CBS News and TIME mag­a­zine are team­ing up for a five-part series on the “The Com­pli­cated, Mes­mer­iz­ing World of the Brain”. The first report by CBS Evening News con­trib­u­tor Dr. San­jay Gupta focused on neu­ro­plas­tic­ity – “the brain’s abil­ity to reor­ga­nize itself by cre­at­ing new brain cells through men­tal and phys­i­cal exercises.”

Dr. Gupta inter­viewed Arthur Kramer, Ph.D., a pro­fes­sor of psy­chol­ogy at the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois who stud­ied the effects of exer­cise, diet, and social and men­tal stim­u­la­tion on older adults. Accord­ing to Kramer, the break through anti-aging treat­ment is exercise.

We found in our study that walk­ing will increase the vol­ume of the brain, increase the effi­ciency of the brain and increase improve­ments in the num­ber of cog­ni­tive func­tions such as mem­ory and attention.

Kramer and McAuley’s research showed that aer­o­bic exer­cise led to increased brain vol­ume in the pre­frontal and tem­po­ral cor­tices – areas that show con­sid­er­able age-related deterioration.

To go beyond phys­i­cal exer­cise and look at men­tal exer­cise, Dr. Gupta also inter­viewed Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. of UCSF and Posit Sci­ence. Merzenich said, “The brain is actu­ally revis­ing itself. It is actu­ally plas­ti­cally chang­ing itself as you develop new skills and abil­i­ties, as you learn new things.” Merzenich has been study­ing neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and how the brain changes with expe­ri­ence since the 1980s.

To Catch the Series, Here’s the Sched­ule:
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Alvaro and I attended a great work­shop this week­end at the Spirit Rock Med­i­ta­tion Cen­ter in Woodacre, Cal­i­for­nia. The class was called “Read­ing Emo­tional Mes­sages” and taught by Paul Ekman, Ph.D.

Con­cealed emo­tions, microex­pres­sions, are the fleet­ing expres­sions that peo­ple make when they are con­sciously or uncon­sciously try­ing to hide their true emo­tional response. In con­scious microex­pres­sions they may be try­ing to lie, while with uncon­scious expres­sions, they may not even be aware of what they are truly feel­ing. Ekman has made a study of these microex­pres­sions and can pro­vide you the train­ing you need to rec­og­nize them, and the coun­sel­ing you need on how to use that insight appro­pri­ately. Accord­ing to Ekman, “These expres­sions tend to be very extreme and very fast. Eighty to 90 per­cent of peo­ple we tested don’t see them.“
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The new year always inspires new res­o­lu­tions and goals (or some­times, the same ones that we didn’t quite accom­plish!) Here are some ideas for tak­ing con­trol of your health in this new year. See how many you can imple­ment and take note of the impact. Let us know what works for you and what doesn’t.

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We are tempted to drop it all, find a nice warm tree in the park or cof­fee­house table, and sim­ply read 2 books that have just been pub­lished. We haven’t read them since they have lit­er­ally just been released today, but we are cer­tain there will be a fun and illu­mi­nat­ing read for any­one inter­ested in the brain and the mind.

Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life by Alan Deutschman. Alan, a jour­nal­ist for Fast Com­pany, turns the superb arti­cle Change or Die he wrote in May 2005 into a book. We liked the arti­cle so much, that it has been at the top of our rec­om­mended Arti­cles since then.

Happy 2007 to everyone!

We have just for­mu­lated our New Year Res­o­lu­tion: make 2007 the year when brain plas­tic­ity and Brain Fit­ness became main­stream concepts.

How do we start? well, let’s announce the launch of the Car­ni­val of Brain Fit­ness (a Blog Car­ni­val is basi­cally the vehi­cle that blogs use to share posts around spe­cific topics).

Goal: to facil­i­tate a dia­logue about this emerg­ing field across mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives, from sci­en­tists and health pro­fes­sion­als, to edu­ca­tion and train­ing ones, to basi­cally every­one who has con­ducted an exper­i­ment on his on her brain and mind, and has news to report.

Con­text: The sci­en­tific foun­da­tions lie in neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, cog­ni­tive train­ing and stress man­age­ment. Med­ical and health appli­ca­tions range from stroke and TBI reha­bil­i­ta­tion to ADD/ADHD and early Alzheimer’s to Mind­ful­ness Based Stress Reduc­tion and cog­ni­tive ther­apy. Edu­ca­tional and train­ing appli­ca­tions go from help­ing kids improve read­ing abil­i­ties to help­ing man­age stress and anx­i­ety — includ­ing work with the “men­tal game” in sports and high-demand activ­i­ties pr pro­fes­sions. Each of us may also have expe­ri­ences to report, where we saw first hand, no mat­ter our age, our innate abil­ity to refine and trans­form our­selves (and our brains).

Mechan­ics: If you’d like to con­tribute, Read the rest of this entry »

Dana Press kindly sent us a cou­ple of books. One of them, The Dana Guide to Brain Health: A Prac­ti­cal Fam­ily Ref­er­ence From Med­ical Experts, is our topic today.

We are impressed by what Dana is doing to insert neu­ro­science find­ings and impli­ca­tions into the pub­lic discourse.

No big sur­prise then, to find out so much qual­ity con­tent inside a 700-page one-of-a-kind guide, some of it, inci­den­tally, pro­vided by Dr. Gold­berg, our Chief Sci­en­tific Advisor.

The guide is really 4 books inside a com­mon bind­ing. Priced at a rea­son­able level, and with superb in-depth text and images in all rel­e­vant areas, the book can be used as a 1) Brain 101 tuto­r­ial, 2) brief sum­mary of the basics of Brain Care and Well­ness, 3) descrip­tion of the stages of brain devel­op­ment, 4) ref­er­ence guide for around 70 brain-related con­di­tions. In my per­sonal opin­ion, every neu­ro­science, med­ical and psy­chol­ogy stu­dent, clin­i­cian and researcher should have this book in their hands to keep abreast of many recent devel­op­ments, and also be exposed to pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment courses based on it. Many fam­i­lies and indi­vid­u­als inter­ested in the brain should con­sider buy­ing it too.

Given the focus of our blog-brain fit­ness for healthy individuals-, we par­tic­u­larly enjoyed the sec­tions Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick note to sum­ma­rize a num­ber of con­ver­sa­tions we have been hav­ing at a num­ber of hol­i­day parties.

In short, who may ben­e­fit from a biofeedback-based stress man­age­ment pro­gram? any­one, no mat­ter the age (after 6-years-old) who wants a more mea­sur­able way to man­age stress and anx­i­ety and per­form at peak lev­els. Our Head Coach, a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist, lit­er­ally men­tioned yes­ter­day that this tool is one of the most use­ful he has ever seen.

We have seen some spe­cific groups ben­e­fit the most, such as stu­dents and school staff, traders and golfers: Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. What­ever. Isn’t that just some­thing your mom always told you so that you wouldn’t be upset when your sib­lings got bet­ter gifts than you? Well, lo and behold, maybe Mom was right!

Researchers have found that the mesolim­bic path­way is acti­vated by char­i­ta­ble giv­ing. This area is one of the major path­ways where you find the neu­ro­trans­mit­ter dopamine, which is asso­ci­ated with the brain’s plea­sure sys­tem. Fur­ther­more, donat­ing also appears to increase the release of oxy­tocin, a hor­mone that acts as a neu­ro­trans­mit­ter and is involved in social bond­ing and build­ing trust between peo­ple.
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The Inter­na­tional Health, Rac­quet and Sports­club Asso­ci­a­tion (IHRSA), main asso­ci­a­tion for health and fit­ness cen­ters, pub­lished an arti­cle today titled Are You Sure Your Mem­bers are Work­ing Out ALL Their Mus­cles? writ­ten by none other than our own Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Dr. Goldberg.

Here are some highlights:

• “Phys­i­cal exer­cise boosts the brain’s rate of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis through­out one’s life, while men­tal exer­cise increases the rate at which those new brain cells sur­vive and make func­tional con­nec­tions into your exist­ing neural net­works. Both phys­i­cal exer­cise and the chal­lenge from men­tal exer­cise increase the secre­tion of nerve growth fac­tor, which helps your neu­rons grow and stay healthy. The bot­tom line is that humans need both phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise for good brain health.
• “In the short term, mem­bers can expect to see improved per­for­mance (atten­tion, mem­ory and stress man­age­ment), as with any other mus­cle. In the long term, they will notice the pre­ven­tion and delay of deficits due to aging or disease.”
• “Fur­ther­more, Read the rest of this entry »

We’re full of res­o­lu­tions for the upcom­ing new year. But, if you haven’t found one yet and need a lit­tle inspi­ra­tion, here are some ideas to stim­u­late your com­mit­ment to a healthy brain and body this year …

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