days ago we mentioned attention deficits and executive functions, as part of a review of Cognitive Neuroscience and Education. Let me explore that in more depth now, having just met a number of very interesting researchers, doctors and experts at CHADD conference, and witnessed the first baby steps of a coming revolution.

First, 3 clarifications are in order: Continue Reading »

I just found a great technical description of how we remember in the Brain Backgrounders at The Society for Neuroscience:
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What do you see?

Keep looking at it ...

Hint:
You should be able to perceive two different images.

Brain Science:
This image is an example of an ambiguous illusion — a picture or object that requires perceptual switching between the alternative interpretations of figure and ground. And although you may be able to switch back and forth to see one image or the other, your eyes will not let you see both at the same time.

Our visual perception is created by our brain's interpretation in the cerebral cortex of visual information entering through the visual pathway. And sometimes our minds get too involved in interpreting the perceptual input, rather than passively recording it, and make mistakes, otherwise known as "optical illusions".

Answer:
An Indian Chief or an Eskimo
Links:
Optical illusion definition
Optical illusions primer

Last day of CHADD. Yesterday, we had 2 great presentations by Dr. Torkel Klingberg on Cogmed working memory training program, RoboMemo, very well received by a large audience.
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Sandy at the Mouse Trap blog has a good post on Cognitive programs that keep you fit, mentioning 2 papers recently published on 2 separate interventions for the elderly. One, Posit Science's for training of auditory processing-you can find the link to the paper in Sandy's post.

For the other, you can read an article linked in Sandy's post, and here the paper A randomized pilot study to assess the efficacy of an interactive, multimedia tool of cognitive stimulation in Alzheimer's disease, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, by researchers from the Fundació ACE, Institut Català de Neurociències Aplicades in Barcelona, Spain, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

A quote from the article: “While Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive degenerative condition, studies have shown that in the early stages, the brain is still able to learn and change. This indicates that increasing brain activity, especially in regards to memory and cognition, may help stave off cognitive loss in people with Alzheimer’s,” said James T. Becker, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, neurology and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, and a co-author on the study.

Alvaro

Great day at CHADD today. Very good conversations on Brain Fitness with Dr. Torkel Klingberg and the Cogmed team, pediatricians such as Dr. Arthur Lavin, who was the first clinical provider of Cogmed Working Memory Training in the US, and neuropshychologist Dr. Sam Goldstein-this conversation around how biofeedback devices can help golfers better manage their stress levels and improve their game.

Mark Katz won a well-deserved award and talked about his interest in resilience and emotional endurance, and Richard Barkley, in his keynote, showed preliminary findings from his research on adults with ADD/ ADHD and concluded that most relevant symptoms to diagnose an adult with ADD/ ADHD involve executive functioning and frontal lobe problems. We have talked about this earlier, but in short: executive functions reside in our brain’s frontal lobes (behind our forehead), and deal with abilities such as inhibition, working memory, organization to time and future events, emotional management, self-motivation, and planning.

Will add some relevant links over the weekend, when I have some time.

Alvaro

Great day at CHADD today. Very good conversations on Brain Fitness with Dr. Torkel Klingberg and the Cogmed team, pediatricians such as Dr. Arthur Lavin, who was the first clinical provider of Cogmed Working Memory Training in the US, and neuropshychologist Dr. Sam Goldstein-this conversation around how biofeedback devices can help golfers better manage their stress levels and improve their game. Continue Reading »

Posit Science has just started offering good information on Brain Fitness in their site.

Including a good article on the "Crossword myth", which we touched on 2 weeks ago with Brain Coach Answers: Aren’t crosswords and sudoku sufficient brain exercise?.

A number of sites and blogs, including us, may slightly disagree with their claim that "This free website is the first of its kind", but they do offer good content for this nascent field.

You can also check there an assessment for auditory processing speed they developed for their Brain Fitness program.