Yesterday, I had the privilege of listening to neuroscientists from the University of Texas at Dallas speak about the concept of cognitive fitness. Dr. Gamino and Ms. Zientz were inspiring in their cutting-edge approach that focuses on optimizing the brain you’ve got by activating the frontal lobes of the brain. They shared with us that they want to take people beyond merely meeting medical-testing benchmarks for symptom-free performance and help people be their best selves.
Their research has been with middle school students. They also work with mid-career folks, especially active military, first responders, and business executives whose doctors say they have recovered from TBIs, yet the individuals still don’t feel quite themselves. They pointed out that, most of the time, we don’t really start worrying about cognitive decline and how to reverse it until late in life, and they want to change that. As one of them quipped, no one waits until age 65 to start brushing their teeth, so why do we think we need to wait until we’re older to worry about brain function? It’s time for us to start thinking about what they called neck-up checkups.
The presentations really resonated with me, as optimization is my approach to brain training using neurofeedback. I was especially struck by some of their upside-down approaches to increasing academic performance—like highlighting the filler in a paragraph and leaving the main points untouched as a way to teach the brain to filter out extraneous data.
Because UT-Dallas is partnering with INOVA to teach what they call their SMART program for increasing learning and brain performance, I am hoping to attend training with them later this fall. If all goes well, I’ll share more later. In the meantime, Ms. Zientz recommended a book written by one of their colleagues, Dr. Sandra Chapman, called Make Your Brain Smarter. I just ordered it, so I can’t give you a review, but she says it’s full of helpful tips. Dr. Chapman also has a TED talk. The topic is not quite what we learned in the workshop yesterday, but it’s definitely worth 12 minutes of your time. You can access it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh8el8m9mLM