Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity: the brain’s abil­ity to reor­ga­nize itself by form­ing new con­nec­tions through­out life. (see more con­cepts in our Glos­sary).

We coudn’t be hap­pier about the grow­ing num­ber of books pop­u­lar­iz­ing the key lessons about brain train­ing that Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg has been research­ing and writ­ing about for years, and that moti­vated us to embark our­selves in the Sharp­Brains adventure.

Dis­cover Mag­a­zine presents a great arti­cle, Rewiring the Brain, review­ing two recent books.

• The sub­ti­tle is “Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity can allow for treat­ment of senil­ity, post-traumatic stress, ­obsessive-compulsive dis­or­der, and depres­sion and Bud­dhists have been cap­i­tal­iz­ing on it for mil­lenia.” I would add that the strong value of life­long learn­ing present in jesuit and jew­ish tra­di­tions reflects the same wis­dom. Some quotes:
• “Two new books, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain (Bal­lan­tine Books, $24.95) by sci­ence jour­nal­ist Sharon Beg­ley and The Brain That Changes Itself (Viking, $24.95) by psy­chi­a­trist Nor­man Doidge, offer mas­ter­fully guided tours through the bur­geon­ing field of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity research. Each has its own style and empha­sis; both are excellent.”
• “Finally, both authors con­clude that adult neu­ro­plas­tic­ity is a vastly under­tapped resource, one with which West­ern med­i­cine and psy­chol­ogy are just now com­ing to grips. An impor­tant emerg­ing research agenda is to Read the rest of this entry »

Hot off the press!

We just found on the new­stand an amaz­ing spe­cial issue of Dis­cover mag­a­zine on The Brain-An Owner’s Man­ual (Spring 2007), with fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cles on how the mind changes from infancy to old age, female vs. male brains (yes, we men have brains too), videogames as brain train­ing (by Steven John­son), an arti­cle titled “24 hours in the life of the brain”, the “most mag­nif­i­cent neu­rons, and much much more.

A bit tech­ni­cal, but not too much for any­one who reads pop­u­lar sci­ence books. It will prob­a­bly become a clas­sic for brain afi­ciona­dos. We can not find any men­tion of it in www.discover.com, so we will keep our eyes open and link to the index and more info as soon as we find some­where to link to… 

You prob­a­bly have seen the news about Bob Woodruff’s own recov­ery and his arti­cles now to raise aware­ness about the plight of Iraq veterans.

In the arti­cle “A First­hand Report on the Wounds of War”, we learn how

• “Woodruff, 45, is launch­ing a mul­ti­me­dia cam­paign that includes appear­ances Tues­day with Oprah Win­frey and on “Good Morn­ing Amer­ica,” and the release of a book (In an Instant) writ­ten with his wife, Lee, about their ordeal.”
• “Woodruff’s report­ing packs an emo­tional punch because he is, quite sim­ply, a man who cheated death. Never before had an anchor for an Amer­i­can broad­cast net­work been injured in war. Woodruff instantly became a sym­bol of the dan­gers that jour­nal­ists face in Iraq, and is try­ing to use his higher pro­file to illu­mi­nate the plight of sol­diers who strug­gle with these injuries far from the spotlight.”

This is not an iso­lated exam­ple but part of a larger, and grow­ing, prob­lem. The Dis­cover Mag­a­zine arti­cle Read the rest of this entry »