Enhancing Your Brain Plasticity

  Neuroscience  

According to Dr. Max Cynader at the University of British Columbia neuroscience is currently the most exciting and challenging area of research; at the confluence of genetics, imaging, cell signaling and electrophysiology and what we are learning today will have tremendous impact in the next 50 years.

D octor Max Cynader is Director of the Brain Research Centre, and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at Vancouver Coastal Health and The University of British Columbia (UBC). In addition, he holds the Canada Research Chair in Brain Development at UBC and is Professor of Ophthalmology. He is also a Member of the Order of Canada (CM), Member of the Order of British Columbia (OBC), Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), Fellow of The Canadian Academy for Health Sciences (FCAHS), and a Principal Investigator in Canada's Network of Excellence in Stroke.

According to Dr. Cynader, "neurons that wire together, fire together."  This phenomenon is best illustrated when one memory triggers another, such as when you think about your grandmother's cooking, and then you think about her face and times spent with her.  According to Cynader, neuroscience, in the last decade, has made great strides in understanding the formation of memory.

Related articles Karl Deisseroth Explains CLARITY, The Method That Allows Brains To Become Transparent For Analysis  16:9 Covers Advances In Neuroscience  Yale Researchers Find Way To Reverse The Brain's Clock

Another point Cynader focuses on is the importance of sleep.  He points to recent studies that show that the sleeping brain, particularly in areas of the hippocampus, act as they would during the task of remembering.  For this reason, among others, sleep is a great way to improve brain plasticity.

Physical exercise also pointed to as a great way to improve your neuroplasticity.  Cynader is working on a drug that will duplicate the effects of exercise on neurogenesis, but for now strongly recommends exercise, especially resistance training to enhance cognitive performance.

Cynader was born in Berlin, Germany in 1947 and obtained his B.Sc. at McGill University in 1967, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. Following postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute, Dr. Cynader held positions at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and in 1979 was awarded the E.W.R. Steacie Fellowship of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council as one of Canada's outstanding young scientists.

He attained the rank of Professor of Psychology in 1981 and Professor of Physiology in 1984, and held the position of Killam Research Professor from 1984 to 1988. On arriving at UBC in 1988, Dr. Cynader headed the Ophthalmology Research Group at UBC until 1998, at which time he was appointed Founding Director of the Brain Research Centre.est laborum.


SOURCE  TEDx Talks

By 33rd Square

Subscribe to 33rd Square