SharpBrains

Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,

Thank you for visiting Grand Rounds, the weekly collection of the best health and medical blog posts, in the midst of your very busy schedule.

The health and medical blogosphere would like to make sure you and your team take into account the issues outlined below as you and your aids formulate your policies and put together the team that will further define and implement them.

Without further ado, let me outline these 40 questions and topics.

Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President, Continue Reading »

You can now check the last edition of Grand Rounds blog carnival. Grand Rounds brings, weekly, the best blog posts on health and medical issues.

We will host the next edition in our blog, on Tuesday January 15th.

Theme of the edition: Briefing The Next US President. You can choose to write about some issue very close to your heart, that you'd like to make sure the next US President pays attention to. Or simply send us your best post this week: I will include all the good posts I receive, to provide a window into what health and medicine professionals are thinking of in a typical week.

Send submissions to afernandez at gmail dot com, with Grand Rounds in the subject line.

Looking forward your submissions!

You have survived the 2007 shopping and eating season. Congratulations! Now it's time to shift gears and focus on 2008...whether you write down some New Year resolutions or contemplate some things that you want to let go of from last year and set intentions and goals for this year - as is a friend's tradition on the winter solstice.

To summarize the key findings of the last 20 years of neuroscience research on how to "exercise our brains", there are three things that we can strive for: novelty, variety and challenge. If we do these three things, we will build new connections in our brains, be mindful and pay attention to our environment, improve cognitive abilities such as pattern-recognition, and in general contribute to our lifelong brain health.

With these three principles of brain health in mind - novelty, variety and challenge - let me suggest a few potential New Years resolutions, perhaps some unexpected, that will help you make 2008 a year of Brain Fitness: Continue Reading »

There are several brain fitness topics where we still see a large disconnect between research and popular knowledge, and a major one is the relationship between memory and stress. Caroline and I collaborated on this post to bring you some context and tips. 

Our society has changed faster than our genes. Instead of being faced with physical, immediately life-threatening crises that demand instant action, these days we deal with events and illnesses that gnaw away at us slowly, that stress us out and that, believe it or not, end up hurting our memory and brain.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky, in an interview about his book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, points out that humans uniquely "can get stressed simply with thought, turning on the same stress response as does the zebra." But, the zebra releases the stress hormones through life-preserving action, while we usually just keep muddling along, getting more anxious by the moment.

What is the relationship between stress and memory? We all know chronic stress is bad for our heart, our weight, and our mood, but how about our memory? Interestingly, acute stress can help us focus and remember things more vividly. Chronic stress, on the other hand, reduce our ability to focus and can specifically damage cells in the hippocampus, a brain structure critical to encoding short term memory.

When is stress chronic? When one feels Continue Reading »

To all new readers-Welcome!. The Digg Tsunami has brought over 40,000 visitors so far...and it continues. We need to thank Andrey for his excellent technical work in helping us ride such a beautiful wave.

Let me give you an overview of what you can find in our blog, bridging neuroscience research and brain health/ "brain exercise" practice. First, here you have a few of my favorite quotes from the 10 interviews we have done with neuroscience and psychology experts in cognitive and emotional training in our Neuroscience Interview Series. You can read the in-depth interview notes for each if you want to stimulate those neurons...

• “Learning is physical. Learning means the modification, growth, and pruning of our neurons, connections–called synapses– and neuronal networks, through experience...we are cultivating our own neuronal networks.”- Dr. James Zull, Professor of Biology and Biochemistry at Case Western University: Read Interview Notes
• “Exercising our brains systematically ways is as important as exercising our bodies. In my experience, “Use it or lose it” should really be “Use it and get more of it”.- Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, neuropsychologist, clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine, and disciple of the great neuropsychologist Alexander Luria: Read Interview Notes
• “Individuals who lead mentally stimulating lives, through education, occupation and leisure activities, have reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s symptoms. Studies suggest that they have 35-40% less risk of manifesting the disease”- Dr. Yaakov Stern, Division Leader of the Cognitive Neuroscience Division of the Sergievsky Center at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, New York: Read Interview Notes

“What research has shown is that Continue Reading »

Hi,

It's Andreas, the neuroscience intern from Norway.

Lately, you might have noticed the comedian Judson Laipply's awesome movie clip, the Evolution of Dance on Youtube?

The dance is part of Laipply's "Inspirational Comedy" and has become a huge success. As a neuroscientist I'm interested in what are the neural substrates of dance? Further, I thought of ways to express this in an easy way so that people can learn more about the dance and the brain in a fun way. The result is my new Youtube video: A neurocomment on Laipply's movie clip.

Continue Reading »

Here are some of the blog carnivals (collections of blog posts around specific topics) where we have added our Brain Fitness perspective during the last few days:

Health Wonk Review

Education

Brain Blogging Continue Reading »

Another great week full of interesting and relevant articles. We will start a new tradition: we will end up the week (either on Friday or during the weekend) with a round-up of the articles we haven't been able to comment on during the week. Please feel free to send us your suggestions too!

(You can join our monthly newsletter by subscribing at the top of this page).

Brave Heart: does will power reside in heart?

• "A recent study has looked into the issue of whether cognitive self -regulation (will power / motivation) is also associated with HRV. The study reported that higher baseline HRV was associated with more will-power and ability to resist temptation."

Book review: Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley

• "Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain is as entertaining as it is edifying. This unlikely page turner fascinates, and suggests optimism about your brain's capacities.
  Considering the aging baby boom generation and the demands this group has created in every phase of life, if a culture of mental fitness develops, it won't surprise me. Being a boomer myself, I'm all for it. I just hope I don't have to become a bodhisattva to reap the benefits."

Newsweek: Clear link between exercise and improved cognition

• “Last week, in a landmark paper, researchers announced that Continue Reading »

The new edition of Newsweek brings us a great cover story titled Stronger, Faster, Smarter. "Exercise does more than build muscles and help prevent heart disease. New science shows that it also boosts brainpower—and may offer hope in the battle against Alzheimer's." Check it out!

We addressed the question Is physical fitness important to your brain fitness? recently:

According to Fred Gage, PhD, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, “We now know that exercise helps generate new brain cells, even in the aging brain.”

According to the research of Richard Smeyne, PhD at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, with just two months of exercise there are more brain cells and that higher levels of exercise were significantly more beneficial than lower amounts, although any exercise was better than none. He also found that Continue Reading »