Comments on: Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs

By: Alvaro Fernandez

Alvaro Fernandez — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:06:13 +0000

Mentally stimulating: any job that involves frequent novelty, complex organization, decision-making, multi-tasking, planning… you can think of careers like law, medicine and journalism. According to our co-founder and neuroscientist Elkhonon Goldberg, launching SharpBrains does quality as “very stimulating” for those involved.

Not mentally stimulating: anything that overtime becomes repetitive, monotonous, and requires little attention and decision-making to perform. In order not to offend anyone (and to benefit your brain), I leave it to you to think of examples.

Please also note a nuance that this kind of research can not get into: one factor is the job/ career itself, another one (more difficult to measure in large studies) is how one individual chooses to approach his or her job/ career.

By: Blaise

Blaise — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:39:02 +0000

What do you mean by intellectually demanding jobs. Can you give some specific examples and counter examples?

By: Dave’s Whiteboard » Blog Archive » Yogi Berra on learning

Dave’s Whiteboard » Blog Archive » Yogi Berra on learning — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:53:34 +0000

[...] I found another post at SharpBrains:Â Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs. 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. [...]

By: » Brain Training Magazine: December Edition « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:23:39 +0000

[...] Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs: a recent study shows how "Intellectually demanding work was associated with greater benefit to cognitive performance in later life independent of related factors like education and intelligence." [...]

By: Alvaro

Alvaro — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:01:27 +0000

Thanks for stopping by. And yes, up to a very large extent, “the human brain rises to the challenges we offer it”.

By: School Psych

School Psych — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:26:24 +0000

Great blog. Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with this theory. Lifestyles and intensity of cognitive rigor do have a reciprocal relationship. A bit of a cliche, maybe, yet I believe the human brain rises to the challenges we offer it…

By: Alvaro

Alvaro — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:44:13 +0000

Hello Elona, well, more than optimistic I’d say I am realistic: we can not change our own genes, but there is much we can do about our lifestyle!

Happy New Year

By: elona

elona — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:02:53 +0000

Thank you for the optimistic outlook.