We are so excited to be sponsoring a webinar entitled HIV-Related Cognitive Decline: Can Brain Training Help? The webinar will be held this Thursday, June 10, from 1-2 PM Pacific time. It is free, and all are welcome to join. REGISTER NOW.

Our esteemed host will be Sean Rourke, PhD, a professor in the department of psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of Toronto. He specializes in cognition in HIV/AIDS. Dr. Rourke is also the Scientific and Executive Director of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network.

During the webinar, Dr. Rourke will discuss the scope of HIV-related cognitive impairment and present case studies on the benefits of Posit Science brain training to treat this common condition. Dr. Rourke will be joined by two patients who will share their personal stories about using brain fitness to successfully ameliorate the symptoms of decline.

Continue reading "HIV-Related Cognitive Decline – Webinar with Dr. Sean Rourke" »

There was a deeply jarring article in the New York Times earlier this week that told the story of an extended Colombian family with unprecedented rates of early-onset Alzheimer’s. How their incredible suffering might hold the key for discovering a cure for Alzheimer’s is the subject of the article.

Young people in this family grow up knowing they have an equal chance of being stricken by Alzheimer’s in their 40s… and if not, they are very likely to become caretakers for siblings, spouses, and even their own children. But this predictability of Alzheimer’s is what makes this family a good testing ground for preventative medications.

I encourage you to read it and watch the accompanying video. It’s a heartbreaking story about a one small corner of the globe whose suffering may, ultimately, do the world a great service.

Here’s the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/health/02alzheimers.html?hp

A recently published study in the journal Psychology and Aging indicated that cognitive ability predicts the quality of our economic decisions better than age does.  As associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Duke Center for Neuroeconomic Studies Dr. Scott Huettel wrote, “It’s not age, it’s cognition that makes the difference in decision-making.”

Researchers conceded that older people on average did process financial decisions more slowly and had poorer memory than their younger counterparts, but when participants of similar cognitive abilities were compared, the impact of age disappeared.

This finding will come as no surprise to many.  Legendary investor Warren Buffett, 79, continues to outperform fund managers half his age.  The message to take from this article is that age by itself, as the saying goes, is just a number.  If we keep our minds sharp–by say, training with Posit Science software–we can continue to make timely and prudent investments late into life.

This week, the New York Times reported that compounds in rosemary reduce heterocyclic amines (HAs)- a type of carcinogen created when meats are cooked at high temperatures. Previous studies have shown similar benefits from combining allium vegetables (garlic and onions) with grilled meats. The research suggests that if you marinate your meat in rosemary, garlic, and/or onions, the HAs are significantly reduced, and your carcinogen burden is lessened.

If you like a summer barbeque as much as I do, this is good news. But right about now you might be asking yourself: What does this have to do with brain health, exactly?

Actually, a lot. Things like herbs and garlic have long been thought to have medicinal and health value, for both physical and mental ailments, but it’s only in recent years that we have a preponderance of published scientific studies that have begun to test some of those claims. As common sense might suggest, some of these foods and herbs have multiple benefits for both brain and body. Of course, this is a very new field and as such I have to mention that age-old caveat: further research must be done to definitively make claims about the compounds found in these foods. For example, even if benefits are found in a study, it’s not clear how much is the optimal amount to ingest, or how factors like food combination, time of day, or frequency of intake affect the potential for health benefits.

Continue reading "Garlic, Onions, Rosemary, and Sage – Interesting Health Findings for Brain and Body" »

Ed. Note: this article originally appeared on Dr. Merzenich’s blog On The Brain on May 26, 2010.

I had the great pleasure of attending a symposium held in the College of Education at my alma mater, the University of Portland, focused on this interesting subject, and the implications that it bears for effective learning and teaching. My co-participants were distinguished professors in linguistics and education science (Ellyn Arwood and Richard Christen), and two wonderful educators working on the front lines, as a classroom teacher (Bonnie Robb) and an art educator (Daniel Duford). This meeting was on the path, for the University of Portland, toward the further development of a strong emphasis on brain science-guided educational theory and practice. To which we at this blog say, “Terrific!!”

Our hands are one limb (play on words intended) of the great triumvirate (the other two being ours ears and eyes) that provides most of our knowledge about the things of the world. One emphasis of this meeting was the great value, for instructors and children, of more fully developing and exploiting this great personal resource. Richard Christen spoke compellingly about our long history of artificially distinguishing our physical actions from our mental actions. He’s right, of course. We now know that the neurological processes controlling physical movement and thought are essentially the same, and that there are extensively shared resources in these two great ‘systems’ of operation.

Continue reading "Lessons from the Hand and Mind Symposium" »

Here in the U.S., this coming Monday marks the observance of Memorial Day. Many of us think of it as just another long weekend and an extra day off from work, but I’d like to take a moment to reflect on what Memorial Day means. Originally called “Decoration Day”, the first recorded observance was in 1866, to commemorate the service of Civil War soldiers who died in battle. Following World War II, the name was changed and it became an official Federal holiday. 3 PM local time is designated as a national moment of remembrance and US flags are flown at half-staff from dawn until noon.

At Posit Science, we think a lot about our veterans- especially those who return from the front lines with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We know that in many cases, brain training and other  innovative neuroscience approaches can help folks move forward with their therapy and their lives (you can see an inspiring video of one TBI patient’s experience with brain training here).

We are also proud to support these communities with charity: this February, we donated $10,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project, a wonderful organization whose mission is to honor and empower wounded warriors, with the core values of fun, integrity, loyalty, innovation, and service. The Wounded Warrior Project was started in part because a group of veterans felt that “something needed to be done for these brave individuals beyond the brass bands and ticker tape parades.” All of us at Posit Science can relate to that, since we feel that something more needs to be done for people who suffer from TBI and other conditions, and for people who are trying their best to remain mentally fit as they age.

Last week I started discussing the social implications as they relate issues of neuroimaging and gender. If you haven’t read that article, you can access it here for the background and introduction to this topic.

Here’s another example of the neuroscience of gender at work: As of 2009, an estimated 360 public schools in the U.S. had separated (segregated?) classrooms by sex (up from 20 from just a few years earlier). Obviously, private schools have done so for centuries, and many parents and educators argue that there’s a benefit to single-sex classes. But according to one expert, there’s a new twist: about 300 of the 360 public school programs have made this choice based on neuroscientific evidence that boys and girls have fundamentally different brains.

Continue reading "Men’s Brains vs. Women’s Brains: Social Implications of Neuroimaging (Part 2 of 2)" »

Titling this post “Life Gets Better After Age 50″ is not just an observation I made or an anecdote I heard- it’s the result of a recent study of global well-being and emotional states involving hundreds of thousands of Americans. The study confirmed that “people tend to be happier, less anxious, and less worried once they pass the half-century mark.” Results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To get the data, researcher Arthur Stone of Stony Brook University enlisted the help of the Gallup Organization to create a survey that got responses from over 350,000 people throughout the U.S. He found that negative feelings, worry, anger, and stress decline with age and drop off after age 50. Men and women had similar profiles throughout the years. For a more in-depth read about the study, check out this article from ScienceNOW.

Reading about this study reminded me of a review I wrote recently on Barbara Strauch’s new book The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind. The book, like this study, provides examples of the positive side of aging and reasons to rejoice about growing older, wiser, and happier.

I came upon a story about an amazing boy today. It’s not a new story; the article I was reading was from 2007, but I wanted to share it because it is an incredible example of brain plasticity at work.

This boy, Ben Underwood, had eye cancer as a toddler. When he was two, he had to have both eyes removed. His mother, Aquanetta, raised him to believe that he could still see–just that he had to use his other senses.

So far, this story isn’t much different from that of many other blind children. But this boy did something pretty unique–he learned to use echolocation (using sound bouncing off objects, just like bats use when hunting bugs) to “see” the world around him. In this way, he could navigate the world highly successfully without a cane or help from others. He could even use sound to “see” details, like whether or not a car had its trunk open.

Continue reading "Plasticity at Work: How a Blind Boy Learned to “See”" »

I spent three days last week  in Tampa, Florida, with Dr. Jerri Edwards, professor in the School of Aging Studies at the University of South Florida.  She and I met with reporters at local newspaper, magazine and television outlets explaining the big picture of holistic brain health and the science behind brain performance improvement.

We are investing time in having these discussions because an important step in making the public aware of the need to proactively care for the brain through getting physical exercise, eating healthy diet, staying social engaged and challenging the brain through new and novel activities.   The need for this information is critical as the population ages and articles appear (like the ones written following the BBC study) that don’t give weight to the existing body of data supporting the impact of brain training.

Please post comments with ideas of a local newspaper, magazine or tv program that you’d like to see us on- and we’ll follow-up.