woensdag 6 juli 2011

The Perfect Neural Holiday: How To Regenerate Your Brain During The Summer!

 

The holidays are fantastic; they provide a chance of temporarily escaping your stress-filled daily live or deadline-loaded academic curriculum. From a neuroscience-perspective, these benefits are also expressed in your actual brain this summer. While you’re trying to get that perfect tan on a tropical beach, stretching your limits on a challenging mountain-hike or hassling for discount in an unfamiliar language, escaping your daily routine allows your neurotransmitters to replenish themselves, much like brain supplements would enhance your cognition.

When you’re traveling and experiencing new things, your brain’s synaptic plasticity causes novel neural connections to establish themselves. A strange culture with a different languages and new impressions stimulates the brain intensively, resulting in rewiring of neurons and improvement of cognitive functioning.

The lives of many people consist of repetitive strain of daily routines, which is far from optimal for your brain’s functioning. By going on a journey of exploration and new experiences, you give your brain a work-out that stimulates growth and the release of neurotrophins, bio-molecules that repair and improve your neurons.

Besides this, there are various other reason why taking some time-off to gain new experiences is a rewarding brain activity. In this sense, travelling and holidays are just like quality brain supplements, only more fun and rewarding! Keep this in mind this summer and enjoy your holidays!

 

maandag 27 juni 2011

Brain Technology From The Future Has Arrived: Advertising That Reads Your Mind!

Remember that futuristic movie in which Tom Cruise is constantly on the run because of some prediction that he’ll commit a murder in the future? That was minority report, a pretty awesome movie that depicts an interesting future. Now Tom Cruise might not be that interesting for everyone, but there is one awesome feature in the movie that might become part of our daily lives in the very near future: Personalized advertising.

In the movie, advertising is personalized through ingenious face-scanning technology that is able to read your emotions and adjust the advertisements accordingly. This very feature is currently being developed and researched and will possibly make its break-through quite soon!

Question is; is a future in which technology is able to read our minds desirable? Wouldn’t this be a violation of our most inner privacy? In our society, in which brain supplements and neuro-technology is ever-developing, such ethical issues are becoming more and more important. Check out this quick video that explains the interesting developments on personalized advertising and the brain to judge for yourself!

dinsdag 14 juni 2011

Discovering The Social Brain: How Your Neurons Are Taking Care Of Your Social Skills!

As many of you hopefully know, we humans are social creatures. Almost every aspect of your life is related to social interactions in one form or another. This makes sense when viewed from an evolutionary perspective; our caveman ancestors lived in an extremely harsh world, in which proper social interaction was essential for survival. Through evolutionary processes active over millions of years, the brain has literally become hard-wired for social interaction.

Due to the recent and very awesome developments of brain imaging technology, more and more is being revealed about your social brain; the reading of emotional cues on other's faces, the perception of deception, or the generation of empathy through the mirror-neuron system; all are crucial for proper social interaction. Moreover, neuroimaging techniques have revealed that all these processes, as well as many others, are processed automatically by specific neural circuits in the brain. Next time you're talking to that cute girl/guy on the street, be aware that your social brain is working hard to allow you to act normally!

However, as brain science is continuously evolving, so are the opportunities to improve social interactions. Drugs that improve social cognition are already on the market and being developed. Can you imagine a time when it is not a problem at all to take some supplements every morning before lunch to improve your social skills? These kind of brain supplements are still being researched, but the ethics and attitudes towards such supplements will have to be considered as well at some point!

 

 


 

vrijdag 3 juni 2011

A different view on Neuroscience & Brain Supplements; The Darker Side Of Brain Science

As many of you probably know, the emergence of neuroscience has caused a revolution in terms of the possibilities available to understand and optimize our lives. Brain supplements allow people to improve their concentration, enhance their creativity and increase their memory capacity. Moreover, using the latest neuroimaging techniques finally reveals the molecular secrets constituting human behavior and mental activity.

On the other hand, all the achievements and results gained through neuroscience and brain supplements also have to potential to blind people from the other perspectives from which neuroscience can be viewed through the eyes of some beholder. One of these different perspectives exposes a darker side of neuroscience by showing the negative aspects and connotations. It’s a very interesting perspective which can open your eyes to a different side of brain science. Check out the full are article about the dark side of brain science and brain supplements

 

zaterdag 7 mei 2011

Neuroimaging Techniques and Its Amazing Discoveries; What Is It All About?

Ever wondered where all the amazing developents in the field of brain science come from? Big change they've been discovered through a neuroimaging technique, e.g fMRI, PET, or EEG. 

Unfortunately a lot of people actually know just as much about neuroimaging techniques as about the reproductive rate of a Heterocarup ensifer (a type of shrimp). This doesn't really help when trying to understand brain science and its related discovered about brain supplements and the likes.

Check out this article to quickly and easily update your knowledge on the latest neuroimaging techniques used to explore the world of  brain science and brain supplements!

woensdag 4 mei 2011

How To Get Your Brain Into 'The Flow'!

Ever experienced flow? It’s that optimal state of mind when you’re focusing on a task in which your actions seem to come automatically and you lose complete track of time and self.  In other words; it’s a pretty frikking awesome state of mind to be in when you need to get stuff done.


Unfortunately, deliberately getting ‘the flow’ is a little trickier that getting up to sneeze your nose. Matter of fact, according to Csikszentmihaly, who dedicated his life researching the flow experience, there is no deliberate way to ‘make’ flow happen. Bummer!


Fortunately, brain research might be able to help us out. Since every psychological process has a biological brain mechanism, an experience such as flow also has a directly correlating physical reaction in your brain! It has been discovered that the creativity connected with the flow experience comes from synchronized functioning between both of your brain hemispheres as well as appropriate frontal and temporal lobe activity. With this knowledge, neuroscience might be able to induce flow using brain supplements and neuroscientific techniques such as neurofeedback.


Read more on how brain supplements and other techniques brain supplements and other techniques could help you induce the flow experience whenever you want!

donderdag 28 april 2011

Neurofeedback, Brain Technology To Improve Your Cognition?

Nowadays neuro-technology definitely has some really cool advantages. Ever wondered if it was possible to improve your concentration, increase your motivation or enhance your stress management? With the current developments of brain supplements this is becoming more and more easy, but there is also great option out there for those looking for other ways of improvement; neurofeedback


Through neurofeedback, which is also used in various treatment programs for psychological disorders, it becomes possible to become conscious of your own brain wave activity, eventually allowing you to exert a higher level of control over it! This technique uses a relatively simple learning concept called operant conditioning to maintain your brain wave activity, related to various cognitive processes, in a desired state.


Even though there are still plenty of skeptics out there who think neurofeedback is just as real as Michael Jacksons nose, recent research is providing convincing evidence that neurofeedback effects are genuine. Moreover, neurofeedback seems to be even more effective than brain supplements in the sense that the effects are long-term and last even after therapy is no longer received.


Check out more info about neurofeedback, it’s awesome effects and mechanisms

donderdag 21 april 2011

The 'Classic' Brain Supplement For Beginners: Piracetam

Considering trying brain supplements? With the great amount of brain supplements constantly being developed nowadays, it is tricky to actually choose one. Here is some advice to get started:


A recommended ‘starter’ brain supplement is Piracetam, Which also happens to be the oldest brain supplement out there (developed in the 60’s!).

The positive effects of piracetam are numerous, including the improvement of your memory, learning skills and the inhibition of the aging process of your brain. All this without any negative side-effects, pretty amazing! 

Piracetam was therefore also used in a wide variety of clinical applications, but the benefits for ‘normal’ people who intend to take piracetam as a supplement have been gaining a lot of attention in recent years.


Check out the full article to learn more about piracetam's positive effects & mechanisms and other brain supplements

donderdag 31 maart 2011

Meditation For Positive Brain Alteration (how to enhance your life and become an urban Zen monk!)

For a long period, meditation has been looked upon with skepticism by many as a result from its’ Buddhist origins, which have been associated with mysticism. The skeptics might want to consider packing their bags though, as science itself is providing empirical evidence for the amazing results one can achieve through meditation. It has become apparent that meditation alters the structure of the brain itself. This remarkable fact has been derived through the utilization of various neuro-imaging techniques and is current greatly contributing to the increasing practice of meditation by many in Western civilization.


Moreover, the good news is that you don’t even have to transform yourself into an ultimate Zen monk who lives more than half his life in lotus position! Check out how:  Meditation and Positive Brain Alteration

dinsdag 15 maart 2011

Brain Awareness Week

BRAIN AWARENESS WEEK
BAW is the global campaign to increase public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. Every March BAW unites the efforts of organizations worldwide in a week-long celebration of the brain. 

It's Brain Week this week! Some pretty amazing stuff going on in the field of neuroscience. 
Check out the latest news on neuroscience and  Brain Supplements!

maandag 28 februari 2011

The rise of nootropics

It is now claimed by various commercial companies that nootropics can enhance all sorts of cognitive functions, ranging from improving memory and increasing learning performance, to more creativity and less anxiety.

At first sight, the potential of these nootropics seems amazing; difficult exams coming up? Pop a pill and the A’s will come effortlessly! Yet this short-sighted approach might bring some risks, especially when considering that the whole nootropics concept is still in its’ infancy, which means that in many cases the safety of using these cognitive enhancers has not yet been strictly determined.


Read more about the rise of nooptropics on <a href="http://www.beta-lab.nl/content/pop-pill-become-next-einstein">Beta-lab.nl</a> !

zondag 20 februari 2011

Keeping Your Brain Sharp

The amount of information processed by our brains on a daily basis is mind-blowing; according to a recent estimate, our five senses take in 11.000.000 bits of info per second! Fortunately we are consciously only aware of only 40 of these bits (overheating brains anyone?). Still not all of the other 10,999,960 bits are merely discarded. Quite the opposite in fact, as the unconscious part of our mind makes great use of them. Until reading this sentence, for example, you have not been aware of the fact that your pants (if you are wearing any) are pressing against your leg, or your shoes against your feet. Now, all of a sudden, your attentional radar shifts. Your feet feel encased and your legs constricted. This phenomenon, called selective attention, is one of the many remarkable features of our brain and our forthcoming mind.
Knowing that our brain has to cope with su ch a gigantic flow of info every second, minute and hour of the day, it is not hard to imagine that great care needs to give to this delicate and unimaginably complex organ. Especially with the increasing pressure and expectations of today's society, optimizing one's brain performance seems an essential thing to do. Fortunately this is becoming easier and easier with the continuous development of new brain supplements, however there are also several other quick changes you can apply to your life to enhance your brain performance. The following 3 valuable tips come from an awesome article on brain fitness:

1: Remem­ber that the brain is part of the body. Things that exer­cise your body can also help sharpen your brain: phys­i­cal exer­cise enhances neurogenesis.

2: Prac­tice pos­i­tive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mind­set and you look for­ward to every new day in a con­struc­tive way. Stress and anx­i­ety, no mat­ter whether induced by exter­nal events or by your own thoughts, actu­ally kills neu­rons and pre­vent the cre­ation of new. You can think of chronic stress as the opposite of exercise; it prevents the creation of new neurons.

3:Thrive on Learn­ing and Men­tal Chal­lenges. The point of hav­ing a brain is pre­cisely to learn and to adapt to chal­leng­ing new envi­ron­ments. Once new neu­rons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they sur­vive depends on how you use them. “Use It or Lose It” does not mean “do cross­word puz­zle num­ber 1,234,567″. It means, “chal­lenge your brain often with fun­da­men­tally new activities”.

Apply these in you r life and you're already well on your way to neural and mental well- being. Check out Brain Supplements for more info on improving your brain performance!

zaterdag 5 februari 2011

The Power of Brain Supplements!

The world has lately seen a booming increase in the production of brain supplements, also referred to as cognitive enhancers or nootropics. Through the use of brain supplements it is now possible to improve cognitive functions such as memory, concentration and creativity, and thus improve the quality of your life such as never before thought possible! 


Stay updated about brain supplements and increasing your brain performance!