How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed by Ray Kurzweil is now #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Hardcover Nonfiction.

It came out at #1 among all books on the Barnes & Noble bestseller list and went into its third printing one week after publication.

The book is available from the book website and from all major… read more

Exactly how does long-term memory get updated (or “written,” in computer language)?

One hypothesis, for example, is that while in deep dreamless sleep, the hippocampus sends messages to the cortex and changes its plasticity, transferring recently acquired knowledge (in short-term memory) to long-term memory.

Background

Many invasive studies in nonhuman primates and clinical investigations in human patients have demonstrated that the hippocampus, one of the oldest, most… read more

Mental activities like reading and writing can preserve structural integrity in the brains of older people, according to a new study.

Konstantinos Arfanakis, Ph.D., and colleagues from Rush University Medical Center and Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago studied what effect late-life cognitive activity might have on the brain’s white matter, which is composed of nerve fibers, or axons, that transmit information throughout the brain.

“Reading… read more