Brain Scan

Some of the better recent resources related to the brain sciences…

• From the Society for Neuroscience, a free downloadable “64-page primer on the brain and nervous system.”

• The TImes of London, voted the best news website of the year, has a great interactive gallery of brain training resources and puzzles at Surprise Yourself.

• Sharon Begley’s article for Newsweek, The Lotus and the Synapse, makes accessible recent research that shows how compassion mediation can actually change the structure of the brain. The paper that inspired Begley’s article, Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise, was published in the journal Public Library of Science One (PLoS ONE). A quick overview of the research project and its findings is provided by the University of Wisconsin.

• As part of its Author Speaker Series, the fantastic people over at SharpBrains (my favorite resource for brain science news and information) invited John Medina, biologist and author of the new book Brain Rules, to provide a “good, non-technical, summary of the implications of recent brain science in our daily lives.” Check out the post at Brain Rules: science and practice. 

Finish your browsing by groaning and chuckling at some of these brain jokes.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Filed under: Brain Sciences , brain, brain jokes, Brain Rules, brain science, brain training, compassion meditation, John Medina, neuroscience, puzzles, resources, SharpBrains