Over the last few weeks I have been read­ing Rec­ol­lec­tions of My Life, the impres­sive auto­bi­og­ra­phy by San­ti­ago Ramon y Cajal (1852–1934), one the founders of mod­ern neu­ro­science. The book com­bines a very lively win­dow into his child­hood, life and per­sonal reflec­tions, with a pretty tech­ni­cal descrip­tions at times of his main con­tri­bu­tions to neuroscience.

I wanted to under­stand his views bet­ter because, on the one hand, he is often pre­sented as one of the first pro­po­nents of the No New Neu­rons (in the adult brain) dogma now refuted,  but on the other hand he said things like “Every man can, of he so desires, become the sculp­tor of his own brain”, thereby empha­siz­ing what we now call adult neu­ro­plas­tic­ity (the abil­ity of the brain to rewire itself through experience).

Let me share some of the quotes I have enjoyed the most:

*** (on his traits of char­ac­ter): “a pro­found belief in the sov­er­eign will; faith in work; the con­vic­tion that a per­se­ver­ing and delib­er­ate effort is capa­ble of mould­ing and orga­niz­ing every­thing, from the mus­cle to the brain, mak­ing up the defi­cien­cies of nature and even over­com­ing the mis­chances of character-the most dif­fi­cult thing in life.”

- Com­ment:  very clear belief in neuroplasticity-which he couldn’t prove in his life­time given lack of the tech­ni­cal resources and accu­mu­lated knowl­edge avail­able today.

*** “…I am a fer­vent adept of the reli­gion of facts. It has been said innu­mer­able times, and I have also repeated it, that “facts remain and the­o­ries pass away…To observe with­out think­ing is as dan­ger­ous as to think with­out observ­ing. The­ory is our best intel­lec­tual tool; a tool, like all oth­ers, liable to be notched and to rust, requir­ing con­tin­ual repairs and replace­ments, but with­out which it would be almost impos­si­ble to make a deep hol­low in the mar­ble block of reality”

- Com­ment: a  beau­ti­ful dis­play of the sci­en­tific mindset.

*** (after a first dis­il­lu­sion­ment) “I con­soled myself then in the way that I have always been in the habit of doing…namely by bathing my soul in nature…For one who is capa­ble of appre­ci­at­ing its enchant­ment, the coun­try is the sov­er­eign soother of emo­tions, the unre­place­able com­mu­ta­tor of thoughts.”

- Com­ment: I was sur­prised by the lyri­cal nature of sev­eral pas­sages in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, like this one. When Howard Gart­ner talks of a “nat­u­ral­is­tic intel­li­gence”, he may well be think­ing of atti­tudes like Cajal’s. Which makes much sense, given the quote above on the value of “facts”.

Read the rest of this entry »

We often talk in this blog about how to expand fun­da­men­tal abil­i­ties or cog­ni­tive func­tions, like atten­tion, or mem­ory, or emo­tional self-regulation. Think of them as mus­cles one can train. Now, it is also impor­tant to think of ways one can use our exist­ing mus­cles more efficiently.

Let’s talk about how to man­age bet­ter the over­whelm­ing amount of infor­ma­tion avail­able these days.

Hun­dreds of thou­sands of new books, ana­lyst reports, sci­en­tific papers pub­lished every year. Mil­lions of web­sites at our googletips. The flow of data, infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge is grow­ing expo­nen­tially, stretch­ing the capac­ity of our not-so-evolved brains. We can com­plain all day that we can­not process ALL this flow. Now, let me ask, should we even try?

Prob­a­bly not. Why engage in a los­ing propo­si­tion. Instead, let me offer a few strate­gies that can help man­age this flow of infor­ma­tion better.

1. Pri­or­i­tize: strate­gic con­sult­ing firms such as McK­in­sey and BCG train their staff in the so-called 80/20 rule: 80% of effects are caused by the top 20% of causes. In a com­pany, 80% sales may come from 20% of the accounts. Impli­ca­tion: focus on that top 20%; don’t spend too much time on the 80% that only account for 20%.

2. Lever­age a sci­en­tific mind­set. Sci­en­tists shift through tons of data in effi­cient, goal-oriented ways. How do they do it? By first stat­ing a hypoth­e­sis and then look­ing for data. For exam­ple, an untrained per­son could spend weeks “boil­ing the ocean”, try­ing to read as much as pos­si­ble, in a very frag­men­tary way, about how phys­i­cal exer­cise affects our brain. A trained sci­en­tist would first define clear hypothe­ses and pre­lim­i­nary assump­tions, such as “Phys­i­cal exer­cise can enhance the brain’s abil­ity to gen­er­ate new neu­rons” or “Those new neu­rons appear in the hip­pocam­pus”, and then look specif­i­cally for data that cor­rob­o­rates or refutes those sen­tences, enabling him or her to refine the hypothe­ses fur­ther, based on accu­mu­lated knowl­edge, in a vir­tu­ous learn­ing cycle.

My wife and I were for­tu­nate to con­duct recently a mind train­ing exper­i­ment, in the form of a breath­ing & med­i­ta­tion retreat, with some neu­ro­sci­en­tists and Adam Engle, Co-Founder and Chair­man of the Mind & Life Insti­tute (nice name, isn’t it?)

The Mind and Life Dia­logues “started in 1987 as an exper­i­ment to deter­mine whether a sci­en­tific exchange could occur between mod­ern sci­ence and Bud­dhism. MLI has now spon­sored 14 dia­logues (between the Dalai Lama and neu­ro­sci­en­tists) over the last 20 years. In that time MLI has become a rec­og­nized world leader in the emerg­ing sci­en­tific inves­ti­ga­tion of the effects of con­tem­pla­tive prac­tices on the brain, behav­ior, and the trans­la­tion of this data into effec­tive tools to ben­e­fit all peo­ple everywhere.”

A few notes from our con­ver­sa­tion with Adam

• - He helped launch the Mind & Life Insti­tute to build a science-based field of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary study to inves­ti­gate the appli­ca­tions of the “data­base of prac­tices” that Bud­dhism and some Chris­t­ian tra­di­tions have accu­mu­lated over milennia
• - From early on it became clear that they needed to engage West­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists in order to be cred­i­ble and become a real East-West bridge with poten­tial to reach main­stream soci­ety. You can see below a par­tial list of par­tic­i­pants in their most recent meet­ing, 2 weeks ago
• - They are very happy that Sharon Begley’s book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain has become a non-fiction Best­seller, since it is based on one of the Mind & Life Dia­logues (more on Books on neu­ro­plas­tic­ity)
• - He is glad to see the inroads that Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) is mak­ing in the med­ical world thanks to solid research. He believes the Cor­po­rate Train­ing and Lead­er­ship mar­ket is also going to become very inter­ested in this tech­nique for stress man­age­ment. The main bot­tle­neck for growth? the exist­ing num­ber of qual­i­fied instruc­tors does not meet the increas­ing demand.

The Insti­tute spon­sors research in a num­ber of ways, and they just announced that the 3rd annual Sci­en­tists Retreat will take place Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Here is ques­tion 21 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions.

Ques­tion:

I am busy exec­u­tive with a chal­leng­ing job. How is brain fit­ness rel­e­vant to me?

Key Points:

• Reduce your stress to improve con­cen­tra­tion and learn­ing readi­ness and reduce distractions.
• Increase your men­tal stim­u­la­tion to help main­tain a healthy, flex­i­ble brain.

Answer:

Exec­u­tives, or any­one involved in com­plex and rapidly evolv­ing envi­ron­ments, need to make pres­sured deci­sions based on sound logic, instead of emo­tional impulses. It is not easy to deal with the frus­tra­tion, for exam­ple, when Read the rest of this entry »

There has been an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about the issues related to the aging of the legal pro­fes­sion. Stephanie intro­duced us to the arti­cle “the Gray­ing Bar: let’s not for­get the ethics” by David Giacalone.

In short: sta­tis­tics about the increas­ing ratio of lawyers over 70 in active prac­tice, on the one hand, and the gen­eral inci­dence of Alzheimer’s and other demen­tias, on the other, lead David to point out an increas­ing like­li­hood that some lawyers may be prac­tic­ing in less than ideal con­di­tions for their clients, beyond a rea­son­able “brain age”. The ques­tion then becomes: who and how can solve this prob­lem, which is only going to grow given demo­graphic trends?.

We are not legal experts, but would like to inform the debate by offer­ing 10 con­sid­er­a­tions on healthy aging and job per­for­mance from a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal point of view, that apply to all occupations:

1– We should talk more about change than about decline, as Sharon Beg­ley wrote recently in her great arti­cle on The Upside of Aging — WSJ.com (sub­scrip­tion required).

We dis­cussed some of these effects with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, who wrote his great book The Wis­dom Para­dox pre­cisely on this point, at The Exec­u­tive Brain and How our Minds Can Grow Stronger.

2– Some skills improve as we age: In our “Exer­cis­ing Our Brains” Classes, we typ­i­cally explain how some areas typ­i­cally improve as we age, such as self-regulation, emo­tional func­tion­ing and Wis­dom (which means mov­ing from Prob­lem solv­ing to Pat­tern recog­ni­tion). As a lawyer accu­mu­lates more cases under his/ her belt, he or she devel­ops an auto­matic “intu­ition” for solu­tions and strate­gies. As long as the envi­ron­ment doesn’t change too rapidly, this grow­ing wis­dom is very valuable.

3– …whereas, yes, oth­ers typ­i­cally decline: Read the rest of this entry »

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 Read the rest of this entry »

Here is ques­tion 20 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions.

Ques­tion:
Can a brain fit­ness pro­gram help me become more creative?

Key Points:

• Cre­ativ­ity can be trained, like other men­tal muscles.
• Set up struc­tured time, places, or rou­tines that pro­vide a frame­work for cre­ativ­ity to happen.
• Reduc­ing your stress helps to keep your brain more flexible.
• Using many parts of the brain as well as try­ing new things will stim­u­late the areas of your brain involved in creativity.

Answer: Read the rest of this entry »

Great March 19th issue of Newsweek Mag­a­zine, announc­ing the hir­ing of sci­ence writer Sharon Beg­ley, who leads the cover story on The Evo­lu­tion Revolution. You will find:

• The New Sci­ence of Human Evo­lu­tion: “The new sci­ence of the brain and DNA is rewrit­ing the his­tory of human origins”.
• Live Talk: Sharon Beg­ley on the new sci­ence of evolution
• Think Thin To Get Thin by Judith Beck (daugh­ter of Aaron Beck, the founder of cog­ni­tive ther­apy, apply­ing CT tech­niques to weight loss).
• Com­pas­sion Fatigue Hits Vet Care­givers: “For thou­sands who treat vet­er­ans suf­fer­ing from post­trau­matic stress dis­or­der (PTSD), ‘com­pas­sion fatigue’ is a very real problem“ 
• “The lit­er­ary land­scape that shaped the baby boomers”

Talk­ing about DNA, my wife and I just ordered our par­tic­i­pa­tion kit from National Geo­graphic: The Geno­graphic Project to learn more about our ori­gins. Looks like a very wor­thy project. She, from Russ­ian and Ger­man recent ances­tors; me, born in Spain’s Basque Coun­try. We will see what we find out!

We finally had time to hear and enjoy the 35-minute inter­view with WSJ sci­ence writer Sharon Beg­ley about her new book, Train Your Mind Change Your Brain. Highly rec­om­mended. (Thanks Beate!)

NPR Talk of the Nation, Feb­ru­ary 2, 2007: “For years, sci­en­tists believed the brain’s struc­ture couldn’t be changed. The new sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity says that’s not the case, and argue the brain is much more flex­i­ble than pre­vi­ously thought.”

Lis­ten to the inter­view here.