Today Posit Science launched a new Facebook application called The 60 Second Brain Game. Some of you may have already played it on the Posit Science site, but we encourage you to play on Facebook too. Why? Because it’s a great way to challenge your friends and family to see who can get the highest score. And, each time you play on Facebook, $1 is donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

The Wounded Warrior Project is an organization dedicated to supporting injured service members on their road to recovery, including those suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a result of battle. We feel that this organization is a great match with our mission to promote brain health for all. While our products have yet to be clinically proven to help TBI, we have had a number of folks write in with their own personal stories on how Posit Science products have made a tremendous difference. One Wounded Warrior who has been greatly helped by using Posit Science software is Iraq vet Steven Schulz. You can read his story here.

On a personal note, my younger brother Captain Kenny Crowley of the US Army is lucky to be alive after his time in Afghanistan.  Kenny’s humvee was blown up (on two separate occasions) by hidden IEDs while in the Southern regions of the country.  He escaped without any traumatic injuries, except, of course, the kind that leave scars no one can see. However, he lost a number of his friends and fellow soldiers in those incidents, and I can only be thankful that I did not lose my brother.

So please play the game, support Wounded Warrior Project, and share your scores with your friends. Wishing you the best in brain health!

Ed. note: Today we are pleased to present a guest post from Dr. G, aka M. A. Greenstein, Ph.D. Dr. G is an internationally recognized speaker, coach, and researcher of visual culture and neurosomatics.  Click on her name above for a full biography.

With the ever increasing research buzz on brain fitness, and especially “novel” mental stimulation to insure the health and longevity of developing and aging brains, questions undoubtedly arise in a number of camps concerning “what kind of novelty? How much? Fit for what?”

As someone who has invested her professional life in researching the art and science of embodied brain/mind wellness practices and in coaching, mentoring, and teaching artists, designers, and young entrepreneurs (a.k.a “cultural creatives”), I couldn’t be happier to feel the buzz.  Truth be told, novelty and the willingness to try something new is my  mantra, particularly in the face of challenge, be it in developing daily practices for optimal health, entering the creative zone, or rehabilitating brain injury.

Now, with the last two decades pushing neuro-, cognitive, and biotech sciences into new frontiers of experiment and insight, I am especially excited to consider the ways in which these new evolutionary system sciences open up a line of holistic inquiry regarding the correlative relation between growth in networks – biological, neural, cognitive, emotional, creative – you name it.  I’m talking about the whole, complex kit and kaboodle paradigm of being human interdependent with the world.

Continue reading "Tips for Growing Brains, Behaviors and Ideas!" »

Depending on where you live, you may have seen our new commercial on TV. We are really proud of it- because it reminds people that among other benefits, Posit Science programs are clinically proven to help people improve their memory and auditory processing, cut crash risk in half, and protect health-related quality of life for up to 5 years after training.

There are lots of reasons why people train with Posit Science software. What we want to know is: why do YOU train? Tell us in the comments and be entered to win your choice of a 1-user copy of the Brain Fitness Program, InSight, or DriveSharp. If you haven’t yet used the program, you can tell us why you want to train instead. Post your comment before midnight on March 18, 2010 to be entered to win. We will randomly select a winner on March 19, 2010. Earn one entry per household. Go!

UPDATE: This contest is now CLOSED. We randomly selected a winner, which is… Commenter #5, Jamie L! Congratulations!

I’ve never really been a “beach person” when it comes to vacations.  For me, a great vacation is about going to new places and immersing myself in different cultures.   Experiencing a new language, finding new ways of seeing, and pushing culinary boundaries are my idea of good fun.  Yes, I’ve gotten lost, had to rely on the kindness of strangers and eaten some creatures I didn’t even know were food.  However, I’ve loved it and treasure those very vivid memories.

A recent Psychology Today article helped me understand why I find this so exciting.  It turns out, it’s all in my head.  Fear-provoking situations, even mild ones, encourage the release of noradrenaline, which  makes us more aware and clear-headed.  I’ve certainly felt that clarifying buzz.  What I didn’t know was that the noradrenaline also stimulates the hippocampus and its neighboring structure, the amygdala, which stores memories.  With all this amping up of emotion and memory-related brain structures, not only are you more present but those stimulating situations are remembered very well.

If a major trip isn’t in your immediate future, don’t worry.  The author reminds us that just getting out of your comfort zone with new experiences, no matter where are you are, is enough to get the noradrenaline flowing.

It has become clear over the last few years that one of the many benefits of regular physical exercise is a better functioning brain. In a recent review paper Erickson and Kramer (2009) noted the following:

1. People who exercise regularly have larger volumes of grey matter in important regions of the brain, including the prefrontal, parietal and temporal lobes. They also have a greater volume of white matter in the corpus callosum. (Grey matter contains the neurons that process information in the brain. White matter helps disperse the information rapidly to other regions of the brain.)
2. Participants who follow an aerobic exercise plan over a 6 month period perform better on cognitive tasks such as task switching and selective attention tasks.

Continue reading "Optimizing Brain Function" »

Of all the issues around brain development, the most interesting to me has always been that of language learning- especially relating to second language learning. It probably has to with my background: my Dad is from Iran, and in my early childhood I spoke Farsi with him and English with my Mom. Eventually, though, my Dad worried that I would lag behind in school if he continued to speak Farsi with me, so he stopped. It wasn’t until I learned Spanish in high school and developed an interest in languages that I decided to revisit Farsi. I like to think that the Farsi just hovered around in the back of my brain somewhere waiting for me to use it again, because I’m picking it up at a good clip now.

That’s why I’m so pleased that some you are apparently interested in this too! The way the brain can learn a new language well into old age has raised a lot of discussion on how important it is for kids to grow up bilingually. It has been specifically asked: if Americans speak fewer languages than the rest of the world, does that mean our brains are less developed? Since I have written about the topic of languages and the brain before, I thought I would give it my best shot: countries that teach their children multiple languages from pre-adolescence onward  produce citizens with more linguistically developed brains.

Continue reading "The Second Language Brain Debate" »

I attended the UNC CHAT festival and heard Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft’s entertainment division, talk about convergence and what Microsoft is doing to enable its products and services to ride that wave.  The main point of the presentation was to discuss the merging of technology into all forms of entertainment and to note the three big themes that influence, and are influenced by, this trend.

The first is customers’ use of technology.  The expectation is that content will follow the customer across multiple devices, or, in Robbie’s words, “multi-screen is the new main screen.”  He stated this is already happening with TV viewers being online more than half the time while watching a program.  That same expectation of access is clear when looking at mobile devices, primarily smart phones, delivering music, video, and other content that is also found on the laptop, desktop computer, or home entertainment system.  Since all of that content is rapidly moving to the cloud, enabling anytime, anywhere access.

Continue reading "Convergence = Computer Science + Entertainment + Brain Science" »

Does thinking burn calories? I’ve often wondered about that, and today I came across a Q&A article in New Scientist on that very topic. According to behavorial neuroscientist Ewan McNay, who has conducted research in this area,

“A rough calculation suggests that thinking hard about a task for 30 minutes might burn about 1/30th of a gram of fat. Thinking is not likely to turn an intellectual couch potato into a lean machine.”

Roger Hicks puts it even more succinctly:

“…it appears that the thinking part of brain function… consumes a relatively small amount of extra energy and is therefore of little use in weight loss-unless, of course, some of that thinking is aimed at producing exercise.”

Darn it! I guess I better sign off the computer and hit the gym after all. Of course, there’s lots of evidence that actual  physical exercise is good for your brain too.

About the Brain is a new section on the Posit Science website that’s chock-full of great information about the brain and brain fitness.

You can choose from these areas of interest:

• Brain Facts helps you understand how your brain and brain plasticity work. It answers all kinds of questions, like “Are crosswords really good for your brain?,” “How does sleep affect memory?,” and “Why is brain fitness suddenly so popular?”

• Brain Healthy Activities gives concrete ideas for supplementing brain training with everyday habits that are good for the brain, including brain-healthy recipes, activities, and more.

• Fun Brain Tricks lets you explore cool visual and auditory illusions and describes what’s happening in the brain.

So check out About the Brain and let us know what other questions you’d like to see answered there!

As someone with a deep interest in music, I’ve often wondered about that age-old question: where does music come from? It’s become a cliché for musicians to wax philosophical about how their creative impulses come from “deep within” or that improvisation is a way of expressing their “true self”, but good luck getting anything more concrete than that. Thankfully for us curious types, Charles Limb of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has published a study that helps answer that question.

As assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery as well as a trained jazz saxophonist, Limb is uniquely qualified to explore this topic. He took MRIs of jazz pianists to study their brain activity as they played music- first when they recited some pre-rehearsed scales and then as they improvised on the spot. The findings actually back up all those claims that creating music is a form of pure self-expression that comes out us raw and uninhibited.¹

Continue reading "Your Brain On Jazz" »