SharpBrains, the weblog responsible for hosting the latest Encephalon (the 61st edition), also brings us a year’s end Top 30 Brain Health and Fitness Articles of 2008. I know that a lot of our readers are interested in brain health, including the health-related implications of some of the basic research that we discuss here at Neuroanthropology. Although I’m sometimes reluctant to wade into this sort of prescriptive discussion, SharpBrains does a very good job of exploring the effects of practices like brain ‘exercises,’ meditation, physical exercise, play, education, sleep, and a host of others.

There’s a number of the posts that are worth checking out, but I appreciated that were some here that I missed the first time around, including Why do You Turn Down the Radio When You’re Lost?, which used an example of something I do all the time (I get lost a lot in Sydney as I’m still unfamiliar with the city), and hadn’t really noticed; and the critical discussion of the concept of ‘brain age,’ Posit Science, Nintendo Brain Age, and Brain Training Topics. But there’s lots more good stuff in this list, especially if you are interested in ‘brain training’ of all sorts.