Daily TED Talk – Helen Fisher on the Brain and Love

All week I’ve been posting a favorite brain-related TED video each day. This is the last TED talk I’ll post for now- I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed them and learned from watching them. We’ll be sure to check the videos for TED 2010, which just concluded, and post any interesting neuroscience-related ones we find. Since [...]

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Posted February 14, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Neuroscience, Odds and Ends

Daily TED Talk – Christopher DeCharms Looks Inside the Brain

This week I’m posting a favorite brain-related TED video each day. In this talk from TED 2008, Christopher DeCharms discusses an innovative way to use MRI technology to look at brain activity in real time, which can help people learn to control chronic pain without drugs or surgery. Enjoy!

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Posted February 13, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Brain plasticity, Neuroscience, Odds and Ends, Research studies

Daily TED Talk – Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight

This week I’m posting a favorite brain-related TED video each day. In this talk from TED 2008, brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor tells an incredible story about studying her own stroke and long recovery process from the inside out. Enjoy!

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Posted February 12, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Neuroscience, Odds and Ends

Daily TED Talk – Vilayanur Ramachandran on Your Mind

This week I’m posting a favorite brain-related TED video each day. In this talk from TED 2007, Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran tells us what brain damage can reveal about the connection between your gray matter and your mind, using three fascinating delusions as examples. Enjoy!

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Posted February 11, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Brain plasticity, Neuroscience, Odds and Ends, Research studies

Pathological Gambling and the Brain

Pathological and problem gambling are major problems in the U.S. today. According to a ClearLead article, “…about 2.5 million adults in America are pathological gamblers and another 3 million of them should be considered problem gamblers; 15 million adults are at a risk for problem gambling and about 148 million are low-risk gamblers.” Problem gambling [...]

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Posted February 10, 2010 by Marghi Merzenich under Neuroscience, Odds and Ends, Research studies

Daily TED Talk – Gregory Petsko on the Coming Neurological Epidemic

This week I’m posting a favorite brain-related TED video each day. In this eye-opening 4 minute talk from TED 2008, biochemist Gregory Petsko argues that between now and 2050, we’ll see an epidemic of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, as the world’s population ages.

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Posted February 10, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Neuroscience, Odds and Ends

Brain Plasticity Cuts Both Ways: How Does Technology Affect The Brains of Children?

For all of us here at Posit Science and, I would imagine, to most of the people who follow the neuroscience behind brain training, the concept of brain plasticity is extremely liberating. The old guard notion of a “hard-wired” brain with little capability of changing beyond puberty has given way to a complete rethinking of [...]

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Posted February 9, 2010 by Cyrus Hedayati under Brain exercise, Brain plasticity, Neuroscience, Research studies

Daily TED Talk – Michael Merzenich on Re-wiring the Brain

This week something really neat is happening in Long Beach, California. It’s the annual TED Conference- a meeting of some of the world’s great minds of science, technology, design, and entertainment. While not all of us are able to attend the very exclusive TED Conference, we can all benefit from the wonderful videos they post [...]

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Posted February 9, 2010 by Karen Merzenich under Brain exercise, Brain plasticity, Neuroscience, Odds and Ends, Research studies

Soccer Juggling, Brain Training and A Challenge

Learning a new skill, like juggling a soccer ball, takes focus and practice … what new skill have you tried recently to push your mind?

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Posted February 8, 2010 by Steven Aldrich under Brain exercise, Brain plasticity, Physical exercise, Processing speed

Want to Live Longer? Keep Driving!

Recently Dr. Jerri Edwards of the University of South Florida published a paper showing that older adults who cease driving have higher mortality rates.1 You might think this can be easily explained by the fact that unhealthy people are more likely to cease driving. However, Dr. Edwards used an analytical method to take into account [...]

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Posted February 4, 2010 by Peter Delahunt under Benefits of Brain Fitness, Brain exercise, DriveSharp, Driving, InSight, Neuroscience, Research studies