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Emory University

Biohacking Your Brain's Health

Emory University via Coursera

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Overview

With deteriorating health, particularly brain health, occurring at a global level, this course introduces you to methods for maximizing your brain's fitness through nutrition, exercise, meditation, and sleep. We'll debunk popular myths about prescribed practices for overall health and then uncover studies from the last few decades revealing practical routines and interventions that are proven to help improve the brain. You'll also get a glimpse at the brain's structure and common brain functions, as well as a "prescription" each week of tips for improving your brain's health.

Syllabus

  • Nutrition and the Brain
    • In this first week, you'll get a simple primer on the brain before diving into the history of nutrition and landmark studies on certain diets that can improve brain health.
  • Exercise and the Brain
    • During our second week, we'll uncover what exercise does to the brain (including physical and mental exercises) and look at human and animal research that provides us with these insights.
  • Meditation and the Brain
    • For our third week, we'll uncover the neuroscience behind meditation and mindfulness and recognize the effects of meditation on brain activity and brain structure.
  • Sleep and the Brain
    • In this final week, we'll look at how sleep works as an active process in the brain, assess the effects of sleep deprivation, and consider helpful practices for improved sleep and brain health.

Taught by

Karima Benameur, MD

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Reviews

4.5 rating, based on 4 Class Central reviews

4.7 rating at Coursera based on 1415 ratings

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  • Aedrian Abrilla @aaabrilla
    This is a great offering that can be of use to both laypeople and health professionals, the latter group being those, like me, who may need to have a refresher on best practices often taken for granted. All of the modules cover high-yield aspects on taking care of one’s brain health – nutrition, exercise, meditation and sleep – that can be undertaken without substantial additional economic costs. What I highly appreciate, as well, is that Dr. Benameur also provided excellent references that one may examine for the quality of evidence of the shared recommendations throughout the course. All in all, the material delivers in terms of clarity for such an increasingly important topic.
  • Poon Ho Chuen
    An eye-opening course! You will know how diet (insulin resistance actually), meditation, sleep and exercise affect your brain. And full of reference article.

    Some of the points are controversy, for example, the instructor says there is some benefit on cognitive exercise. However, other psychologists may not agree with this point.

    I hope the instructor can share more her personal stories in biohacking her brain.

  • Profile image for Axel Forgaral
    Axel Forgaral
    I really liked the content of this course, and I believe that it's a great starting point to start investigating further into 4 key topics for one's health and personal development.
    I found some of the lectures a bit boring at times and that made me have to read the text or review the videos several times to make sure I understood the context, otherwise, this would have been a 5!
  • Juliya Pudych
    Very good ! It’s rather useful course ! Biohickering is a future. I will try to use it in my own life.
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