I wrote this article for the March/ April edition of the publication Aging Today, published by the American Society on Aging, and received permission to reproduce it here.

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In recent years, most professionals in aging have become aware of the growing scientific evidence showing that human brains retain the ability to generate neurons and change over a lifetime, discoveries that have broken the scientific paradigm prevalent during the 20th century. Furthermore, neuroimaging and cognitive training studies are showing how well-directed exercise presents people major opportunities for healthy brain aging.

How can people use emerging technologies to keep their brains healthy and productive as long as possible? An emerging market for brain health– $225 million market in 2007, in the United States alone, of which consumers account for $80 million–is trying to address that question in a way that complements other important more traditional pillars (and multi-billion industries) of brain health, such as physical exercise, balanced diet, stress management (stress has been shown to actually kill neurons and reduce the rate of creation of new ones) and overall mental stimulation and lifelong learning.

2007 AN ACTIVE YEAR

A series of important events took place in 2007, a seminal year for the brain health field, beginning in January when many mainstream media publications, such as Time Magazine and CBS News, started to publish major stories on neuroplasticity and brain exercise. This media coverage followed the publication of the long-awaited results from national clinical trials showing that significant percentages of the participants age 65 and older who trained for five weeks improved their memory, reasoning and information-processing speed. Findings from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) Study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Dec. 20, 2006) and revealed that even after five years, participants in the ACTIVE computer-based program showed less of a decline in information-processing skills than those in a control group that received no cognitive training.

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First of all, thank you for coming to enjoy our 50 brain teasers…the reaction was overwhelming. We will prepare more!

Second, quick links to excellent health-related blog carnivals:

Grand Rounds: the most comprehensive one

Health Wonk Review: focused on public policy 

Change of Shift:  nursing-oriented

Medicine 2.0: on how web 2.0 interacts with the medical field

Third, here you have a useful ranking of top 100 Health blogs. Our blog is #10, despite our niche focus on brain health and fitness!

First, some of my favorite blog carnivals we contributed to this week: Grand Rounds, HR, Education, Law, Carnival of the Green.

2 very interesting news pieces (the second one, including fun brain teasers):

1) With a fresh grasp on – and label for – an academic block, some slow achievers are eager to return to school (Boston Globe)

Quote: “Turns out Ellie has a problem with working memory, a term used to describe the ability to retain information from the top of a page to the bottom. Working memory comes under the umbrella of executive function, a thinking skill that refers to the tasks executives tend to excel at, such as prioritizing, organizing, and mentally shifting information around. It’s a skill that develops progressively, starting in the elementary years and continuing into adulthood…If you’ve never heard of executive function, brace yourself. It’s bursting onto the educational scene.”

Comment: Great article. We covered this in detail in an essay last year: Cognitive Neuroscience and ADD/ADHD Today.

2) Want a job at Google? Try these brainteasers first (CNN)

Quote: “Seemingly random questions like these have become commonplace in Silicon Valley and other tech outposts, where companies aren’t as interested in the correct answer to a tough question as they are in how a prospective employee might try to solve it. Since businesses today have to be able to react quickly to shifting market dynamics, they want more than engineers with high IQs and good college transcripts. They want people who can think on their feet.”

Comment: What are those companies (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) after? Employees with good Executive Functions. You can try some of the fun teasers in the article. For more context on what those are Read the rest of this entry »

This week we have enjoyed 3 great blog carnivals

• Encephalon (neuroscience and psychology)
• Grand Rounds (medicine and health)
• Tangled Bank (general science)

And, of course, there are more on a varity of topics:

Medicine and web 2.0, Change of Shift, Education, Read the rest of this entry »