Category Archives: Brain Fitness Program
Promising Results in Controlling Tinnitus with Brain Training
I had the great pleasure of visiting a wonderful research team studying the neurological origins and treatment of tinnitus at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis last week. About 30 million U.S. citizens have tinnitus. For about 4 million of them, the tinnitus is identified as “severe” – which means that it is continuously disturbing and intrusive, makes normal … Continue reading
Visual training to retain driving competence — and your independence!
Today, Posit Science announced the release of a new computer-based visual training tool, DriveSharp, specifically designed to improve the performance abilities of adult automobile drivers to a degree that can be expected to very substantially impact their driving safety. This training employs two very important brain plasticity-based strategies to improve your visual assets that support safe driving. The first is … Continue reading
The brain plasticity revolution
I delivered a lecture at the University of Konstanz in Germany two weeks ago, as a part of the celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Heidelberg Akademie. This is one of 7 scientific academies in Germany. Because Germany was created as an amalgamation of powerful states in the 19th Century, its scientific academies originate with and are still identified … Continue reading
A Danish delight! Progress in treating cerebral palsy and related movement disorders?
I delivered a lecture sponsored by the Danish Neuroscience Society and the Helene Elsass Center (a wonderful new research institution in the suburbs of Copenhagen) that has developed a state-of-the-art research and treatment center focusing on cerebral palsy. I was delighted to sit down with the Center’s Director, Peder Esben Bilde, to review new training software developed by therapists and … Continue reading
Tinnitus. A special example of a failure mode for your plastic brain.
Millions of individuals (2% of humankind) are plagued by continuous sounds generated in their skulls, not coming from the real world. Because these ringing or roaring sounds are inescapable and because they strongly influence emotional-control processes in the brain, they can literally drive an individual who hears them incessantly just a little bit crazy. No one dies from tinnitus (although … Continue reading
Brain plasticity and criminal behavior; part 5
If you have just discovered this topic, go back to Part 1 (April 3), Part 2 (April 5), Part 3 (April 7) and Part 4 (April 24); whereupon you shall be fully qualified to advance to Part 5. Before I begin to talk about commonly applied strategies of prevention and rehabilitation designed to reduce the numbers of criminal offenders and … Continue reading
Brain plasticity principles, in the words of a leading therapist
I strongly encourage our readers to check out the newly published book “Move Into Life”, authored by a highly distinguished therapist (and personal friend) Anat Baniel. Anat was originally trained by Moshe Feldenkrais, who developed a novel empirical perspective about physical/cognitive/perceptual rehabilitation that is broadly consistent with the principles of brain plasticity neuroscience. She has very significantly elaborated those practices, … Continue reading
Aging paragons
We all know a few older-aged paragons, individuals who are still storming through life in their 9th or 10th or 11th decade. I was delighted to read two articles in the New York Times last week that featured two such individuals who have crossed my own path in life. David Perlman is a 90-year-old science writer for the San Francisco … Continue reading
Perception, illusion, prediction, magic, autism
There is an enjoyable article in the current issue of Wired in which the magician Teller (the silent, smaller and more sneaky chap on the Penn and Teller team) engages in a conversation with the science writer Jonah Lehrer about the neurological bases of magic. Reading this article led me to a review on this subject published in Nature Reviews … Continue reading
