Neuroscience
There is an acceleration of interest in promoting cognitive and neuropsychological 'exercise' for a healthy brain, especially over the course of aging. Though most mainstream-media articles about this report it as a new phenomenon, it really is not. Over the past 25 years, if not longer, neuropsychologists have been recommending such activities for subsets of relevant patients that they have examined.
What is new is the healthy burst of new energy and interest and - one hopes - a healthy dose of clinical-trials testing to assure that this 'exercise' actually has a firm foundational basis to it and a careful mapping against specific individual attributes - especially if someone is going to have to foot the bill for access to it. Even without these newly emerging approaches, it is a given of common sense that it is better to be an active person than an inactive one - just keep those brain juices flowing, folks!
I'd like to think that a crossword puzzle a day - like the proverbial apple - can keep the doctor away. For these newer and more ambitious approaches, a critical research eye and the professional eagerness to test these approaches with objectivity will take us far.
A new article at Wired.com includes quotes from Drs. Elkhonon Goldberg and Margaret Gatz, as well as reference to the excellent programmatic research of "The Nun Study." Here's the link:
Brain Workouts May Tone Memory
By Joanna Glasner
Wired News
02:00 AM Aug. 04, 2005 PT
[ ... Read the article ... ]
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Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain
- Neurofutures That Aren't Mine
Neurofuturity: A Theory of Change coins a new meaning for neurofuture (the neuroword, not this blog). It's an article from Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. "Capturing the possible worlds to come is described here as neurofuturity. It is...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Art And Neuroscience
Returning to a fav topic of mine, here is a new research study: The right hemisphere in esthetic perception Front Hum Neurosci. 2011;5:109 Bromberger B, Sternschein R, Widick P, Smith W, Chatterjee A Abstract Little about the neuropsychology of art perception...
- The Game Brain
An excellent op-ed piece in today's New York Times about the value of exercise - of the physical variety - in mental gymnastics. A Risser suggestion to supplement the intent of the opinion writers: get out there and walk around, but take a camera...
- Neuropsychology Executive-function Card Game?
Boing Boing posts today about a "geeky card game" that seems to call for a good dose of healthy frontal lobe functioning. The game is called "Set." Read the posting here. (Another Boing Boing post today is about an online atlas of the monkey brain.) -...
- Functional Neuroimaging, Alzheimer Disease, Neuropsychology Function, And The Hippocampus
One of many recent news article over the past year about the application of functional neuroimaging technologies, this time in Wisconsin and with specific concern about the hippocampus and the hippocampal region and its relation to neuropsychological...
Neuroscience
The Game Brain
There is an acceleration of interest in promoting cognitive and neuropsychological 'exercise' for a healthy brain, especially over the course of aging. Though most mainstream-media articles about this report it as a new phenomenon, it really is not. Over the past 25 years, if not longer, neuropsychologists have been recommending such activities for subsets of relevant patients that they have examined.
What is new is the healthy burst of new energy and interest and - one hopes - a healthy dose of clinical-trials testing to assure that this 'exercise' actually has a firm foundational basis to it and a careful mapping against specific individual attributes - especially if someone is going to have to foot the bill for access to it. Even without these newly emerging approaches, it is a given of common sense that it is better to be an active person than an inactive one - just keep those brain juices flowing, folks!
I'd like to think that a crossword puzzle a day - like the proverbial apple - can keep the doctor away. For these newer and more ambitious approaches, a critical research eye and the professional eagerness to test these approaches with objectivity will take us far.
A new article at Wired.com includes quotes from Drs. Elkhonon Goldberg and Margaret Gatz, as well as reference to the excellent programmatic research of "The Nun Study." Here's the link:
Brain Workouts May Tone Memory
By Joanna Glasner
Wired News
02:00 AM Aug. 04, 2005 PT
[ ... Read the article ... ]
-
Anthony H. Risser | neuroscience | neuropsychology | brain
- Neurofutures That Aren't Mine
Neurofuturity: A Theory of Change coins a new meaning for neurofuture (the neuroword, not this blog). It's an article from Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry. "Capturing the possible worlds to come is described here as neurofuturity. It is...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Art And Neuroscience
Returning to a fav topic of mine, here is a new research study: The right hemisphere in esthetic perception Front Hum Neurosci. 2011;5:109 Bromberger B, Sternschein R, Widick P, Smith W, Chatterjee A Abstract Little about the neuropsychology of art perception...
- The Game Brain
An excellent op-ed piece in today's New York Times about the value of exercise - of the physical variety - in mental gymnastics. A Risser suggestion to supplement the intent of the opinion writers: get out there and walk around, but take a camera...
- Neuropsychology Executive-function Card Game?
Boing Boing posts today about a "geeky card game" that seems to call for a good dose of healthy frontal lobe functioning. The game is called "Set." Read the posting here. (Another Boing Boing post today is about an online atlas of the monkey brain.) -...
- Functional Neuroimaging, Alzheimer Disease, Neuropsychology Function, And The Hippocampus
One of many recent news article over the past year about the application of functional neuroimaging technologies, this time in Wisconsin and with specific concern about the hippocampus and the hippocampal region and its relation to neuropsychological...