Monasteries of the Future

For millennia, monasteries have been at the forefront of training virtues such as compassion, transcendence, service, gratitude, forgiveness, and grit, as well as foundational psychological capacities such as self-regulation, sustained, voluntary attention, emotional intelligence, and meta-cognitive awareness. Monasteries of the Future are modern institutions, both secular and religious, designed to provide the requisite financial, social, intellectual, and instructional support necessary to train a new generation of contemplative adepts. Forming a network of centers which collaborate and compete, Monasteries of the Future will establish and uphold the highest standards in the contemplative field. By partnering with modern science, most notably positive psychology, neuroscience, and medicine, Monasteries of the Future will drive innovation in the field of contemplative science, and in so doing, promote human flourishing and ameliorate suffering. The rationale for Monasteries of the Future is built on the science of deliberate practice, emerging research on meditation and neuroplasticity, and ancient contemplative claims. On the front lines of revealing what inner skills are trainable, how to train them, and how trainable they are, Monasteries of the Future will help to answer these pressing and complex questions, that in a world of seven billion people, have become questions of survival

The utility of twins in developmental cognitive neuroscience research: How twins strengthen the ABCD research design

The ABCD twin study will elucidate the genetic and environmental contributions to a wide range of mental and physical health outcomes in children, including substance use, brain and behavioral development, and their interrelationship. Comparisons within and between monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs, further powered by multiple assessments, provide information about genetic and environmental contributions to developmental associations, and enable stronger tests of causal hypotheses, than do comparisons involving unrelated children. Thus a sub-study of 800 pairs of same-sex twins was embedded within the overall Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) design. The ABCD Twin Hub comprises four leading centers for twin research in Minnesota, Colorado, Virginia, and Missouri. Each site is enrolling 200 twin pairs, as well as singletons. The twins are recruited from registries of all twin births in each State during 2006–2008. Singletons at each site are recruited following the same school-based procedures as the rest of the ABCD study. This paper describes the background and rationale for the ABCD twin study, the ascertainment of twin pairs and implementation strategy at each site, and the details of the proposed analytic strategies to quantify genetic and environmental influences and test hypotheses critical to the aims of the ABCD study. Keywords: Twins, Heritability, Environment, Substance use, Brain structure, Brain functio

Perspectives on Cognitive Phenotypes and Models of Vascular Disease

Clinical investigations have established that vascular-Associated medical conditions are significant risk factors for various kinds of dementia. And yet, we are unable to associate certain types of vascular deficiencies with specific cognitive impairments. The reasons for this are many, not the least of which are that most vascular disorders are multi-factorial and the development of vascular dementia in humans is often a multi-year or multi-decade progression. To better study vascular disease and its underlying causes, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health has invested considerable resources in the development of animal models that recapitulate various aspects of human vascular disease. Many of these models, mainly in the mouse, are based on genetic mutations, frequently using single-gene mutations to examine the role of specific proteins in vascular function. These models could serve as useful tools for understanding the association of specific vascular signaling pathways with specific neurological and cognitive impairments related to dementia. To advance the state of the vascular dementia field and improve the information sharing between the vascular biology and neurobehavioral research communities, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened a workshop to bring in scientists from these knowledge domains to discuss the potential utility of establishing a comprehensive phenotypic cognitive assessment of a selected set of existing mouse models, representative of the spectrum of vascular disorders, with particular attention focused on age, sex, and rigor and reproducibility. The workshop highlighted the potential of associating well-characterized vascular disease models, with validated cognitive outcomes, that can be used to link specific vascular signaling pathways with specific cognitive and neurobehavioral deficits

THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF PARENTS WITH CHRONIC SORROW WHO ARE CARING FOR CHILDREN WITH A CHRONIC MEDICAL CONDITION

Caring for the millions of children living with a chronic medical condition creates multiple parental burdens. Parents whose children have a diagnosis of a chronic medical condition may experience an ongoing, unresolved grief or sadness phenomenon known as chronic sorrow. This may impact parental ability to manage their child’s health care needs and may lead to negative health outcomes for the parent caregiver, affected child, and the family. The aim of this interpretive phenomenological study was to understand the nature and meaning of the lived experiences of parents with chronic sorrow who are caring for a child with a chronic medical condition. A cohort of parent participants whose children have various chronic medical diagnoses was included to determine similarities as well as unique and diverse experiences of chronic sorrow. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed for common themes. Demographic data, field notes and a reflexivity journal were important components of data analysis. Demographic data was analyzed using SPSS version 19 software. Six themes captured the nature and meaning of chronic sorrow for twelve participants and overarching truth of life goes on represented the six themes. Implications included early recognition of persons at risk and those who have chronic sorrow, development and testing of assessment tools, inclusion of fathers and children in future research, and inclusion of chronic sorrow content in curricula across the disciplines of healthcare

Education Cannot Get Where it Wants to Go Because it Cannot See Where it Needs to Go: Seeing “Learning” in a New Light

Educational leaders and teachers are in a no-win situation. That is because most of the current tools and programs for improving education, ranging from the Common Core State Standards to iPads, cannot work. At least, as currently conceived

Is Brain Gym an Effective Educational Intervention?

Brain Gym® (BG) (BGI, 2008) is a popular commercial program sold by Brain Gym® International (BGI). Making extravagant claims for improved intellectual and physical development, it used in more than 80 countries. While BGI’s claims are persuasive, to date there is little empirical evidence validating the approach. We examine some theoretical assumptions from which BGI was developed, review the efficacy literature, and provide suggestions for making informed decisions about the judiciousness of investing time and resources in this program