Time for the Novem­ber edi­tion of the monthly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of resources and insights on how to invest in our brains, includ­ing top­ics such as brain health, med­i­ta­tion, neu­ropsy­chol­ogy, brain train­ing games, chemo brain, dyslexia, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, cog­ni­tive biases, stress, and more. Not to for­get a cou­ple of fun teasers. Enjoy!

Brain Fit­ness Q&A Sessions:

• Tran­script: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on Men­tal Cap­i­tal­ism and Non-invasive Cog­ni­tive Enhancement
• Tran­script: Dr. Gary Small on Enhanc­ing Mem­ory and the Brain
• Tran­script: Dr. Paul Nuss­baum on Med­i­ta­tion and Neuropsychology

The Big Picture:

• Steve Jobs: Com­put­ers are the Bicy­cles of the Mind
• Brain Fit­ness: Def­i­n­i­tion, Pri­or­i­ties, and Links to Neu­rolead­er­ship, by Alvaro Fernandez
• Is the Uni­ver­sity Cen­tered on The Learner or the Pro­fes­sor?, by Miguel Angel Escotet
• Grand Rounds: Best of Health and Med­ical Blog­ging, by Alvaro Fernandez

New Research:

• Can Brain Train­ing Games and Biofeed­back Help Pre­vent Depres­sion, by Dr. Pas­cale Michelon
• ‘Chemo Brain’: MRI Shows Brain Changes After Chemotherapy
• Dyslexia not related to intel­li­gence. Impli­ca­tions for dis­crep­ancy model?
• Vet­er­ans learn to use yoga and med­i­ta­tion exer­cises to recon­nect with their emotions
• Applied Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity: Rewiring the Brain to Ease Pain

New Books:

• What makes your brain happy and why you should do the oppo­site, by David DiS­alvo (We’ll have a Live Q&A on Decem­ber 9th)
• How cog­ni­tive illu­sions blind us to reason
• The Series on Stress & the Brain, by Dr. Jerome Schultz, con­tin­ues with: The Lit­tle Brain Down Under, The Stress Response Explained, The Human Brain Likes to Be in Bal­ance, To Fight, Flee or Freeze –That is the Question

Brain Teasers:

• Math Teaser: Unfin­ished The­sis, by Maria Lando
• Math Teaser: How to Choose a Mans Shirt, by Maria Lando
• How many Share This Arti­cle links, right below, do you know how to use? Try a cou­ple of them and share via Face­book and Twitter!

Thank you for your inter­est and atten­tion and have a great December.

AARP recently released a list of Top 5 Best Books for Brain Fit­ness. SharpBrains.com is hon­ored to have pub­lished one of those Top 5 books and to present this Live Q&A Series for you to ask ques­tions to the authors of 3 of those best books on brain fit­ness. Par­tic­i­pants will sub­mit writ­ten ques­tions, mod­er­a­tors will select the most impor­tant and rel­e­vant ques­tions, and book authors will write their answers for every­one to read.

• Novem­ber 1st, 2011, 2-3pm ET: Dr. Gary Small, author of The Mem­ory Bible
• Novem­ber 15th, 2011, 2-3pm ET: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness
• Novem­ber 22nd, 2011, 2-3pm ET: Dr. Paul Nuss­baum, author of Save Your Brain
• (in Span­ish) Novem­ber 29th, 2011, 2-3pm ET: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-autor de The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness Read the rest of this entry »

We are hon­ored to announce that AARP has included our very own book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (182 pages; $14.95) in its new List of Best Books on Brain Fit­ness, which will be unveiled dur­ing AARP’s upcom­ing Life@50 National Event. We hope this list will help many more indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions learn about our resource: given that 80% of respon­dents to a recent AARP sur­vey selected “Stay­ing Men­tally Sharp” as their top pri­or­ity, we cer­tainly know there is a sig­nif­i­cant need for qual­ity information!

AARP’s Best Books Guide


Brain Fit­ness

The Dana Guide to Brain Health, by Floyd E. Bloom, M. Flint Beal, and David J. Kupfer (Dana Press, 2006).

The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp, by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Elkhonon Gold­berg. (Sharp­Brains Inc., 2009).

Save Your Brain: The 5 Things You Must Do To Keep Your Mind Young and Sharp, by Paul Nuss­baum. (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Sur­pris­ing Tal­ents of the Middle-Aged Mind, by Bar­bara Strauch (Viking, 2010).

The Mem­ory Bible: An Inno­v­a­tive Strat­egy for Keep­ing Your Brain Young, by Gary Small (Hype­r­ion, 2003).

___________

Also Rec­om­mended:

The Mature Mind: The Pos­i­tive Power of the Aging Brain, by Gene Cohen (Basic Books, 2006).

The Brain That Changes Itself, by Nor­man Doidge (Pen­guin, 2007).

Spark: The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary New Sci­ence of Exer­cise and the Brain, by John Ratey and Eric Hager­man (Lit­tle, Brown and Co., 2008).

Think Smart: A Neuroscientist’s Pre­scrip­tion for Improv­ing Your Brain’s Per­for­mance, by Richard Restak (River­head, 2010).

Com­piled by:
Office of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs, AARP

Every­one these days is talk­ing about edu­ca­tion and test­ing reform, but why is rel­e­vant brain research often ignored? Which organ if not the brain does the learn­ing and teach­ing part? Renowned edu­ca­tor and brain expert Dr. Robert Syl­wester shares his rec­om­mended Top Brain Books for Edu­ca­tors and Learn­ers to help inform the con­ver­sa­tion. A must read!

Save the Date: the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, the sec­ond edi­tion of our annual indus­try and research con­fer­ence, will take place vir­tu­ally from March 28th to March 31st 2010. Details will fol­low soon.

With­out fur­ther ado…please enjoy the Novem­ber edi­tion of our monthly eNewslet­ter:

Research Bites

Foot­ball and brain dam­age: In high-contact sports such as foot­ball, even hits not lead­ing to con­cus­sions can affect the brain.

How to take omega-3: Eat­ing fish (source of omega-3) reduces risks of demen­tia but DHA sup­ple­ments have no effect on Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Vit­a­mins against Alzheimer’s? A good review shows that Vit­a­min B has unclear effects on mem­ory and cog­ni­tive decline.

Brain train­ing helps older dri­vers: tar­geted cog­ni­tive train­ing can help reduce older dri­vers’ car crashes. Dr. Mich­e­lon explains why and how.

Resources and Tips

Top 10 Q&A about Child’s Brain Devel­op­ment: In the 1st part of our series, The Brain across the Lifes­pan, we answer 10 ques­tions to help you under­stand the devel­op­ing brain.

Our Brain on Music: Scott Kauf­man shows that there is lit­tle evi­dence that lis­ten­ing to Mozart’s music boosts brain func­tions. Music can have an effect, but we need to do more than listen.

Work­ing Mem­ory: What is work­ing mem­ory? Why do we care? How can we best enhance it? Dr. Mich­e­lon answers these ques­tions through con­crete exam­ples and a Q&A.

Books

Rethink­ing Alzheimer’s Pre­ven­tion and Treat­ment: In this excerpt from their recent book “The Alzheimer’s Solu­tion” Ken Kosik and Linda Clegg pro­pose a new model for brain care: The “cog­ni­tive shop”.

Did You See the Gorilla? Daniel Simons, co-author of  “The Invis­i­ble Gorilla”, inter­viewed by David DiS­alvo, tells us about the myth of multi-tasking.

Cog­ni­tive Devel­op­ment in the first 20 years: In this excerpt from his lat­est book “A Child’s Brain”, Dr. Syl­wester syn­the­sizes the first 20 years of development.

Coun­cil Insights

How will we assess, enhance and repair cog­ni­tion across the lifes­pan?: Learn about a brain health rev­o­lu­tion in the mak­ing and how we can shape it, straight from the new Sharp­Brains Coun­cil for Brain Fit­ness Innovation.

Brain Teasers

Brain Games for each Cog­ni­tive Abil­ity: To under­stand why we need to go beyond cross­word puz­zles, stim­u­late your whole brain with this selec­tion of brain teasers and games.

Have a great Decem­ber, and please don’t for­get to engage via Face­book and Twit­ter!

The pow­er­ful National Asso­ci­a­tion for the Accred­i­ta­tion of Teacher Edu­ca­tion (NCATE) has now issued a report that encour­ages pre-service and grad­u­ate teacher edu­ca­tion pro­grams to incor­po­rate cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science dis­cov­er­ies about child and ado­les­cent devel­op­ment into their cur­ric­ula.  This link to a Wash­ing­ton Post arti­cle on this devel­op­ment will also get you to the NCATE report.

Here you have the July edi­tion of our monthly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page.

Pub­lic libraries have long offered the pub­lic more than books. And now, recent demo­graphic and sci­en­tific trends are con­verg­ing to fun­da­men­tally trans­form the role of libraries in our cul­ture. You may enjoy read­ing this recent arti­cle I wrote for the May-June 2009 Issue of Aging Today, the bimonthly pub­li­ca­tion of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging: Pub­lic Libraries: Community-Based Health Clubs for the Brain.

The Big Picture

Can You Out­smart Your Genes? An Inter­view with Author Richard Nis­bett: David DiS­alvo inter­views Richard Nis­bett, the author of Intel­li­gence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cul­tures Count, who has emerged as a per­sua­sive voice mar­shalling evi­dence to dis­prove the heredity-is-destiny argument.

Yes, You Can Build Willpower: Daniel Gole­man dis­cusses how the brain makes about 10,000 new cells every day, how they migrate to where they are needed, and how each cell can make around 10,000 con­nec­tions to other brain cells. Impli­ca­tion? Med­i­tate, mind­fully, and build pos­i­tive habits.

Bird’s Eye View of Cog­ni­tive Health Inno­va­tion: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez opened the Cog­ni­tive Health Track dur­ing the Games for Health Con­fer­ence (June 11-12th, Boston) with an overview of the seri­ous games, soft­ware and online appli­ca­tions that can help assess and train cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. The pre­sen­ta­tion is avail­able Here.

Brain Tests and Myths

The Best Mem­ory Tests, from the Alzheimer’s Action Plan: Dr. Murali Doraiswamy dis­cusses the Pros and Cons of the most com­mon assess­ments to iden­tify cog­ni­tive prob­lems, includ­ing what the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) does and doesn´t, and inno­v­a­tive com­put­er­ized neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests.

Debunk­ing 10 Brain Health Myths: Does your brain have a “Brain Age”? Is a Magic Pill to “pre­vent mem­ory prob­lems” right around the cor­ner? Does “aging” equal “decline”? Check out the facts to debunk 10 com­mon myths on brain health.

Resources

Free Webi­nar: On July 21st, 10am Pacific Time/ 1pm East­ern Time, Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-authors of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, will cover the main high­lights from this new book and address the ques­tions sub­mit­ted by read­ers. You can learn more and reg­is­ter HERE.

Research Ref­er­ences:  This is a par­tial list of the sci­en­tific stud­ies reviewed dur­ing the research phase of SharpBrains’s new book, orga­nized by rel­e­vant chap­ter, for those of you who like to explore top­ics in depth by read­ing orig­i­nal research (per­haps PubMed should pro­mote itself as a never end­ing source of men­tal stimulation?).

Brain Teasers

Brain Teasers on Brain Fit­ness: Are you ready to test your knowl­edge of sev­eral key brain fit­ness met­rics? For exam­ple: How many sol­diers in the US Army have gone through com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive test­ing before being deployed, and why?
Finally, a request: if you have already read The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, and could write a brief cus­tomer review at Amazon.com, we would surely appre­ci­ate! The Amazon.com book page is Here.

Best regards, and enjoy the month

Last Decem­ber we launched  our stim­u­lat­ing Author Speaks Series to pro­vide a plat­form for lead­ing sci­en­tists and experts writ­ing high-quality brain-related books to share their insights with Sharp­Brains read­ers. Par­tic­i­pants so far include (in order of appearance):

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I have an announce­ment to make. You prob­a­bly are seeing all the arti­cles about Brain Fit­ness in the press and wondering, “What is this all about?”, “Can some­one help me nav­i­gate through all the pro­grams out there?”, “How is Brain Fit­ness rel­e­vant to me in my per­sonal life or at work?”. Well…we are deliv­er­ing a series of work­shops to com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions com­bin­ing mod­ules –includ­ing sci­en­tific overview, the indus­try trends and key play­ers, fun team-building exer­cises– that can be tai­lored to each organization’s spe­cific needs. Ses­sions last from 1 to 6 hours, depend­ing on the group’s com­po­si­tion and agenda and are deliv­ered either in per­son or via web conference.

We want to be able to reach more orga­ni­za­tions, so please let us know of any ideas!

Some recent examples

1. Man­ag­ing Stress for Peak Per­for­mance (we men­tioned some notes on an Accen­ture ses­sion)

New and chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions – such as tak­ing on new respon­si­bil­i­ties– can trig­ger reac­tions in our brain and body that limit or even block our decision-making abil­i­ties. These reac­tions may also harm our long-term brain power and health. Although we can­not avoid change and stress­ful sit­u­a­tions, we can learn how to man­age our stress lev­els to ensure peak performance-even in tough moments. The lat­est neu­ro­science research proves that stress man­age­ment is a train­able “men­tal mus­cle.” This is true for any high pres­sure pro­fes­sion, be it trad­ing, sports, or sim­ply mod­ern life.

2. The Sci­ence of Brain Health and Brain Fit­ness (sim­i­lar to what I will teach at UC Berke­ley OLLI)

Neu­ro­sci­en­tists have shown how the human brain retains neu­ro­plas­tic­ity (the abil­ity to rewire itself) and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (the cre­ation of new neu­rons) dur­ing its full life­time, lead­ing to a new under­stand­ing of Read the rest of this entry »