Dear Voornaam,

As 2016 comes to a close, we here at Posit Science would like to thank you for your continuing interest in, and support of, brain health and fitness. New Year’s can be a great time to make resolutions about your health, including your brain exercise.

Jeff Zimman, Co-founder
Posit Science

Get Dr. Merzenich’s Book,
Soft-Wired, Free with BrainHQ Purchase
For the holidays this year, we gave a free electronic copy of Dr. Michael Merzenich’s popular book, Soft-Wired, to everyone who purchased BrainHQ for themselves or as a gift. The book is useful for many BrainHQ users, because it gives in-depth information about how the brain works and why BrainHQ is designed as it is from the perspective of a preeminent neuroscientist. We’re making that offer available through January 1. Shop now!

Why Are Some People Better at Learning Languages?
Two recent studies have given some clues about why some people are better at learning languages than others. Both studies used brain scans to see what was happening in the brains of those who learned more and less easily—one for English speakers learning Mandarin, and the other for an intensive online French course. This information may eventually help improve language-learning capabilities. Find out what they discovered.

How Pregnancy Changes Brain Structure
In an MRI study, researchers in Spain have charted how the brain changes after pregnancy. In the study, women had significant reductions in grey matter in certain parts of the brain. According to the researchers, “these changes concern brain areas associated with functions necessary to manage the challenges of motherhood,” and reflect a streamlining of the brain’s resources. Learn more.

Brain Speed and Falling
A new study shows that the brain’s processing speed can be more important than leg strength when predicting whether or not older adults will fall.  When we walk, the foot is in the air for about 400 milliseconds at a time between steps. In this study, those whose brain speed was fast enough to spot a potential “tripper” and change how the foot landed were those who fell least. Learn more about this new study.

Here at Posit Science, we were already aware of a relationship between brain speed and balance: there have been multiple studies on fall risk and mobility using BrainHQ exercises and assessments, including one showing that people 65+ who used visual and speed training exercises in BrainHQ made significant gains in balance and gait. Learn more.

The Role of Neuroplasticity in Dyslexia
A groundbreaking new study led by John Gabrieli at MIT suggests that the brains of children and adults with dyslexia are less “plastic” (less adaptable) than the brains of those without dyslexia. In the study, people without dyslexia were able to create neural shortcuts to process repeated information more efficiently—but for those with dyslexia, the brain had to reprocess the information each time. Learn more.

Book of the Month
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (2016)
By Peter Godfrey-Smith

It’s hard to imagine a creature as different from a human as an octopus. But we share something in common: intelligence. In Other Minds, science philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith ponders the evolution of sentience in cephalopods (the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish family), which happened separately from (and before) the development of human consciousness. What are the commonalities in these parallel evolutions of intelligence? Learn more in this New York Times review or buy on Amazon.