The 41st edition of the Brain Blogging Carnival offers an inviting collection of posts. A few that lured me in:

David Lewis says you lose weight as you get older. Unfortunately, the weight you lose is in your brain. Science and your long life brain, at Grey Matters. He has some good news to go with the bad news, though he does say you have to do housekeeping — not just mental workouts, but a more holistic approach that includes diet, exercise, relaxation… and optimism.

At SharpBrains, Bill Klemm suggests that memory problems can be related to (surprise, surprise) multitasking. Klemm frowns at things like MySpace, instant messaging, and even cell phones — though in terms of distraction, I think they’re more contributing factors than ultimate causes. It’s not that the invitation to shift attention is electronic, per se; it’s that we attend to the invitation. Something like the moderation principle with regard to Scotch: a wee drappie o’ it’ll dae ye nae harm.

And at Treatments for Depression, a new blog, Mike (who doesn’t seem to have an about page) discusses experiments in treating depression with transcranial magnetic stimulation. TMS is a far milder approach than electroconvulsive therapy (which induces seizures).

Photo by _guu_ / Gustavo Marin.