We have talked about the value of meditation before (see Mindfulness and Meditation in Schools), as a form of well-directed mental exercise than can help train attention and emotional self-regulation.  Which other studies have shown how it strengthens specific parts of the brain, mainly in the frontal lobe.

Dr. Rabiner shares with us, below, an excellent review of a new study that analyzes the benefits of mindfulness for adolescents and adults with attention deficits. He writes that “although this is clearly a preliminary study, the results are both interesting and encouraging.”

- Alvaro
 

Does Mindfulness Meditation Help Adults & Teens with ADHD

– By Dr. David Rabiner

Although medication treatment is effective for many individuals with ADHD, including adolescents adults, there remains an understandable need to explore and develop interventions that can complement or even substitute for medication. This is true for a variety of reasons including:
1) Not all adults with ADHD benefit from medication.
2) Among those who benefit, many have residual difficulties that need to be addressed via other means.
3) Some adults with ADHD experience adverse effects that prevent them from remaining on medication.

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Daniel Lende and Greg Downey run the though-provoking Neuroanthropology blog. Daniel also teaches a class at University of Notre Dame, and he asked his students to submit group-based blog posts in lieu of the traditional final essays. He explains more on Why A Final Essay When We Can Do This?.

Below you have a spectacular post written by 4 of his students. They show how brain imaging is starting to provide a window into the plasticity (glossary here) of our brains, and how our very own actions impact them. For good and for bad.

Understanding Brain Imaging

— By Chris Dudley, Matt Gasperetti, Mikey Narvaez, and Sarah Walorski

Do you remember the anti-drug public service announcement from the 1980s that showed an egg frying in a hot pan which represented your brain on drugs?

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Eliane writes a great post estimating the size of the Serious Games Market, building on the overall PriceWaterhouseCoopers report that seemed to indicate that the Global Video Game Market is Set to Explode.

Some quotes

• “The overall gaming audience continues to expand and become somewhat more female and older than in the past thanks to casual games and games becoming an “important part of culture” – which in my view would embed the Serious Games segment.”
• “Whereas the military was one of the first customers of Serious Games, it has been joined by a long line of users, including other government agencies, healthcare providers, schools (both K-12 and universities) and Fortune 500 companies (for team building, leadership training, sales training and product education, among others).”
• “This is my conservative estimate: the Serious Games market would be ranging between $200 – 400 million per year only in US, in 2007. “
• “There is now an emergent supply chain for Corporate Serious Games, with a number of corporations taking Read the rest of this entry »