Try eat­ing food with one chop stick.

It is pos­si­ble, for cer­tain types of food. But prob­a­bly not the best approach.

Let’s now talk brain health.

Dr. Larry McCleary is a for­mer act­ing Chief of Pedi­atric Neu­ro­surgery at Den­ver Children’s Hos­pi­tal, and author of the The Brain Trust Pro­gram (Perigee Trade, 2007). He agreed to help us answer an impor­tant, yet often neglected, ques­tion: Given That We Are Our Brains, How do We Nour­ish Them?

Alvaro: Dr. McCleary, Why did a for­mer neu­ro­sur­geon such as your­self develop an inter­est in brain health pub­lic education?

Dr. McCleary: For two rea­sons … I am a Boomer and am try­ing to max­i­mize my own brain health. Also, there is much excit­ing research doc­u­ment­ing how we can be proac­tive in this regard. This infor­ma­tion needs to be dis­sem­i­nated and I would like to help in this process.

And what is the sin­gle most impor­tant brain-related idea or con­cept that you would like every per­son in the planet to fully understand?

The most impor­tant take home mes­sage about brain health is that we now know that no mat­ter what your brain sta­tus or age, there is much you can do to sig­nif­i­cantly improve brain func­tion and slow brain aging. Based on emerg­ing infor­ma­tion, what is espe­cially nice is the fact that unlike many things in life our brain health is largely under own control.

What are the most impor­tant ele­ments to nour­ish our brains as we age?

I approach this ques­tion much like an ath­lete pre­pares for com­pe­ti­tion. They uti­lize a holis­tic approach. Read the rest of this entry »

(Please remem­ber you can sub­scribe, at the top of this page, to receive this com­pli­men­tary bi-monthly newslet­ter by email). 

We are proud to announce that we now belong to the exclu­sive Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can Part­ner Net­work. Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can Mind spoke highly of our web­site last year, so it was only nat­ural (but made us very pleased) that we were invited to join their new blog­ger network. We remain an inde­pen­dent company, so there will be few obvi­ous changes — mainly some more links between their web­site and ours and new ban­ner ads admin­is­tered by Sci­en­tific American’s great team. 

News

Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Report: Reviews:  our just released Mar­ket Report is earn­ing a grow­ing num­ber of acco­lades as a must-read pub­li­ca­tion for exec­u­tives and investors inter­ested in emerg­ing brain health trends and opportunities.  

Brain Rules– sci­ence and prac­tice: mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gist John Med­ina releases a new book to make brain sci­ence acces­si­ble and rel­e­vant to all, and writes a fun arti­cle chal­leng­ing the very exis­tance of class­rooms and cubi­cles. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongo­ing Author Speaks Series, we are hon­ored to present today this excel­lent arti­cle by Dr. Shan­non Mof­fett, based on her illu­mi­nat­ing and engag­ing book. Enjoy!

(and please go to sleep soon if you are read­ing this late Mon­day night).
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Two years ago I fin­ished a book on the mind/brain, called The Three Pound Enigma: The Human Brain and the Quest to Unlock its Mys­ter­ies . Each chap­ter pro­files a leader in a dif­fer­ent aspect of mind/brain research, from neu­ro­surgery to zen Bud­dhism, from cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science to phi­los­o­phy of mind. One of my sub­jects was Dr. Robert Stick­gold, a zany, hyper-intelligent men­sch of a Har­vard sleep researcher. When I met him, I was in med­ical school and hav­ing a grand old time—I’d exacted an exten­sion of my tenure beyond the cus­tom­ary four years, so I had enough time to write the book, do my course­work, and have a life. I was busy, but still got enough sleep, had time to exer­cise daily, and even went for din­ner and a movie some­times. Although I found Stickgold’s work inter­est­ing, there was a part of me that just didn’t get it.

Fast-forward to the present, when I am a res­i­dent in emer­gency med­i­cine at a busy inner-city trauma cen­ter; I have two-year-old twins and a hus­band with a 60-hour-a-week job of his own. I do not exer­cise. I do not eat unless I can do some­thing else pro­duc­tive at the same time, and even when I do get to sleep in my own bed, my slum­ber is frac­tured by the awak­en­ings of two cir­ca­di­anly dis­parate tod­dlers. It seems to take me twice as long to “get” new con­cepts as it used to, and I never feel like I’m func­tion­ing at top speed. In short, I am a mess. And NOW I get what Stickgold’s work is all about, and under­stand that he is both quan­ti­fy­ing and explain­ing exactly what I’m feeling.

Read the rest of this entry »

What stresses you out ?

What­ever it is, how you respond to it may have more con­se­quences than you think. Let me show you how.

Recap­ping from last months arti­cle (see Stress and Neural Wreck­age: Part of the Brain Plas­tic­ity Puz­zle)…our bod­ies are a com­plex bal­anc­ing act between sys­tems work­ing full time to keep us alive and well. Any change which threat­ens this bal­ance can be referred to as stress. Cor­ti­sol, a key com­po­nent of the stress response, does an excel­lent job of allow­ing us to adapt to most stres­sors which last more than a cou­ple of min­utes. How­ever, hav­ing to endure a high stres­sor for longer than about 30 min­utes to an hour neg­a­tively impacts the brain in var­i­ous ways.

Read the rest of this entry »

Given the cur­rent polit­i­cal cli­mate, we are pleased to host this thought-provoking arti­cle by 2 of our Expert Con­trib­u­tors. Dear Mr or Mrs Next Pres­i­dent: how can you help our minds take bet­ter care of our brains?

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Ask Not What The Health Sys­tem Can Do For You…

– By Simon J. Evans, PhD and Paul R. Burghardt, PhD.

With the pres­i­den­tial debates gear­ing up again we are sure to hear more about health care. But we pro­pose a slightly dif­fer­ent ques­tion. In addi­tion to ask­ing how we can get more peo­ple health­care cov­er­age, we should also ask why so many peo­ple are sick in the first place.

The words of John Kennedy might today be, “Ask not what the health care sys­tem can do for you. Ask what you can do to reduce the health care bur­den”. But before delv­ing into what we can do, let’s take a look at some real­i­ties that our next pres­i­dent could face in their first ‘State of the Union’ address.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last months, thanks to the traf­fic growth of SharpBrains.com (over 100,000 unique vis­i­tors per month these days, THANK YOU for vis­it­ing today and please come back!), a num­ber of proac­tive book agents, pub­lish­ers and authors have con­tacted us to inform us of their lat­est brain-related books. We have taken a look at many books, wrote reviews of The Dana Guide to Brain Health book review‚ and Best of the Brain from Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can, and inter­viewed sci­en­tists such as Judith Beck, Robert Emmons and James Zull.

Now we are launch­ing a new Author Speaks Series to pro­vide a plat­form for lead­ing sci­en­tists and experts writ­ing high-quality brain-related books to reach a wide audi­ence. We are hon­ored to start the series with an arti­cle by Larry McCleary, M.D, for­mer act­ing Chief of Pedi­atric Neu­ro­surgery at Den­ver Children’s Hos­pi­tal, and author of The Brain Trust Pro­gram: A Sci­en­tif­i­cally Based Three-Part Plan to Improve Mem­ory, Ele­vate Mood, Enhance Atten­tion, Alle­vi­ate Migraine and Menopausal Symp­toms, and Boost Men­tal Energy (Perigee Trade, 2007).

With­out fur­ther ado, let’s enjoy Dr. McCleary’s article:

Brain Evo­lu­tion and Why it is Mean­ing­ful Today to Improve Our Brain Health

You may feel over­whelmed by the stream of seem­ingly con­tra­dic­tory sug­ges­tions regard­ing the best way to main­tain men­tal clar­ity as you age. Based on an analy­sis of sem­i­nal fac­tors in the devel­op­ment of mod­ern brain anatomy, I believe it is pos­si­ble to make some very com­pelling rec­om­men­da­tions for grow­ing big brains, enhanc­ing their func­tion, and mak­ing them resis­tant to the aging process. These may be loosely cat­e­go­rized as fac­tors per­tain­ing to the men­tal or phys­i­cal attrib­utes of the brain. Although they are not truly inde­pen­dent enti­ties, such a con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion pro­vides a basis for the gen­er­a­tion of brain healthy pre­scrip­tions. Diet, phys­i­cal exer­cise, and stress reduc­tion enhance neu­ronal resilience. Sleep and men­tal stim­u­la­tion are vital for cog­ni­tive abil­ity, learn­ing, and memory.

Diet: Fol­low a mod­ern shore-based/marine diet includ­ing seafood in its most gen­eral sense, non-starchy veg­eta­bles of all col­ors, berries, and eggs. Other sources of lean pro­tein con­tain­ing long-chain omega 3 fatty acids such as free range beef, chicken, bison, or elk are nutri­tious alternatives.

Phys­i­cal exer­cise (Think fight or flight — activ­ity.): Include all types. Aer­o­bic activ­i­ties such as swim­ming, bicy­cling, walk­ing, or hik­ing for pro­mo­tion of vas­cu­lar health and weight con­trol; resis­tance train­ing for pro­mo­tion of neu­rotrophic fac­tors, nat­u­rally occur­ring com­pounds that make brain cells more resis­tant to aging, such as IGF-1 (Insulin-like growth factor-1) and BDNF (Brain-derived neu­rotrophic fac­tor); and bal­ance, coor­di­na­tion, and agility train­ing such as ping-pong, bal­ance beam, tram­po­line, and jump­ing rope to enhance cog­ni­tive speed and motor skills.

Stress Con­trol: From an evo­lu­tion­ary per­spec­tive, stres­sors (such as meet­ing a cave bear) and intense phys­i­cal activ­ity (run­ning or fight­ing) were brief in dura­tion and usu­ally occurred together. Mod­ern stres­sors (psy­cho­log­i­cal or emo­tional stress) tend to be unremit­ting and are gen­er­ally uncou­pled from the phys­i­cal (fight or flight) com­po­nent, mean­ing stress devel­ops with­out any asso­ci­ated phys­i­cal activ­ity. Such intense phys­i­cal pur­suits are now called exer­cise. Not sur­pris­ingly, exer­cise is a per­fect phys­i­o­logic anti­dote for stress due to its ben­e­fi­cial impact on cor­ti­sol (the stress hor­mone) and blood pres­sure and should be incor­po­rated into any pro­gram of stress reduction.

Ade­quate sleep: The body needs rest, but the brain requires sleep. Acute or chronic sleep depri­va­tion causes dev­as­tat­ing short and long-term con­se­quences to brain anatomy (synap­tic loss) and func­tion (mem­ory and learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties). Off-line infor­ma­tion pro­cess­ing and mem­ory con­sol­i­da­tion are addi­tional sleep-related benefits.

Men­tal stim­u­la­tion: Brain-training, a cog­ni­tively chal­leng­ing lifestyle, nov­elty, and social­iza­tion are vital for the pro­mo­tion of neu­ronal plas­tic­ity and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (the for­ma­tion of new nerve cells and neu­ronal con­nec­tions), the enhance­ment of spe­cific brain func­tions such as mem­ory, and the devel­op­ment of cog­ni­tive reserve — addi­tional men­tal pro­cess­ing poten­tial that may be brought online when needed.

The com­bi­na­tion of these rec­om­men­da­tions, each of which was instru­men­tal in the trans­for­ma­tion from prim­i­tive to mod­ern ner­vous sys­tems, pro­vides a tem­plate for the most log­i­cal approach for enhanc­ing men­tal func­tion and resist­ing neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion as we travel through life.

The Evo­lu­tion­ary Rationale

The human brain clearly has the genetic poten­tial for dra­matic expan­sion. This was illus­trated about Read the rest of this entry »

1) Are you attend­ing the Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion Con­ven­tion in San Fran­cisco next week? if you are, please let us know!

2) NYT Arti­cle: Men­tal Abil­i­ties: Good Read­ers Bet­ter Able to Retain Brain Skills

3) SF Chron­i­cle arti­cle: Zen and the art of lawyer­ing 

4) Med­ical News arti­cle: ADHD Seems To Be Linked To Low Dopamine Brain Activ­ity Read the rest of this entry »

Today we inter­view Dr. Arthur Lavin, Asso­ciate Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor of Pedi­atrics at Case West­ern School of Med­i­cine, pedi­a­tri­cian in pri­vate prac­tice, and one of the first providers of Cogmed Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing in the US (the pro­gram whose research we dis­cussed with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg and Dr. Bradley Gib­son). Dr. Lavin has a long stand­ing inter­est in technology-as evi­denced by Microsoft’s recog­ni­tion of his paper­less office– and in brain research and applications-he trained with esteemed Mel Levine from All Kinds of Minds-.

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Key take-aways:

- Schools today are not yet in a posi­tion to effec­tively help kids with cog­ni­tive issues deal with increas­ing cog­ni­tive demands.

- Work­ing Mem­ory is a cog­ni­tive skill fun­da­men­tal to plan­ning, sequenc­ing, and exe­cut­ing school-related work.

- Work­ing Mem­ory can be trained, as evi­denced by Dr. Lavin’s work, based on Cogmed Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing, with kids who have atten­tion deficits.

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Con­text on cog­ni­tive fit­ness and schools

AF (Alvaro Fer­nan­dez): Dr. Lavin, thanks for being with us. It is not very com­mon for a pedi­a­tri­cian to have such an active inter­est in brain research and cog­ni­tive fit­ness. Can you explain the source of your interest?

AL (Arthur Lavin): Through­out my life I have been fas­ci­nated by how the mind works. Both from the research point of view and the prac­ti­cal one: how can sci­en­tists’ increas­ing knowl­edge improve kids’ lives? We now live in an truly excit­ing era in which solid sci­en­tific progress in neu­ro­science is at last cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve people’s actual cog­ni­tive func­tion. The progress Cogmed has achieved in cre­at­ing a pro­gram that can make great dif­fer­ences in the lives of chil­dren with atten­tion deficits is one of the most excit­ing recent devel­op­ments. My col­league Ms. Susan Glaser and I recently pub­lished two books: Who’s Boss: Mov­ing Fam­i­lies from Con­flict to Col­lab­o­ra­tion (Col­lab­o­ra­tion Press, 2006) and Baby & Tod­dler Sleep Solu­tions for Dum­mies (Wiley, 2007), so I not only see myself as a pedi­a­tri­cian but also an edu­ca­tor. I see par­ents in real need of guid­ance and sup­port. They usu­ally are both very skep­ti­cal, since Read the rest of this entry »

One of the com­pa­nies pre­sent­ing at our panel on Brain Fit­ness at Neu­rotech Indus­try Con­fer­ence, May 17th in San Fran­cisco, was Cogmed. They offer a work­ing mem­ory train­ing pro­gram focused now on kids with atten­tion deficits. What was excit­ing in the panel was to hear how Cogmed is help­ing kids train work­ing mem­ory, Posit Sci­ence is help­ing (mostly) seniors train audi­tory pro­cess­ing, and there is a grow­ing field start­ing to pro­vide struc­tured brain exer­cise to peo­ple of all ages with dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ties and needs.

The Chicago Tri­bune has an arti­cle today titled Giv­ing a child a bet­ter mind. Quotes:

• “Work­ing mem­ory is the abil­ity to store infor­ma­tion in the brain for a short time, typ­i­cally a few sec­onds. In daily life, work­ing mem­ory helps peo­ple remem­ber instruc­tions, solve prob­lems, con­trol impulses and focus attention.”
• “Cogmed Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing, devel­oped by Swedish brain researcher Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, fea­tures video game soft­ware on an engag­ing robot inter­face. The research-validated pro­gram has been suc­cess­ful in Europe, and now is being offered in the United States.”
• “The pro­gram may not apply to every­one with atten­tion deficit, accord­ing to Gra­ham, because not all peo­ple with ADD have a deficit in work­ing mem­ory. Schools or psy­chol­o­gists can deter­mine whether Read the rest of this entry »

We hope you are enjoy­ing Brain Aware­ness Week this week and hope­fully think­ing a lit­tle more about your brain and brain fit­ness! Below you have the Brain Fit­ness Newslet­ter we sent a few days ago. You can sub­scribe to this monthly email update in the box on the the top of this page.

We have had another busy month behind us, and we’re look­ing for­ward to Brain Aware­ness Week March 12–18. Keep read­ing for the details (includ­ing a spe­cial offer in honor of Brain Aware­ness Week) …

I. Press Cov­er­age
II. Events
III. Pro­gram Reviews
IV. New Offer­ings
V. Web­site and Blog Sum­mary, includ­ing brain teasers
Read the rest of this entry »