CoreBrain Journal

Developmental NeuroPlay - NuBrix Games & Brain Evolution

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation.

~ Plato

130 Ron Bittner has created a game that brings family and brain injury victims together. His NuBrix game ‘construct’ is based on thirty years of construction experience, but has its motivation and mission to bring people together to more effectively connect for a variety of executive function recovery processes.

He's a board member of the American Combat Veterans of War [ACVOW] who counsels and mentors younger veterans dealing with PTS and stress. During development of the game, it became evident that the concept captured both cognitive and motor skills and proved a remarkable asset to multiple levels therapy.

For NuBrix Connections Matter

Family members can now feel empowered to help loved ones or friends rebuild their lives for greater potential while also receiving the neurological and stress reducing benefits. Therapeutic staff can use NuBrix to assess in a recreational setting and escalate the level of play by introducing advanced concepts and game design. A promising additional use: family gaming after dinner to develop both parents and children. And team competition can encourage a utilitarian yet a fun level of structure.

Bittner Brief Bio

As a young man, his younger brother Mark suffered a traumatic brain injury and Ron lived for years with his brother in the process of shuttling from facility to facility. Over time, his family soon found interaction was markedly limited with their stricken brother. Few options existed then to interact with Mark to encourage real connections or to rebuild a sense of purpose for him and his siblings. Now Ron's 90 yr. old father Charles has onset dementia.

Now Ron's 90 yr. old father Charles has experienced an onset of dementia. As a caregiver to both, it was evident that an interaction plan was needed to help both men become more cognitively and physically engaging. NuBrix helps solve that connection and rebuilding complexity for both men.

Gemini Games and NuBrix

Ron’s company Gemini Games LLC is a startup which developed a new 3D structure building game called NuBrix. Nubrix involves is a high-touch technology directed toward organic intervention for multiple neuro disorder challenges. This new mind-game concept works for many cognitive challenges as noted on this page at NuBrix Games.

NuBrix Children Applications

This new concept of hands-on play has witness energizing success in schools, boys and girls clubs, and after school programs. As an intervention activity, it has been used in PTSD, TBI, Alzheimer's and Acquired Brain Injury [ABI] programs as well as the mentally challenged community at any age.

During development of NuBrix, it became evident that this game concept captured both cognitive and motor skills and became an indispensable support for ongoing therapy. NuBrix addresses three basic concepts for the brain to identify - shapes, color, and numbers, and it's fun!

ADHD - Executive Function

Family members can now feel empowered to help loved ones or friends rebuild their lives for greater potential while also receiving the neuro and stress reducing benefits. Therapeutic staff can use NuBrix to assess in a recreational setting and escalate the level of play by introducing advanced concepts and game design.

The NuBrix Games - Executive Function Effect

The NuBrix concepts allow family and friends to pace loved ones by introducing simple task repetition and recognition of...

Stress, Self-Management, Parenting & Teaching

The art of influence is to get the person to do what you want them to do - because they want to do it.

~ Marvin Marshall

Dr. Marvin Marshall is an international speaker (25 countries on 5 continents), educator, and author of numerous articles published in international journals. He is one of America's leading experts on reducing the stress that is so prevalent in work relationships, schools, and homes. His many books include the multi-award winning, Parenting Without Stress: How to Raise Responsible Kids While Keeping a Life of Your Own, the landmark education book Discipline Without Stress - Punishments or Rewards: How Teachers and Parents Promote Responsibility & Learning, and his recently published, Live Without Stress: How to Enjoy the Journey. 

This interview reveals his effective, practical, mindful management tools that can create solutions at every level of stress in human interactions. Don't miss his interesting, practical relationship and negotiation insights.

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Dr. Marshall Weighs In On These Points

• You cannot stop emotions; however, by changing your thinking you can redirect emotions and reduce stress.
• Learn how to avoid being a victim regarding any situation, stimulation, or urge.
• Self-talk creates your reality and has a direct bearing on your feelings and stress levels.
• Choice ends when life ends. You are constantly making choices—both consciously and non-consciously. Being mindful of choices significantly reduces stress.
• You can control other people but you cannot change anyone but yourself. Learn how to influence people so they will change themselves to do what you want them to do.
• Influencing rather than aiming to control is more effective and reduces stress levels.
• Discover how aiming at obedience and perfection are pathways to stress.
• Problems and challenges can be easily resolved with solving circles - managing the dialogue. Stress is a box encapsulated by too few options.

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Dr. Marshall Reports: How To Negotiate Effectively

• The classroom changed after 24 years [spp-timestamp time="5:13"]
• Eisenhower's example regarding coercion [spp-timestamp time="6:39"]
• Negative thinking creates negative actions [spp-timestamp time="10:00"]
• The art of asking reflective questions [spp-timestamp time="20:57"]
• Silence after your question [spp-timestamp time="24:40"]
• I'm interested in responsible behavior not the person's feelings [spp-timestamp time="26:12"]
• Diagram of relationships [PDF] in parenting [spp-timestamp time="27:30"]
• Your assumptions color perceptions [Demming] [spp-timestamp time="32:10"]
• Sponsor Notes: The Berry Robinson Center & Direct Health Access Laboratory [spp-timestamp time="37:06"]
• Schools, classrooms and rules [spp-timestamp time="40:40"]
• Kids need procedures and structures more than anything else [spp-timestamp time="42:48"]
• Anxiety is caused by negatives and results in stress [spp-timestamp time="44:50"]
• I get pleasure out of giving [spp-timestamp...

Good Procrastination & How To Use It Effectively

Jeff Copper - is an ADHD coach with considerable coaching and teaching experience who is on the same mission as our team here at CBJ. Procrastination is but one coaching and teaching focus for this very busy ADHD expert. With multiple media productions from videos, to audio programs to prolific YouTube training videos, Jeff very consistently sets an exemplary tone for effective international communication about executive function issues and downstream challenges - such as procrastination.

In this interesting interview, we discuss in detail the process of procrastination, timing and effective, proactive action - and the affirmative value of what may be considered by some only as the procrastination negative. Herein we reconsider procrastination in entertaining and enlightening detail. Tune in to change your mind, we might be able to make procrastination work for you - without rationalization!

Ed Note: On My Good Times With Jeff

At first, Jeff and I simply bumped into each other at various meetings, from CHADD to the National ADHD Coaches Organization. I still remember very well how much we both appreciated Dr. Russell Barkley's remarks years ago when Russ added Executive Function insights to the previous appearance-based diagnostic criteria still used as the standard of care today.

We all know that 'Hyperactive,' 'Inattentive,' and 'Combined,' simply don't cover the complexity of executive function challenges. Appearance, behavioral diagnoses are helpful but woefully insufficient. Barkley's insights offer more precise answers - improved target recognition. If both patient and medical teams truly understand and recognize the moving brain targets, the dialogue in global offices will improve markedly - simply because the patient can say, "Yes you hit it," or, "Not yet." [Functional diagnostic targets explained in 8 detailed videos in this Executive Function playlist: http://www.corepsych.com/diagnosis]

Shortly after that first meeting we both quickly realized that we're on the same path. It's not inconsequential that we have, in a way, grown up together. I truly admire Jeff and his work and appreciate this opportunity to tease apart some of his ideas here at CBJ on my second interview with him. Our first interview, more than a year ago here at CBJ/017, discussed the evolution of thinking regarding ADHD/Executive Function diagnosis and treatment. [See my Jeff Copper video playlist - for the times when Jeff interviewed me.]

Jeff is well beyond Byzantine speculations and often dives deeply into evidence and data for more precise thinking and more precise, data-driven solutions.

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Jeff Reports On Procrastination, ADHD And Time

• I'm really an Attention Coach [spp-timestamp time="6:59"]
• Why talk about procrastination [spp-timestamp time="9:38"]
• The brain learns to take short cuts [spp-timestamp time="11:34"]
• Notes from experience and Thinking Fast and Slow [spp-timestamp time="14:18"]
• Example: psychiatric procrastination [spp-timestamp time="16:57"]
• Example: managing the process of working memory [spp-timestamp time="21:50"]
• On the Reality of Time [spp-timestamp...

The Value of Community for Brain Injury

Jim Bono - From Minneapolis, MN - "As a brain injury survivor, you learn many things, and some you simply don’t understand. Then there are those topics that simply don’t make any sense at all and ya realize, that’s not my head - it just isn't working anyway. That model of misunderstanding and confusion is broken."

"So, welcome to BIRG, The Brain Injury Resource Group. We are the only formed, founded and staffed 501c3, truly non-profit focused on our global community around Acquired Brain Injury [ABI]. Simply said, survivor to survivor, caregiver to caregiver, medical community to medical community, legal field to legal field, social services and so on from Australia to Venezuela and all ports in between."

Connect with BIRG

In this episode, Jim points out the multiple values of joining this International Brain Injury Ressource community - for updates on neuroscience, resources for consultation, meaningful conversations with experienced colleagues and practitioners. It's easy, virtual, and a serious working-process contribution for those who feel alone with so many questions about their future treatment and recovery options.

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Jim Bono Reports On The Value of Community

• Jim got started with brain injury in a Tennessee field [spp-timestamp time="4:14"]
• Details on how and why BIRG matters [spp-timestamp time="14:05"]
• The problem is that many sit alone, by themselves [spp-timestamp time="17:09"]
• Over 80% of marriages with a TBI victim end in divorce [spp-timestamp time="17:17"]
• The current models for recovery are all local, brick and mortar [spp-timestamp time="21:26"]
• Ours is a 24x7 completely non-profit international support group [spp-timestamp time="28:03"]
• Log in, no cost whatsoever, no sales ever [spp-timestamp time="28:46"]
• Sponsor Notes: The Berry Robinson Center & Direct Health Access Laboratory [spp-timestamp time="32:01"]
• He continues to ride his motorcycle and stand up for fallen comrades in a number of ways [spp-timestamp time="49:32"]

Brain Injury Resource Group Website

• Connect: http://thebirg.org
• Jim at LinkedIn

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• Qualia - Our Most Recommended Nootropic | Brain Rehab Supplement
• Qualia Guide in PDF Download - How to use Qualia

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Previous CBJ Interviews on Trauma, Stress, TBI, CTE, and Depression

• CBJ Veterans Page - http://corebrainjournal.com/vets - Over 20 Expert Episodes who weigh in on this same topic. Updated regularly - see the details on this page on neuroplasticity and hope.

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http://corebrainjournal.com/126

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Thanks

Until next time, thanks for joining us here at CBJ again. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below. If you enjoyed...

Homocysteine & The Depression Imperative

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Dr. Andrew Farah is a forensic psychiatrist, a psychopharmacologist, the author of a remarkable new book, Hemingway's Brain, - and an all-around deeply interesting guy on many levels. In this interview, our second after our first delightful Hemingway's Brain CBJ/114 discussion, is again most entertaining, and prescient regarding the brain awareness changes today taking place in both our society and our neuroscience community. Here Dr. Farah dives from the commanding precipice of brain injury, art, and history into the deep caverns of neuroscience: brain molecular physiology.

This Depression Imperative encourages more precise thinking with more predictable outcomes for treatment failure on many levels. Here we start with depression.

Brief Bio

Dr. Farah is a native of Charleston SC and now serves as Chief of Psychiatry at the High Point Division of UNC Healthcare. This report addresses fresh details regarding the homocysteine theory of depression [1], and the use of reduced B vitamins for depression and neuroprotection, particularly the prevention of dementias. Yes, he's a neuroscience expert as well.

The standard of care for depression in those distant Hemingway years dramatically differs from today. Today we know more about multiple causes of depression and, as Dr. Farah so articulately reports, the biology of brain deterioration for a complexity of biologically relevant nutritional contributions that mushroom into depression over time. Homocysteine presents a fresh marker, a depression imperative for all of us working with mind science.

Farah's 2 CBJ Episodes: A Mix of History, Art, Metaphor, and Reality

Dr. Farah's depression imperative lessons go beyond just memorable - to transcendent. Mark down this interview as also unforgettable. - Thanks, Andy. And, if this is your first meeting with Dr. Farah, fasten your seatbelts for a curious journey with a commonplace blood test with standard, insurance supported, testing protocols.

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Dr. Farah Reports On The Homocysteine Depression Imperative

• My curiosity started in residency around the subject of Treatment Failure [spp-timestamp time="4:17"]
• Our depression treatment protocols haven't changed since 1957 [spp-timestamp time="5:05"]
• Why consider homocysteine in the first place [spp-timestamp time="7:50"]
• What happens when we lower homocysteine [spp-timestamp time="11:13"]
• The Prozac paradox and the alpha-2 receptor [spp-timestamp time="13:30"]
• What happens to the building blocks for monoamines [spp-timestamp time="15:50"]
• Reduced B Vitamins and the specific pathways [spp-timestamp time="18:53"]
• The specific nutrient supplements involved [spp-timestamp time="23:30"]
• Why 5-MTHF didn't work so well [spp-timestamp time="23:54"]
• The problem with Lamictal for Bipolar II [spp-timestamp time="30:15"]
• My thoughts on homocysteine measurement/values [spp-timestamp time="35:01"]
• Why brain cells die in the first place [spp-timestamp time="41:12"]
• Closing on the epigenetic contributions as well [spp-timestamp time="50:38"]

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Previous CBJ Interviews on Trauma, Stress, TBI, CTE, and Depression

• CBJ Veterans Page -

Measure Brain Toxins For Multiple Recovery Solutions

An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

~ Edward deBono

William Shaw, Ph.D., is board certified in the fields of clinical chemistry and toxicology by the American Board of Clinical Chemistry - with a profound interest in brain toxins. Before he founded The Great Plains Laboratory, Inc. in Lenexa, KS, Dr. Shaw worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Children's Mercy Hospital, the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Medicine, and Smith Kline Laboratories.

I've followed his work for many years, use Great Plains Laboratory for biomedical testing every day in my practice, and am exceedingly pleased to share these moments with his profound experience for our CBJ listeners. Recently Dr. Shaw added GPL-TOX to measure brain toxins to Great Plains Labs armamentarium of essential mind tools. This CBJ Special 1-hour review will help listeners understand this possible next step for treatment failure globally.

Ed Note: See Dr. Shaw's Bonus Notes below ↓ with many brain toxin reference topics for further review on this essential measurement tool.

It's important to note that he is the author of two outstanding contributions to the evolution for the treatment of Autism, Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD, originally published in 1998, and Autism: Beyond the Basics, published in 2009. He is also a frequent speaker at conferences worldwide, a global authority with broad experience with the value of laboratory data and molecular insights regarding imbalanced brain functions.

On a more personal note, Dr. Shaw is the stepfather of a child with autism and has helped thousands of patients and medical practitioners to successfully improve the lives of people with autism spectrum disorders, ADHD/Executive Function, Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, bipolar disorder, chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, immune deficiencies, multiple sclerosis, OCD, Parkinson's disease, seizure disorders, tic disorders, Tourette's syndrome, and other serious conditions.

In this interview, we discuss useful details regarding the evolution and immediate value of measurements for brain toxins about many of these conditions.

Dr. Shaw's Insightful Brain Toxin Details Here - CBJ/125

• GPL-TOX fulfills my lifetime wish to make toxin testing available for the public [spp-timestamp time="4:49"]
• 90% of the people don't know specific toxin exposure and could spend $20,000 searching [spp-timestamp time="6:00"]
• GPL-TOX tests for 172 different chemicals at about $200 [spp-timestamp time="6:42"]
• What high values on GPL-TOX testing mean medically [spp-timestamp time="7:49"]
• My first clinical case awareness on the relevance of brain toxins [spp-timestamp time="10:11"]
• Carbon Monoxide can cause kleptomania and death [spp-timestamp time="12:50"]
• One of the easiest things to remember about toxins [spp-timestamp time="13:22"]
• Humans are the most vulnerable to brain toxins and psych problems [spp-timestamp time="14:14"]
• Most common way they cause brain deterioration is through mitochondria [spp-timestamp time="15:52"]
• If you're waiting for the government to monitor toxins you might as well wait for the tooth fairy [spp-timestamp time="20:20"]
• The public must know: toxins cause a wide variety of mind/medical problems...

Insightful Intention, Reality, and Truth - Rethinking Thinking

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on it's boots.

~ Johnathan Swift 1710

Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D., from Columbus, OH, provides expertise in science-based decision-making and emotional and social intelligence through Insightful Intention to help leaders and organizations avoid disaster. He researches insightful intention as a tenure-track professor at The Ohio State University's Decision Sciences Collaborative and History Department.

Gleb also runs a nonprofit that popularizes science-based strategies for effective decision-making, goal achievement, emotional and social intelligence, meaning and purpose, mental and emotional well-being, and altruism in politics, business, and other life areas: Intentional Insights. He publishes articles on insightful intention in prominent venues and appears regularly as a guest expert on TV, radio, podcasts, and videocasts. An Amazon best-selling author, he is most well-known for Find Your Purpose Using Science, and his soon-to-be-published Pro-Truth Politics: Fighting Post-Truth Politics and Alternative Facts with Behavioral Science. 

His comments regarding truth in politics also encourage accuracy in the politics of mind diagnosis and treatment. Beliefs must embrace data.

Gleb's thought provoking insights refine the way your brain can grow improved coping through balanced self-management in the context of unpredictable change. How you think matters. Planning details matter.

Ed Note

Quite interestingly, Dr. Tsipursky elaborates on John Kennedy's theme from this just prior CBJ/123 interview. In one sentence: he also trains you how to think - same intention, different teaching process. Listen to his deeper thinking and applications with the perspective of Systems 2 processing to lead your work and your organization.

More About Insightful Intention - Decision Making In Mind Science

Essential reference: Thinking Fast And Slow by Kahneman - Global Amazon Link. Both of these interviews [CBJ/123 & 124] address interesting applications for advanced System 2 thinking for your personal development and for the evolution of mind science. Group-think and label-beliefs encourage more regressive and limited System 1, binary thinking. System 1 processes, as you will see in this summary from Wikipedia, are more stereotypical reactive with diminished prefrontal cortical, executive function process - no strategy or tactics. It's more than antique, it's primitive: complexity is out, feelings and beliefs are in.

Thinking Examples -Kahneman

• System 1: Immediate Survival - Absent insightful intention - Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious, and most importantly, reductionistic and 

Targeted Neuroplasticity - Rethinking Thinking

John Kennedy is a pioneer in the field of Applied Neuroplasticity. He was originally contracted by the US Marines in 2006 to develop the first Targeted Neuroplasticity Training program to reduce casualties in combat and improve Warfighting capabilities.

Stress preparation rewires outcomes.

Just a few hours of Combat Brain Training improves focus and situational awareness and accelerates mental and physical reaction times through applied neuroplasticity. Several years ago, John migrated the program to the civilian sector with similar results in the corporate world. Trainees include Marines, Snipers, Special Operations forces and their instructors, pilots, professional athletes, business people, students, children and those suffering from brain trauma including TBI, PTSD, and concussions. All participants have had their lives positively changed by the program.

John's insights refine the way your brain can grow improved coping through balanced self-management in the context of unpredictable change. How you think matters. Planning details matter.

Ed Note: In one sentence: he trains you how to think. - Must listen to his deeper thinking and applications with the perspective of Systems 2 processing.

Neuroplasticity - On Thinking Systems

Essential reference: Thinking Fast And Slow by Kahneman - Global Amazon Link - This interview and the next, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky CBJ/124 [linked when published], both address interesting applications for advanced System 2 thinking. Group-think and label-beliefs encourage more regressive and limited System 1, binary thinking. System 1 processes, as you will see in this summary from Wikipedia, are more stereotypical reactive with diminished prefrontal cortical, executive function process - no strategy or tactics.

Thinking Examples

• System 1: Immediate Survival - Fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious, and most importantly, reductionistic and time-bound on the present [Korzybski]. Think: emotionally reactive, without thinking. Examples (in order of complexity) of things System 1 can do:
• see that an object is at a greater distance than another
• localize the source of a specific sound
• complete the phrase "war and ..."
• display disgust when seeing a gruesome image
• solve 2+2=?
• read a text on a billboard
• drive a car on an empty road
• come up with a good chess move (if you're a chess master)
• understand simple sentences
• connect the description 'quiet and structured person with an eye for details' to a particular job
• System 2: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, inclusive, calculating, conscious - involving planning, strategy, the big picture, the future beyond this moment in time able to balance and cognitively consider complexity. Examples of things System 2 can do:
• brace...