Brilliant Blog

We are honored to announce that AARP has included our very own book The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness (182 pages; $14.95) in its new List of Best Books on Brain Fitness, which will be unveiled during AARP’s upcoming Life@50 National Event. We hope this list will help many more individuals and institutions learn about our resource: given that 80% of respondents to a recent AARP survey selected “Staying Mentally Sharp” as their top priority, we certainly know there is a significant need for quality information!

AARP’s Best Books Guide


Brain Fitness

The Dana Guide to Brain Health, by Floyd E. Bloom, M. Flint Beal, and David J. Kupfer (Dana Press, 2006).

The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp, by Alvaro Fernandez and Elkhonon Goldberg. (SharpBrains Inc., 2009).

Save Your Brain: The 5 Things You Must Do To Keep Your Mind Young and Sharp, by Paul Nussbaum. (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind, by Barbara Strauch (Viking, 2010).

The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy for Keeping Your Brain Young, by Gary Small (Hyperion, 2003).

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Also Recommended:

The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain, by Gene Cohen (Basic Books, 2006).

The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge (Penguin, 2007).

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John Ratey and Eric Hagerman (Little, Brown and Co., 2008).

Think Smart: A Neuroscientist’s Prescription for Improving Your Brain’s Performance, by Richard Restak (Riverhead, 2010).

Compiled by:
Office of Academic Affairs, AARP

How To Help Your Child’s Brain Grow Up Strong (NPR):

- “Kids who learn two languages young are better able to learn abstract rules and to reverse rules that they’ve already learned,” says Aamodt. “They’re less likely to have difficulty choosing between conflicting possibilities when there are two possible responses that both present themselves. They’re also better at figuring out what other people are thinking, which is probably because they have to figure out which language to use every time they talk to somebody in order to communicate.”

- “This is really critical because there are so many things parents want to do when they read parenting books,” he says. “They take steps to teach their children math or reading … but a big thing we can do for our children is to do the best to foster the development of self-control and willpower. Self-control and the ability to restrain impulses is associated with success at every age, whether it means being able to read at age 4, or being able to restrain impulses at a later age, or even what your peers think of you in high school. At all of these ages, willpower and self-control is a stronger predictor of academic success than IQ.”

- “When children are young, they can learn self-control by focusing on any fun activity — whether that means studying martial arts or playing with dolls and planning a make-believe tea party.”

To learn more:

• Full NPR article: How To Help Your Child’s Brain Grow Up Strong
• Related article: Who says this is the article of the future

Predicting Alzheimer’s Disease More Accurate Through Cognitive Changes Than Biomarkers (Medical News):

• “Measuring people’s changes in cognitive abilities is a better predictor of Alzheimer’s disease than changes in biomarkers, researchers from the Benito Menni Complex Assistencial en Salut Mental, Barcelona, Spain, reported in Archives of General Psychiatry, a JAMA journal.”
• “The investigators used a range of tests to assess the participants’ cognition and how well they functioned. Cognition is the mental process of knowing, and includes perception, awareness, reasoning and judgment. They also took cerebrospinal fluid samples from them at the beginning of the study and every year for two years. Participants’ blood samples were also taken when the study began — this was tested for genes which are linked to Alzheimer’s disease. From MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) results included in the ADNI, they were able to gather data on the participants’ cortical thickness and brain volume.
• “They found that cortical thickness of the left middle temporal lobe of the brain, as well as two measures of delayed memory in those with MCI were linked to a higher likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease within 24 months.
• “Changes in functional activity (Editor’s Note: our emphasis to highlight the need to evaluate changes over time, not just one time activity) scores seemed to show a greater rate of decline in the participants than changes in biomarkers.”

This is consistent with one of the most insightful sessions held during the 2011 SharpBrains Summit, on The Role of Cog­ni­tive Health Mon­i­tor­ing Sys­tems (requires registration to view): A missing piece in today’s brain health toolkit is the capa­bil­ity to mon­i­tor a person’s cog­ni­tive per­for­mance and Cog­ni­tive Reserve across the lifes­pan. Such a sys­tem could greatly facil­i­tate the pre­ven­tion, diag­no­sis and treat­ment of cog­ni­tive decline due to aging and dis­ease. Pol­icy, research and tech­nol­ogy strands are con­verg­ing to bet­ter define and meet this need: Which instru­ments, plat­forms and ana­lyt­i­cal approaches could pro­vide the data and out­comes required? How will behav­ioral mark­ers com­ple­ment bio­log­i­cal and neu­roimag­ing mark­ers? How may cog­ni­tive mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems be devel­oped, mar­keted and used?

• Dr. Yaakov Stern, Head Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Taub Insti­tute, Colum­bia University
• Dr. David Darby, Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, CogState
• Dr. Jef­frey Kaye, Direc­tor, NIA — ORCATECH
• Mod­er­ated by: Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Medicine

To learn more about the 2011 SharpBrains Summit (recordings are now available): click Here.

Heathline now offers a cool interactive Human Brain in 3D you can play with, as part of their overall Body Maps. Enjoy!

Related articles:

- Use It or Lose It: What is It?

- Why We Need to Retool Use It or Lose It

Obesity linked to Cognition (HealthCanal):

- “Obese people tend to perform worse than healthy people at cognitive tasks like planning ahead, a literature review has found, concluding that psychological techniques used to treat anorexics could help obese people too.”

- “According to a review of 38 studies on cognitive function and obesity by researchers from the University of NSW, obese people have a tendency toward “reduced executive function”, meaning planning, goal-oriented behaviour and decision-making.”

- “Obesity may both cause and be caused by the reduced executive function, said review lead author Dr Evelyn Smith, from UNSW’s School of Psychiatry.”

To read article: click Here.

To access study: Click on A review of the association between obesity and cognitive function across the lifespan: implications for novel approaches to prevention and treatment.

To read related interview: click on Dr. Judith Beck on Training Your Brain to Think like a Thin Person.