You may have  noticed that Amazon.com is shar­ing aggre­gated data on how ebook read­ers inter­act with the books they are read­ing. For exam­ple, the “Pop­u­lar High­lights” sec­tion (towards the bot­tom of our Kin­dle book page) ranks the Top 10 sen­tences that Kin­dle read­ers have high­lighted and shared while read­ing The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp (April 2009; 182 pages; ranked #1 in Kin­dle Store’s Pre­ven­tive Med­i­cine section).

This infor­ma­tion is invalu­able to authors and pub­lish­ers - as you can imag­ine, we’ll make sure to not only main­tain but to elab­o­rate on these top­ics as we pre­pare future edi­tions of the book.

So, what are so far the Top Ten Quotes on Life­long Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and Neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, based on read­ers’ reac­tion to The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness via Kin­dle eBook plat­form? Here you are the Top Ten:

1. “Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity refers to the life­long capac­ity of the brain to change and rewire itself in response to the stim­u­la­tion of learn­ing and expe­ri­ence. Neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis is the abil­ity to cre­ate new neu­rons and con­nec­tions between neu­rons through­out a life­time.” (High­lighted and shared by 24 Kin­dle readers)
2. “…best defenses against chronic stress are phys­i­cal exer­cise, relax­ation, self-empowerment, and cul­ti­vat­ing social networks.”
3. “Learn­ing is thought to be “neuro-protective.” Through neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, learn­ing increases con­nec­tions between neu­rons, increases cel­lu­lar metab­o­lism, and increases the pro­duc­tion of nerve growth fac­tor, a sub­stance pro­duced by the body to help main­tain and repair neurons.”
4. “There is not one sin­gle “atten­tion”, but three sep­a­rate func­tions of atten­tion: alert­ing, ori­ent­ing, and exec­u­tive attention.”
5. “The fear of fail­ing, the fear of look­ing not smart, is a key obsta­cle to learn­ing that I see too often, espe­cially with peo­ple who want to pro­tect per­ceived rep­u­ta­tions to such an extent that they do not let them­selves try new learn­ing cycles.”
6. “Emo­tion is the sys­tem that tells us how impor­tant some­thing is. Atten­tion focuses us on the impor­tant and away from the unim­por­tant things. Cog­ni­tion tells us what to do about it. Cog­ni­tive skills are what­ever it takes to do those things.”
7. “As lit­tle as three hours a week of brisk walk­ing has been shown to halt, and even reverse, the brain atro­phy (shrink­age) that starts in a person’s for­ties, espe­cially in the regions respon­si­ble for mem­ory and higher cog­ni­tion. Exer­cise increases the brain’s vol­ume of gray mat­ter (actual neu­rons) and white mat­ter (con­nec­tions between neurons).”
8. “Evi­dence of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity has been observed mostly in the brains of indi­vid­u­als who became experts in a par­tic­u­lar skill. Why? Because changes asso­ci­ated with learn­ing occur mas­sively when we become expert in a spe­cific domain. The areas of the brain that sup­port the skills at which one has become an expert change over time.”
9. “Cur­rent rec­om­men­da­tions sug­gest that a brain-healthy life style should include at least bal­anced nutri­tion, stress man­age­ment, phys­i­cal exer­cise, and brain exercise.”
10. “it is also impor­tant to main­tain emo­tional con­nec­tions. Not only with our­selves, to have self-confidence and self-esteem, but also with our fam­ily our friends.” Sleep and over­all health con­di­tions are other fac­tors that also mat­ter. Here we focus on the four main pil­lars of brain health: Bal­anced nutri­tion Stress man­age­ment, Phys­i­cal exer­cise, Men­tal stimulation.”

We have not yet fig­ured out whether we’ll be able to track this same data via other eBook plat­forms such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Apple’s iPad. In any case, fas­ci­nat­ing times! If you hap­pen to have a Kin­dle (or read Kin­dle books via other devices), and can invest $4.99 in a pretty solid eBook…please get your own copy and make sure to high­light your favorite sen­tences so we can include them in our analysis!

(If you don’t read eBooks but want to share your favorite book sen­tences with us, please do so via this Con­tact Us form.)

To Learn More and Order Book (most of these stores offer the ebook edi­tion at $4.99 or equiv­a­lent, and the soft­cover edi­tion at $14.95 or equivalent):

• USA (Kin­dle): The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Amazon.com)
• USA (Nook): The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Barnesandnoble.com)
• USA: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Smashwords.com)
• UK: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Amazon.co.uk)
• Canada: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Amazon.ca)
• Ger­many: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Amazon.de)
• France: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Amazon.fr)
• Spain: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Amazon.es)
• Italy: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Amazon.it)
• Libraries and book­sellers can order book via Baker & Taylor

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