That’s the claim of a lead article in an issue of Newsweek many years ago. The authors cite interesting evidence from a study conducted at an outstanding brain plasticity-oriented neuroscience research institute at the University of Illinois, where investigators have found that the kids with the fittest bodies are the kids with the fittest brains.…
As in many places in the developing world, Mexican cities have many children on their streets and plazas, begging, or selling small trinkets of toys or whatever to whoever passes by. It is often difficult to turn these bright-eyed kids down, and by the end of the evening I can find my pockets full of…
1) First you have cancer. Saving your bacon requires a heavy dose of chemo. 2) The chemotherapy drugs generate diffuse, destructive physical changes in your brain. Memory and other cognitive abilities are affected. 3) Your mental decline, in aging, is now on a faster track, and you have now roughly doubled risk for the onset…
I just spent several days talking with scientists and lecturing in Australia. The summer months (our winter months) are a wonderful time to travel Down Under. The cities are lively, the sun is out, and people are in cheerful mood—which is amplified just a little more in Australia than I most places in the world.…
As an alumnus, I recently read an article published in the Johns Hopkins Magazine written about a part-time faculty member in their distinguished Bloomberg School or Public health, Gerald Eber. Eber is also an ACLU lawyer whose primary concern has been the health care of Americans in prison. The medical treatment of prisoners, in Eber’s…
A few days ago, a young linebacker on the San Francisco 49ers, clearly destined to be a star player in the National Football League, hung up his cleats. Chris Borland, a highly honored University of Wisconsin player who had had a wonderful rookie NFL season, decided that the risks for his brain health were just…
I met yesterday with a former doctoral student, now a professor at the University of Texas in Dallas, Michael Kilgard. As a research fellow in my UCSF laboratory, Dr. Kilgard studied the conditions under which acetycholine enables brain plasticity—showing among other findings that large scale and highly useful plasticity can be achieved by pairing sensory…
One of the negative consequences of our high tech- and fear-dominated modern culture is the systematic withdrawal of children from independent and exploratory play, in natural social and physical environments. Our fear culture frustrates outside, unfettered exploration for the developing child. Parents can be arrested for leaving their children to play on their own, in…
I have just returned from a couple weeks in New Zealand, where I am collaborating with Dr. Melanie Cheung and others on a pretty incredible Huntington’s disease project. I am so inspired by what we’re doing there that I wanted to share a bit about it. More than 7,000 of the 4.5 million citizens of…