Brain Health Dynamic Duo | Dr. Jennifer Bramen & Dr. Karen Miller

by Anthony Effinger

The Think Neuro podcast from Pacific Neuroscience Institute takes you into the clinic, operating room and laboratory with doctors and surgeons who are tackling the most challenging brain diseases and disorders. Host: Anthony Effinger

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Episode 32: Show Notes

Strange though it may seem, we can tone our brain tissue the same way we tone our muscles. The fitness of our gray matter depends on how well we take care of ourselves. If we exercise, manage our stress, get plenty of sleep, and eat right, our brain function improves. We add more, better brain tissue. Dr. Jennifer Bramen and Dr. Karen Miller work as a team at the Pacific Brain Health Center to help people keep their brains fit, especially as we age.

Dr. Bramen is a neuroscientist who specializes in brain imaging. Dr. Karen Miller is a geropsychologist and clinical neuropsychologist with three decades of experience dealing with aging brains. They work together to develop brain health lifestyle programs that combine physical exercise and brain training to stave of neurological decline in older adults and help people with healthy brains keep them that way. Listen to this podcast to learn how they combine their specialties to get results.

About Dr. Bramen

Jennifer Bramen holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and completed her postdoctoral research fellowship at the Laboratory of Neuroimaging (LONI). She was an Assistant Research Neuroscientist at the UCLA’s Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging and taught in the Neuroimaging Training Program. She has also spent years conducting research and delivering coaching and other interventions in the private sector. In addition to conducting Phase 0 research in industry, Dr. Bramen delivered an individualized, brain-based coaching program to clients for five years.

About Dr. Miller

Karen Miller, PhD, Senior Director, Brain Wellness and Lifestyle Programs, is a leading national expert in the area of Memory/Cognitive Training. With more than three decades of experience in the field of aging and memory as a geropsychologist and clinical neuropsychologist, Dr. Miller’s role with PNI Foundation is to develop and direct the implementation of Lifestyle Programs aimed at providing a Roadmap to Brain Wellness.

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Anthony Effinger

Think Neuro's host is Anthony Effinger, an award-winning journalist who is fascinated with neuroscience and the workings of the brain. Anthony spent 24 years at Bloomberg News, where he covered all aspects of finance, with forays into science and health. In 2006, the Association of Health Care Journalists awarded him first prize for Playing the Odds, an in-depth piece on the changing strategies used to treat prostate cancer. These days, he is a staff writer at Willamette Week, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife and two children.

Last updated: November 4th, 2022