BrainWerx

05/30/2026

Miles Teller’s Top Gun Maverick story became one of the most surprising behind the scenes moments from the film. After filming intense aviation scenes, he said blood tests showed unusual substances in his system, leading to Tom Cruise’s perfectly dramatic response. Whether fans remember it as funny, shocking, or very Top Gun, it added another wild detail to a movie already known for pushing realism in the air.

05/30/2026

Back in the late 60's, NASA had a problem w/ their rocket fuel.
Every time anyone got the slightest whiff of it, they'd have a seizure.
They heard of Dr. Barry Sterman's work on cats using Neurofeedback, specifically the SMR protocol (integration of the brain & body).
Long story short, he tested his cats, most died but the ones that survived had had Neurofeedback.
Think about that.
An external source, a poison,that caused bodily harm, all of a sudden didn't.
Because the brain said no.
That is how powerful your brain is... start to use it as a training partner via Neurofeedback... LENS Neurofeedback as we have at BrainWerx.
Its not just for memories. It controls everything.

Miles Teller’s Top Gun Maverick story became one of the most surprising behind the scenes moments from the film. After filming intense aviation scenes, he said blood tests showed unusual substances in his system, leading to Tom Cruise’s perfectly dramatic response. Whether fans remember it as funny, shocking, or very Top Gun, it added another wild detail to a movie already known for pushing realism in the air.

05/28/2026

05/28/2026

I think there is a time & place for most everything... but Dr. Amen nails it on this one.
So much could be alleviated, avoided, & dealt w/ just by doing something natural like Neurofeedback.
Just like exercise for the body trains your body, leading to so many benefits, so does brain training- Neurofeedback.
Try natural remedies like Neurofeedback & watch your life begin to thrive.
Especially, LENS Neurofeedback which is why we provide it instead of other forms.
You really have nothing to lose & everything to gain.

05/08/2026

A recent brain imaging experiment reveals that watching fragmented short videos leads to measurably worse memory recall compared to viewing continuous content. The fast-paced format reduces brain activity in regions dedicated to focusing attention and processing deep meaning.

05/08/2026

Brain scans shed light on how short videos impair memory and alter neural pathways | Karina Petrova, PsyPost

Watching fragmented short videos rather than a single continuous video leads to poorer memory recall and alters how the brain retrieves information. A recent experiment revealed that fast-paced episodic media formats disrupt the neural systems responsible for integrating details and maintaining cognitive control. These results were published in the journal npj Science of Learning.

Media consumption has shifted dramatically toward bite-sized content on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. This explosion of fast-paced entertainment has inspired intense public debate about its effects on the human mind. The term “brain rot” became a widely recognized phrase recently to describe the mental fatigue associated with scrolling through endless disconnected clips. The phenomenon has prompted parents and policymakers to question whether modern internet platforms are structurally altering human cognition.

Psychologists and educators are particularly interested in how this type of media affects memory retention and focused learning. Many schools and training programs have recently adopted short instructional videos to boost student engagement. Despite the popularity of these micro-learning tools, research displays a conflicting picture of their mental benefits. Some data suggests that quick videos keep viewers motivated and help teach simple procedures.

Other investigations link high levels of short-form media exposure to deficits in working memory and reduced attention spans. Watching short videos involves constant context switching. Viewers jump from one topic or setting to another in rapid succession. This fast turnover might make it harder for the brain to build strong and unified memories of what was just seen. A continuous narrative usually helps the mind link new facts together into an easily retrievable mental package.

To understand exactly how video formats change memory processes, researchers set up a brain imaging experiment. Meiting Wei, a psychology researcher affiliated with Yunnan Normal University and Central China Normal University, led the investigation. Wei and a team of colleagues wanted to observe what happens inside the brain when people try to remember information they just learned from either continuous or disjointed media. They focused precisely on the neural activity that occurs during the process of memory retrieval.

The research team recruited 57 university students for the experiment. They screened the participants to ensure no one exhibited signs of clinical media addiction or existing mental health conditions. The researchers randomly divided the volunteers into two distinct groups. One group watched a single continuous 10-minute video regarding a relatively unknown tourist destination.

The second group watched a series of seven short videos that also totaled 10 minutes. The researchers specifically matched the content of these short videos to the long video. Both groups heard and saw the same core information and the same total number of words. The only difference was the delivery format.

The short video group experienced narrative breaks and scene shifts to mimic the experience of scrolling through a social media feed. Immediately after the viewing session, participants underwent a memory test while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. This device uses magnet fields and radio waves to detect changes in blood flow, which reveals areas of the brain that are highly active at any given moment. Active brain cells consume more oxygen, so tracking this blood supply allows scientists to map cognitive work in real time.

The scanner recorded the participants’ brain activity as they answered multiple-choice questions about the videos. They viewed the questions on a screen and responded using a handheld button device. The behavioral results revealed a clear difference in memory performance between the two testing conditions.

Participants who watched the continuous long video answered about 66 percent of the questions correctly. The individuals in the short video group correctly answered only 43 percent of the questions. Watching the fragmented videos caused a noticeable drop in the participants’ ability to recall facts accurately. The constant interruptions seemed to hinder the basic formation of reliable memory traces.

Inside the brain, the imaging data matched these behavioral differences. The short video group showed unusually low activation in three distinct brain regions during the memory test. One of these regions is the left claustrum. The claustrum is a thin sheet of neurons that helps coordinate network signals across different parts of the brain.

The claustrum plays a major role in focusing attention and pulling together various sensory details into a single conscious memory. The reduced activity here suggests that the viewers struggled to reconstruct a coherent mental picture of what they had watched. Since the initial learning was chopped into discrete pieces, the brain had a harder time integrating those pieces during the test.

The researchers also observed reduced activation in the left caudate nucleus among the short video viewers. The caudate is a structure situated deep in the brain that manages goal-directed behaviors. It helps individuals maintain focus on a task and sort through information to find correct answers. This region is closely tied to how the brain processes rewards and internal motivation during learning tasks.

The diminished activity in this area hints that rapid scene changes fail to provide the stable mental cues needed to actively search memory banks. Instead of searching efficiently, the brain might have to rely on passive guessing strategies. A continuous narrative provides a strong sense of knowing, which might trigger stronger cognitive motivation and better activation of the caudate nucleus.

A third region, known as the left middle temporal gyrus, also showed less activity in the short video group. This section of the brain handles language processing and helps individuals grasp deep thematic meanings. When people connect specific words to broader concepts, this brain area typically displays elevated blood flow. Lower activation indicates that the fragmented input impaired the participants’ ability to process the holistic narrative of the video content.

The team also looked at how well different parts of the brain communicated with one another. They found a weaker connection between the caudate nucleus and the claustrum in the short video group. This reduced network connectivity points to a breakdown in how the brain links executive control with information integration. When learning formats are highly fragmented, the neural networks required to pull information back together do not synchronize efficiently.

Participants also filled out questionnaires detailing their everyday short video viewing habits. The researchers checked to see if these habits related to brain activity during the test. For the individuals in the short video group, higher scores on a scale measuring self-control failure correlated with stronger connections between the caudate and the claustrum.

The researchers interpreted this anomalous relationship as a sign of an overworked neural system. Individuals who struggle to control their media habits might have to exert extra brain effort just to achieve basic memory retrieval. This heightened connectivity likely represents a strained adaptation rather than a sign of superior mental processing. The overall system operates in a low-efficiency state due to the disjointed nature of the learned material.

The researchers acknowledged a few limitations to their current experiment. The participant pool consisted entirely of relatively young college students. It is possible that children or older adults might process fragmented video content differently.

While the team matched the video formats for duration and information density, they could not perfectly equalize the narrative flow between the two styles. Short videos inherently possess a choppier rhythm that is difficult to compare perfectly to a seamless documentary. The study design also placed different people in the two viewing groups.

Future investigations might test the same individuals across both formats to rule out baseline differences in memory capacity. By observing the same brains on both tasks, scientists could gather more precise physiological measurements. The research team noted that brain scanning captures simultaneous activity but cannot strictly prove the exact sequence of biological events. Expanding this research with larger sample sizes could provide clearer answers regarding how changing media formats fundamentally reshape human learning abilities over time.

As shared by on X.
Article:

A recent brain imaging experiment reveals that watching fragmented short videos leads to measurably worse memory recall compared to viewing continuous content. The fast-paced format reduces brain activity in regions dedicated to focusing attention and processing deep meaning.

05/06/2026

For a few hours Friday, some UC Berkeley students traded digital scrolling for real-life connection.

05/06/2026

Add Neurofeedback & like exercise is for the body, LENS will get you into shape even faster.

From a post on X by :

"A group of UC Berkeley students did a 9-week digital detox… and the results were striking.

Cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Sahar Yousef (UC Berkeley Haas) found that participants experienced less anxiety, less depression, and more mindfulness. Some students said they suddenly started noticing all the positive things in their real life once the constant scrolling stopped.

Dr. Yousef also raised a concern, noting that heavy daily tech habits may be linked to brain changes: “We’re actually seeing brain atrophy… degradation of certain brain areas related to self-awareness [and] cognitive control.” (Note: This is an emerging area of research — more long-term studies are needed.)

This feels very relatable. The longer I step away from endless scrolling, the clearer and calmer my mind seems to get."

For more info:

For a few hours Friday, some UC Berkeley students traded digital scrolling for real-life connection.

05/05/2026

Handwriting & reading (a physical book) are such great forms of brain training/exercise. Add Neurofeedback like you would a supplement when you exercise your body, it will make your workout more effective.

"The study behind it: 36 students, 256 EEG sensors, handwriting vs typing the same words.

Handwriting lit up theta and alpha bands across the brain — the frequencies tied to memory and deep encoding.

Typing didn't.

The motor act of forming letters was producing the cognition.
Not recording it. Producing it."

From Carlos Perez on X:

"1/A Nature editorial dropped a line last year that I can't stop thinking about:

"If writing is thinking, are we not then reading the thoughts of the LLM rather than those of the researchers?"

But the real story isn't about AI. It's about every "upgrade" we've made in the last 50 years.

2/The study behind it: 36 students, 256 EEG sensors, handwriting vs typing the same words.

Handwriting lit up theta and alpha bands across the brain — the frequencies tied to memory and deep encoding.

Typing didn't.

The motor act of forming letters was producing the cognition. Not recording it. Producing it.

3/The editorial's uncomfortable conclusion: writing a paper is how a researcher discovers what they actually believe.

The messy first draft isn't a step toward thinking.

It IS the thinking.

Which means every time we outsource writing, we're not saving time. We're saving ourselves from our own cognition.

4/That got me asking a bigger question:

If handwriting was a thinking technology we accidentally threw away, what OTHER thinking technologies have we discarded without realizing what they actually did?

The answer is: a disturbing number of them.

🧵👇

5/ MENTAL MATH

We stopped doing arithmetic in our heads because calculators were faster.

What we lost wasn't the ability to multiply. It was the intuition for when numbers smell wrong.

A person who does mental math develops a feel for magnitudes. When a spreadsheet says revenue grew 847% and you don't flinch — that's the immune system we killed.

6/ MEMORIZATION

We abandoned memorizing poetry, speeches, and case law as "rote learning."

But memorizing a text isn't storing words. It's reconstructing someone else's reasoning inside your own neural architecture.

A lawyer who memorized case law didn't just recall faster. The logic of precedent was wired into how they thought.

Search gave us access to everything and deep familiarity with nothing.

7/ LETTER WRITING

Before texting, people wrote long letters — to friends, family, even to themselves in journals.

Writing "I'm furious at Mark because..." forces you to choose which details matter, notice gaps in your story, and hear how you sound to someone else.

A text message — "ugh Mark is the worst" — skips all of that processing.

The letter was therapy. The journal was self-examination. We replaced both with venting.

8/ ORAL DEBATE

From Athenian assemblies to parliamentary debate societies, humans practiced building arguments in real time, responding to counterarguments, holding a thread across long exchanges.

Twitter replaced construction with reaction.

You don't build an argument anymore. You emit a position.

Reacting feels like thinking. It isn't.

9/ NAVIGATING WITHOUT GPS

When you read a map, you built a mental model of where you were in relation to everything else. You developed judgment about distance and time through experience.

GPS gives you turn-by-turn instructions. You arrive having learned nothing about the territory.

Studies confirm: GPS users show less hippocampal activity and worse spatial memory.

The navigation WAS the spatial thinking.

10/ APPRENTICESHIP

Before credentials and certifications, you learned complex skills by watching a master for years. A carpenter didn't check a chart to know if wood was properly seasoned. They could feel it, smell it, hear it.

We kept the explicit knowledge (checklists, procedures) and discarded the tacit knowledge (embodied intuition).

We often discarded the more valuable half.

11/ COOKING WITHOUT RECIPES

Before apps and meal kits with pre-measured ingredients, cooking required holding a mental model of the whole dish — how flavors interact, how timing sequences interleave.

A meal kit that sends you exactly 15g of pre-sliced ginger eliminates the thinking.

You execute without understanding. And when something goes wrong, you can't adapt — because you never had the model. Only the instructions.

12/ BOREDOM

This might be the biggest one.

Before smartphones filled every idle moment, humans were regularly bored. Waiting rooms. Bus rides. Lying in fields.

Boredom is uncomfortable, so the brain responds by wandering — making unexpected connections, revisiting problems, running simulations.

We didn't eliminate boredom. We eliminated the thinking that boredom produced.

13/The pattern across ALL of these is identical to the handwriting finding:

We identified a practice that seemed inefficient. We replaced it with something faster. We only later noticed that the "inefficiency" was where the cognition lived.

The slow part wasn't a bug. It was the thinking.

14/Here's what's wild.

Modern productivity advice now sells us BACK the friction we removed — but as formal techniques:

— "Premortems" replace the doubts that surfaced naturally in journal writing
— "Decision frameworks" replace the judgment that apprenticeship built
— "Digital detoxes" replace the boredom we used to get for free

15/Every tool that saves you cognitive effort is, to some degree, saving you FROM cognition itself.

The question isn't whether to use the tools.

It's whether you've preserved a practice that does the thinking the tool removed.

16/The Nature editorial drew the line at LLMs writing scientific papers.

But the line is everywhere:

Your GPS is thinking about the city so you don't have to. Your calculator is thinking about quantities so you don't have to. Your meal kit is thinking about dinner so you don't have to. Your phone is thinking during your idle moments so you don't have to.

The convenience was never free. You were paying in cognition. You just couldn't see the bill.

17/One last thought.

The EEG study showed that the hand forming letters activated brain regions that typing didn't.

The hand wasn't recording thought. It was generating it.

Every practice on this list worked the same way. The doing was the thinking.

When we optimized away the doing, we didn't save the thinking.

We lost it."