Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion yes­ter­day on life­long cog­ni­tive fit­ness, “men­tal cap­i­tal­ism”, and more,  with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, mod­er­ated by Harry Moody, Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs at AARP. You learn more about upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions Here.

Read the rest of this entry »

The use of a vari­ety of brain train­ing inter­ven­tions is grow­ing in the area of men­tal health. Emerg­ing evi­dence sug­gests that in the near future tar­geted brain train­ing may even be used to pre­vent sub­stance abuse. For exam­ple, train­ing work­ing mem­ory may reduce sub­stance abusers’ dis­count­ing of long-term rewards and pun­ish­ments — such dis­count­ing is one of the rea­sons why peo­ple sus­cep­ti­ble to addic­tions do not ben­e­fit from tra­di­tional informational/ edu­ca­tional approaches to drug prevention.

Let’s explore some expand­ing appli­ca­tions of brain train­ing, and much more, in this lat­est edi­tion of the monthly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter.

Brain Train­ing and Men­tal Health

ADHD: Brain Train­ing, Neu­ro­feed­back, Diet, and More: What can be done to fight ADHD and improve the lives of peo­ple suf­fer­ing from it?

Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity in the Brain of Chil­dren with Neu­ro­log­i­cal Dis­or­ders: Brain train­ing may be an option for chil­dren suf­fer­ing from Tourette Syn­drom to help reduce the symptoms.

Brain Train­ing and Schiz­o­phre­nia: Social cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams can boost schiz­o­phren­ics’ skills social skills.

Rethink­ing the Clas­si­fi­ca­tion of Men­tal Ill­ness: How can we rethink the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of psy­chopathol­ogy (via the new DSM-5) to reflect our cur­rent under­stand­ing of the brain as a dynamic system?

Upcom­ing events: Cog­ni­tive Reme­di­a­tion in Psy­chi­a­try (June 10th, NYC), Enter­tain­ment Soft­ware and Cog­ni­tive Neu­rother­a­peu­tics Soci­ety (Sep­tem­ber 19–20, San Francisco).

.

Lifestyle for Brain Health

More Friends, Big­ger Brain: The num­ber of friends you have could be pre­dicted by the size of our amygdala!

Music and Demen­tia: Play­ing music pro­tects the brain later on. Music may also be used to teach new facts to peo­ple suf­fer­ing from dementia.

Exer­cise and Over­weight Chil­dren: Aer­o­bic exer­cise can boost over­weight chil­dren exec­u­tive functions.

The Brain Grows With Prac­tice…: We know that when the brain mas­ters a new skill, tar­geted brain areas/ cir­cuits get enlarged. We now know that those areas and cir­cuits even­tu­ally shrink back to nor­mal, but per­for­mance gain can be maintained!

.

Food for Thought

What is Brain Fit­ness? What are Emerg­ing Oppor­tu­ni­ties to Retool Brain Health? Here are the answers by seven 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Speakers.

Nav­i­gate through the 30 most pop­u­lar arti­cles of last year in SharpBrains.com to learn more about the brain and how to maintain/ enhance brain func­tion­ing across the lifes­pan..

Brain Teaser

Can you lis­ten to these laughs and dis­tin­guish whether it is a human or a com­puter laugh­ing? Also, given how good laugh­ing is…how about try­ing this to find out how much stressed you are? You may be surprised.

.

We hope you enjoyed this newslet­ter. Please do feel free to share this with friends and col­leagues via Face­book, Twit­ter and LinkedIn.

Chil­dren who exer­cise vig­or­ously tend to have bet­ter grades. In con­trast, over­weight chil­dren tend to under­achieve. With this in mind, Davis and her col­leagues from Med­ical Col­lege of Geor­gia tested whether par­tic­i­pat­ing in an exer­cise pro­gram would help over­weight chil­dren, not only phys­i­cally but also men­tally. Specif­i­cally, they hypoth­e­sized that the chil­dren exec­u­tive func­tions would ben­e­fit from exer­cis­ing. These func­tions are sup­ported by the frontal lobes of the brain and include plan­ning, goal set­ting, self-control, and inhibition.

171 chil­dren, aged 7 to 11, who were over­weight and inac­tive par­tic­i­pated in the study. They were ran­domly assigned to three groups: a low-dose group doing aer­o­bic exer­cise 20 min/day, a high-dose group (40 min/day) and a no exer­cise con­trol group. The exer­cise pro­gram lasted 13 weeks on aver­age. Read the rest of this entry »

We define Brain Fit­ness as hav­ing the brain-based cog­ni­tive, emo­tional and self-regulation capac­i­ties required to suc­ceed in one’s envi­ron­ment. Not every­one is exposed to the same men­tal demands nor do we all have the same start­ing points. This means we need to stop look­ing for ‘magic pills’ and invest more resources in devel­op­ing toolk­its and infra­struc­ture sim­i­lar to what the phys­i­cal fit­ness indus­try has done over the last 30–40 years.

The fol­low­ing ques­tion guides much of our work at Sharp­Brains: “What tools pro­vide the right kind of expe­ri­ence to refine our brains from a struc­tural and func­tional point of view to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­ity into real-world ben­e­fits?” We try to pro­vide good infor­ma­tion and answers by con­stantly mon­i­tor­ing and ana­lyz­ing the state of sci­ence and the marketplace—and by shar­ing these analy­ses via appro­pri­ate plat­forms with orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als. Sharp­Brains doesn’t sell, develop or endorse prod­ucts in order to avoid con­flicts of interest.

The main con­text for brain fit­ness is this: Read the rest of this entry »

Have you already read The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness?

Let’s see…

1. Pick the only part of your body that does not con­tain fat:

a. Arm
b. Thigh
c. Brain
d. None

Answer: d) Fats are also present in the brain: in neu­rons’ mem­branes to keep them flex­i­ble. These fats are the omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids mol­e­cules. (Page 32 of the book)

2. Pick the only food prod­uct that doesn’t con­tain Omega-3 fatty acids

a. Tuna
b. Wal­nut
c. Kiwi
d. Jelly Beans

Answer: d) Fatty acids can be found in cold-water fish (such as mack­erel, her­ring, salmon, and tuna), kiwi, and wal­nuts. (Page 33)

3. Pick the only food prod­uct that doesn’t con­tain antioxidants

a. Olive oil
b. Milk
c. Nuts
d. Berries

Answer: b) Antiox­i­dants can be found in veg­etable oils, nuts, green leafy veg­eta­bles (e.g., spinach), cit­rus fruit, and berries. (Page 33)

4. Chronic Stress cannot:

a. Pre­vent you from being cre­ative
b. Kill brain cells
c. Pre­vent you from sleep­ing
d. Kill liver cells

Answer: d) Pro­longed expo­sure to adrenal steroid hor­mones like cor­ti­sol, which is released into the blood stream when we are stressed, can lead to cell death and block the for­ma­tion of new neu­rons. (Page 35)

5. What type of phys­i­cal exer­cise is the best for your brain health?

a. Weight lift­ing
b. Aer­o­bic exer­cises
c. Flex­i­bil­ity exer­cises Read the rest of this entry »

Quick links to excel­lent resources:

1) FEATURE-Brain fit­ness seen as hot indus­try of the future (Reuters)

2) Learn­ing & the Brain Con­fer­ence for Edu­ca­tors and Clin­i­cians. April 26–29, 2008. Cam­bridge, MA

3) Brain Health Across the Lifes­pan Sem­i­nar for Health & Aging Pro­fes­sion­als. May 15th, 2008. San Fran­cisco, CA

For more info, Read the rest of this entry »

Please enjoy this brain teaser com­pli­ments of puz­zle mas­ter Wes Car­roll. He found this one in the Mensa pub­li­ca­tion Num­ber Puz­zles for Math Geniuses by Harold Gale.

The Empty Triangle

Ques­tion:
Which fig­ure should be placed in the empty triangle?

This puz­zle works your exec­u­tive func­tions in your frontal lobes by using your pat­tern recog­ni­tion, hypoth­e­sis test­ing, and logic. Let us know how you do!

Click here to read the Answer and Solu­tion.

Here is a new brain teaser from puz­zle mas­ter Wes Car­roll. He found this one in the Mensa pub­li­ca­tion Num­ber Puz­zles for Math Geniuses by Harold Gale.

Tip­ping the Scales

Ques­tion:
The top two scales are in per­fect bal­ance. How many dia­monds will be needed to bal­ance the bot­tom set?

This puz­zle works your exec­u­tive func­tions in your frontal lobes by using your pat­tern recog­ni­tion, hypoth­e­sis test­ing, and logic.

Click here to read the Answer and Solu­tion.