CBS San Francisco (KPIX) aired a great piece this month highlighting the new NIH-funded brain health program we are working on with the YMCA of San Francisco and advisors from UCSF. We hope that San Francisco is just the start—and that this model program to help members of the community address known risks for cognitive decline and various dementias can eventually be spread across the globe. I encourage you to watch the piece to learn more about this groundbreaking work! |
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Best regards, Jeff Zimman Co-founder Posit Science |
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| | Why We Should Embrace Playtime Psychologists define “play” as “a self-directed, intrinsically motivated activity with no purpose outside the activity itself.” And, it turns out play is good for brain health, even for adults. One of its most important roles: helping us learn how to deal with the unexpected, without any serious consequences. Learn more. |
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Peace and Quiet Can Be…Unbearable? There’s a room in a lab in Minnesota that is so quiet that no one has been able to stay in it for more than 45 minutes. That’s partly because in the absence of external noise, people hear their own bodies in an unprecedented way, and have trouble orienting themselves in space—it even makes it harder to stand up. Learn more. |
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Mental Strain and a Tired Brain Many of us have felt a sense of mental exhaustion after working hard on a difficult task. A new study suggests that might be because when people work on cognitively challenging tasks, their brains express more glutamate than when doing easier work. An excess of glutamate can disrupt brain function, so the brain requires rest to get back to normal levels of this molecule. Learn more. |
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Can “Gentle Movement” Promote Brain Health? A new (albeit limited) study suggests that in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), stretching and balancing exercises may be as good for the brain as aerobic exercise. For many older adults, these gentle movements are easier to incorporate into daily life than other types of exercise. Learn more. |
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Processed Foods Are Problematic A new study from researchers in Australia reports that eating highly processed foods (like some breakfast cereals, packaged snacks, and frozen foods) might be bad for brain health in older adults. The study found that people who ate a lot of processed foods in their diets performed worse on cognitive tests than those who did not. Learn more. |
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Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time (2017) By Dean Buonomano Your Brain Is a Time Machine is one of our own Dr. Michael Merzenich’s favorite books about the brain—and that is saying something! In the expansive work, author and neuroscientist Dean Buonomano examines how the human brain perceives time—weighing in on big questions like what is time, how human consciousness flows, and whether we have free will. Learn more. |
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