Round-up of April articles and news on neuroscience, brain development and cognitive health:

Games for Health Conferences to host new Cognitive Health Track:

For the first time, a new Cognitive Health track -Powered by SharpBrains- will cover eleven brain fitness and cognitive health topics during the 5th Annual Games for Health Conference. The current price is $379, with a 15% discount if you use code “sharp09″ (without quotation) when you register Here. Details: June 11-12th at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston, MA.

Bilingual Babies Get Head Start — Before They Can Talk:

- “Unlike the monolingual group, the bilingual group was able to successfully learn a new sound type and use it to predict where each character would pop up…The bilingual babies’ skill applies to more than just switching between languages. Mehler likened this apparently enhanced cognitive ability to a brain selecting “the right tool for the right operation”—also called executive function.”

- “In this basic process, the brain, ever flexible, nimbly switches from one learned response to another as situations change…Monolingual babies hone this ability later in their young lives, Mehler suggests.”

Study shows how kids’ stress hurts memory:

“Now, research is providing what could be crucial clues to explain how childhood poverty translates into dimmer chances of success: Read the rest of this entry »

Several recent articles and news:

Brain Gain: the underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs‎ (The New Yorker)

- “Alex remains enthusiastic about Adderall, but he also has a slightly jaundiced critique of it. “It only works as a cognitive enhancer insofar as you are dedicated to accomplishing the task at hand,” he said. “The number of times I’ve taken Adderall late at night and decided that, rather than starting my paper, hey, I’ll organize my entire music library! I’ve seen people obsessively cleaning their rooms on it.” Alex thought that generally the drug helped him to bear down on his work, but it also tended to produce writing with a characteristic flaw. “Often, I’ve looked back at papers I’ve written on Adderall, and they’re verbose. They’re belaboring a point, trying to create this airtight argument, when if you just got to your point in a more direct manner it would be stronger. But with Adderall I’d produce two pages on something that could be said in a couple of sentences.” Nevertheless, his Adderall-assisted papers usually earned him at least a B. They got the job done. As Alex put it, “Productivity is a good thing.”

Eschew Enhancement: Memory-boosting drugs should not be made available to the general public (Technology Review)

- “Who might use them? Students will be tempted, as might players of any game involving counting or remembering (chess, bridge, and even poker and blackjack). Certain professionals might desire a boost in attention or memory”

- “But these potentially powerful medicines should not be made available to everyone, for two reasons. The first is safety. The last several years have provided many examples of side effects, some life-threatening…The second reason is that we still know relatively little about learning and memory and how they are integrated to make judgments and decisions.”

Kellogg Settles with FTC over Health Claims on Cereal (Promo Magazine)

- “The FTC said that Kellogg promoted the cereal as “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20%,” when in fact the study referred to in the ads showed different results.”

- “The study found that only about half the children who ate Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast showed any improvement in attentiveness, and only about one in nine improved by 20% or more, the FTC said.”

Brain shock: The new Gulf War syndrome (New Scientist)

- “The US army also screens for symptoms of mTBI when soldiers return from a tour of duty, and again three months later. The army is also carrying out neurocognitive tests on recruits before they are sent into combat so that doctors can check for deterioration in later tests.”

- “When it comes to combat trauma, unpicking the physical from the psychological is bound to be highly complex. As Barth says, perhaps the greatest danger could be in trying to simplify the picture too much. “I recommend that we get comfortable with the complexity,” he says, “and treat it as a challenge.”

Let me summarize ten highlights and reflections from stimulating discussions on cognitive health and assessments I have had this month so far.

January 8-9th: Symposium on Co-Adaptive Learning: Adaptive Technology for the Aging (details Here), organized by the Arizona State University’s Center for Adaptive Neural Systems:

1. Cognitive health is a critical factor in overall healthcare, but is often approached in a fragmented, non-systematic way. Most speakers in the symposium did mention how cognitive health issues interact with their specific areas of focus (aging, Parkinson’s Disease, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s…) but there was a lack of a common framework and taxonomy to define the problem and identify solutions and interventions to measure and help maintain cognitive health across the lifespan.

2. For example, Parkinson’s Disease. Did you know (I didn’t) that a significant percentage of Parkinson’s patients have well-identified cognitive impairments, mostly in their executive functions but also perceptual problems?

3. We truly need a Culture of Cognitive Health, as Randal Koene pointed out.

4. May online cognitive games serve as ongoing, real-time assessment of cognitive function? Misha Pavel thought so. He also added we may well see “cognitive exercise coaches” sometime in the horizon.

5. Skip Rizzo presented how virtual reality can help address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and even to administer innovative cognitive assessments.

6. My presentation, titled The Emerging Cognitive Fitness Market: Status, Trends and Challenges, is available Here

7. January 22nd: Consumer Reports organized a health summit titled Read the rest of this entry »

“If Dr. Rob can interview Santa, why can’t I interview a select group of health & medical bloggers? They will have some good ideas to share”.

So did President-elect Obama came to realize a few days ago. After his people kindly contacted our people, we felt compelled to grant him open access to our collective wisdom. Without further ado, below you have Grand Rounds 5:12 – a Q&A session led by the incoming President on how to reform (for the better, we hope) healthcare.

On Health Insurance

Q:  How does the blogosphere perceive the problem of having a significant group of people uninsured?

Health Insurance Colorado: a growing economic burden, which may lead to emergency rooms turning people away if they are unable to provide proof of health insurance.

Dr Rich: well, a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed how overcrowding in American emergency rooms is NOT due to the uninsured. Rather, it is due to insured Americans who cannot get in to see their primary care physicians. We may need improved care both for the insured and uninsured groups.

InsureBlog: I’d second that. Lack of health insurance is a major problem but is it really our Biggest Problem?

It’s All about Attitude

Q: You may have heard my campaign mantra, “Yes We Can”. Can I count on your support?

ButYouDontLookSick: Yes. If Leslie Hunt can talk so openly about her chronic illness (Lupus) yet fulfill her American Idol dreams, we can fulfill our dreams too.

Notes of an Anesthesioboist: you are talking to the group of professionals willing to self-experiment with our own body for the benefit of science and our patients.

Medviews: My wife, son, and I signed up to work as medical volunteers for your upcoming inauguration.

EmergiBlog: I am on board too. But, please, remember that caring is the essence of nursing. And that is why my patients will always be my “patients” and never my “clients”.

Neuroanthropology: Mr. President-elect, it seems to me that, despite all our good intentions, balancing the budget and multiple competing priorities will be a challenge. May I suggest you start practicing some capoeira for equilibrium training?

Shrink Rap: Happy to help. Now, we will need to protect some time for quality sleep time.

Training

Q: I am encouraged by your words. How can my team and I better support you in your daily activities?

Aequanimitas: we need more role models for us to “learn to think, observe, and compare” and that the patient is our “first, last, and only teacher”.

Mudphudder: Couldn’t agree more. We need Read the rest of this entry »

There are whole markets (think crosswords, herbal supplements, drugs, brain fitness software) aimed at helping us improve our memory.

Now, what is ¨memory¨? how does the process of memory work? 

Dr. Bill Klemm, Professor of Neuroscience at Texas A&M University, explains a very important concept below.

- Alvaro

——-

Getting from Here to There:
Making Memory Consolidation Work

By Bill Klemm,  Ph. D.

Until consolidation has occurred, a short-term memory is very vulnerable, as all of us have experienced from looking up a phone number only to have some distraction cause us to lose the number before we can get it dialed.

What is ”consolidation”? 

Brain researchers use the term “consolidation” for the process whereby short-term memory gets made more permanent.

Here, I would like to discuss some aspects of consolidation that many people may not know about: why sleep is so important, why memory must be practiced, and how testing promotes consolidation.   Read the rest of this entry »

Our fellow blogger Jeremy over at PsyBlog has written a thoughtful post comparing the value of a number of cognitive enhancing tools. His overall verdict?

“The evidence for exercise boosting cognitive function is head-and-shoulders above that for brain training, drugs, nutritional supplements and meditation. Scientifically, on the current evidence, exercise is the best way to enhance your cognitive function. And as for its side-effects: yes there is the chance of an injury but exercise can also reduce weight, lower the chance of dementia, improve mood and lead to a longer life-span. Damn those side-effects!”

Article: Which Cognitive Enhancers Really Work: Brain Training, Drugs, Vitamins, Meditation or Exercise?

Jeremy, I started writing this as a comment to your post in your blog, but then it got too long. Let me write my reaction to your post here. 

While I appreciate your analysis and share most of your points, I think the “ranking” effort (this type of intervention is better than that one) is ultimately misleading.  It is based on a faulty search for a general solution/ magic pill for everyone and everything.

If only things were so simple. Perhaps one day there will be research to support that view, but certainly not today. A number of interventions have shown their value. In different populations, and contexts. For “exercise is the best way to enhance your cognitive function” to be true, one needs to have a pretty specific understanding of “best”, “your” and “cognitive function”.

Read the rest of this entry »

A quick note to alert you of two very interesting, growing, and somehow linked debates:

1) Very insightful article on The Aging of the Baby Boomers: What Does It Mean for the Legal Profession (thank you, Stephanie!). Some quotes:

- “As I pen this article, it seems as though I’m writing about someone else—the older worker. Age and aging, it seems, are in the eye of the one looking back at you in the mirror. I have this theory, especially as it pertains to men, that when we look in the mirror, we still see that 20 year-old stud who can leap tall buildings. But I know that my vertical leap is not what it used to be. The reality of aging in the legal profession is upon me and those of our generation.”

- “Also, the perception of how old is old varies depending on the job or profession. For example, Read the rest of this entry »

No matter what we are reading or doing, there is always the need to take a little break and challenge our minds (and to learn a bit about how our brains work). Here you have a selection of the 10 Brain Teasers that people have enjoyed most in this site.

1. Do you think you know the colors?: the Stroop Test

2. Can you count?: Basketball attention experiment

3. Planning is not that easy: Towers of Hanoi

4. Interactive visual illusion: the Muller-Lyer Illusion

5. Who is this?: A very important little guy

5. How many…: Train your Frontal and Parietal lobes

6. What’s the missing number: Pattern Recognition Brain Teaser

7. Who’s the eldest?: Reasoning Skills Brain Teaser

8. Brain Puzzle for the Whole Brain: The Blind Beggar

9. Is a circle a circle?: Visual Perception Brain Teaser

10. How is this possible?
Read the rest of this entry »