Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function

Send us Fan Mail The hopeful expectation of living into old age is often marred by the fear of the irreversible decline in one’s abilities and mental faculties. When it comes to Alzheimer’s disease, the scientific community, professionals and society in general is dedicated to pursuing a three-pronged approach: find ways to irradiate the disease, delay the onset of the disease, and finally, figure...

Send us Fan Mail Even while leading a healthy mental and physical life, no one can be certain about the aging brain’s destiny. The stage of life marked by walkers, hearing aids, and memory lapses is averted by a few, but dreaded by all. Since Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the three leading causes of death in the elderly population, how to keep performing at the top of one’s game, even in old age,...

Send us Fan Mail There’s no guarantee you will step on a treadmill right after stepping off a  scale with disappointing number. Goals clash with fears and anxieties resulting in procrastination, which is a common place phenomenon. But by connecting to values and committing to actions, we can treat daily tasks like a workout rather than a race to finish. On this episode, our guest a professor of ps...

Send us Fan Mail No one has been spared from the strong impulse to put things off for later. You might find yourself cleaning out the refrigerator when you should really be working on your taxes.  Dilly-dallying and lallygagging are a few ways one’s aversion for impending tasks manifests itself. In the Netflix series, The Kominsky Method , Alan Arkin’s character loses his wife of nearly 50 years t...

Send us Fan Mail When talking about his sad mess of a childhood, author Augustine Boroughs’ fantasy of normalcy resembled to that of "fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal". In his autobiography, Running with Scissors, Boroughs writes about his guardian conjuring a mental health excuse by giving him the directive to pop pills, drink liquor and fake his own suicide so t...

Send us Fan Mail Roberto Benigni’s critically acclaimed role in the movie Life is Beautiful, which earned him an Oscar, poignantly illustrates what a caring, charismatic adult does to shield a young boy from the horrors of captivity in a concentration camp as they were thrown into the atrocities of war. With his resilient ways, Guido Orefice, the father in this movie, interacts reassuringly with h...

Send us Fan Mail As a youngster growing up in 70s, if I had struggled to retain facts, or to learn a second (more like third) language or did not grasp advance math or failed to finish the exam on time, I would have been lectured or yelled at. In that era, I would been reprehended for not trying hard enough or for not caring enough about my learning. Thankfully, the development in neuroscience and...

Send us Fan Mail No one is free form worrying about their children and their success. From sippy cups, nap times, and play dates, parents move on to worrying about lost papers, missing homework, too much cell-phone use, or not getting a part in a school play. Normal mishaps aside, a struggling child can cause even greater worry. Email exchanges like this one are not uncommon. “Johnny seems to work...

Send us Fan Mail Sutter Keely is a smart, goofy, sensitive, troubled, unserious, and lost teenager who doesn't have the best Executive Function skills. Sutter is the main character in the movie ‘The Spectacular Now’ whose life choices are not that off the mark for a teenager but do certainly stand out from his sweet, focused, ambitious, and future-centered ex-girlfriend or the studious, hard-...

Send us Fan Mail A child opens a fun little children’s book and comes across two words ‘trogglehumper’ and ‘frothbuggling’. He’s immediately drawn in. You can hear him wonder, “what’s that?” What a way to capture a kid's interest and tickle their imagination! Celebrated children’s author, Roald Dahl, had knack of doing that. He once said, “If you want to remember what it’s like to live in a c...

Send us Fan Mail A recent headline read, “Demonic child on flight” that described a passenger who filmed his horrific experience while traveling with a screaming 3-year-old on a long flight from Germany to the USA. The video stirred up a Facebook controversy where many empathized with the mother while the rest blamed her for failing to control the child. Misbehavior implies the intention to misbeh...

Send us Fan Mail Recently, during a baptism ceremony, an 89-year old French priest lost his cool and slapped a 2-year old toddler in the face, who wouldn't stop crying. The whole incident was caught on camera and went viral as one can imagine. The priest later said. “It was something between a caress and a little slap. I was trying to calm him down, I didn’t really know what to do.” Somewhere...

Send us Fan Mail For a west Philadelphia high school dropout, Troy Carter has had an incredibly impressive career where as a talent scout, manager, and producer he has launched artists like Lady Gaga to fame. However, his creative entrepreneurship transcended industry silos as he has become first of his kind to be an angel investor in more that 100 Silicon Valley startups including Spotify. But as...

Send us Fan Mail Each day, more than 7 million children in the United States are left to their own devices for at least some period of time after the school day ends. And research shows that children who are deprived of a supervised environment by a supportive adult are likely to develop a gamut of academic and behavioral problems. Sometimes the only nurturing adult in a child’s life is a teacher...

Send us Fan Mail When Office Depot® sells a pencil on their website the description says, “Brand Basic Wood Pencils, #2 Medium Soft Lead, Pack Of 36”. Now take a look at Nick Offerman’s website and see how he sells a pencil. He’s the actor who famously brought the character of Ron Swanson, a colorful crank, to life in the sitcom Parks and Recreation. First of all, Offerman Wood Shop (OWS) calls it...

Send us Fan Mail On April 11, 1734, a tiny notice appeared in the small corner of the Pennsylvania Gazette owned by Benjamin Franklin that read, “Ready money for old rags”. People poured in just as expected. Franklin, the entrepreneur extraordinaire, who also held a license to print paper currency, began to send these rags to the mill he owned to convert it into paper money; thus popularizing the...

Send us Fan Mail Every day we go to bed knowing we have left many things unfinished, allowed intrusive thoughts about unfinished business interrupt the work flow, and wasted a lot of time. Even though, the productivity guru Stephen Covey has famously said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing” many of us can’t decide fast enough or well enough what that main thing is. The resea...

Send us Fan Mail A secret ingredient in the life of an easy-going, popular kid with lots of friends and good grades is self-control. Eventually, this kid grows up into a focused, accomplished, and well-adjusted adult who lives a physically well-disciplined and financially secure life without ever brushing against the law or criminal justice. On the other hand, those who fail to deploy self-restrai...

Send us Fan Mail Wired magazine once challenged 39 sci-fi writers and creative types to put their artistry to test by writing a 6-word story. Author of beloved Wicked series, Gregory Maguire came back with a clever riposte, “From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings.” These simple string of words sets the brain’s into motion. It wonders, what are the men are thinking, what are they feeling, what wa...

Send us Fan Mail In the world of limitless possibilities, there is a limit as to how much one can know about the minds of others. Take an example: Have you ever been in your head so much that your insecurities catch up with you and you fail to gauge what others are thinking and feeling? It all simply begins when a friend doesn't return your call; or at least not right away. You begin to guess...

Send us Fan Mail Frank Darabont’s most prudent decision came when he spent just a $1 for one of Stephen King’s 1982 short stories Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption only to write a mind-blowing screenplay based on the story. Eventually, he directed it into the critically acclaimed and commercially successful film, Shawshank Redemption, which depicts how a wrongfully accused and imprisoned for...

Send us Fan Mail What war can you win with a deck of cards, a bible, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry? A war against the drudgery of daily mundane. To bring a semblance of normalcy, to push against her personal limits and to invoke her creative genius, for many years, Maya Angelou rented a hotel room where she placed these four simple objects and did her best work. Known for her prolific writi...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wondered if you’re doing it right, particularly when it comes to parenting? Have your good intentions to push your kids failed you? Have you reacted in an unflattering way when dealing with your kids’ distractibility, stubbornness, or argumentativeness or have your children pointed out that your reactions of frustration and anger are very unbecoming of you? It turns...

Send us Fan Mail The game of Chutes and Ladders, originally invented in India and known for the snakes instead of chutes, is a great allegory for life. With the luck of the draw, you get a leg up when you land on the ladder only to be taken down a several notches often to an irretraceable set back. It takes a lot of mental maneuvering and an executive control to handle the frustration of sliding d...

Send us Fan Mail World-class athletes, politicians, artists, and even entrepreneurs have fallen from grace because of their personal salacious digressions or public tantrums. The talent that makes them rich and famous is not the same talent that helps them ward off the chaos in their vulnerable mind. The emotional brain is inherently wired to duck from social perils or to protect itself from the p...