Here’s the outline of this interview with Josh Turknett:

[00:00:33] Previous podcast with Josh on unschooling: How to Support Childhood Cognitive Development.

[00:00:44] Masters of Scale Podcast; episode with Nancy Lublin from the Crisis Text Line.

[00:02:20] Supporting cognitive function as we age.

[00:02:31] Podcast: The Postmenopausal Longevity Paradox and the Evolutionary Advantage of Our Grandmothering Life History, with Kristen Hawkes.

[00:08:52] Modern hunter-gatherers and cognitive decline.

[00:11:26] Podcast: How to Win at Angry Birds: The Ancestral Paradigm for a Therapeutic Revolution, with Josh Turknett, 4-quadrant model.

[00:13:20] Cognitive activity protective against neurodegenerative disease; The nun study: Iacono, D., et al. "The Nun study: clinically silent AD, neuronal hypertrophy, and linguistic skills in early life." Neurology 73.9 (2009): 665-673.

[00:15:19] Cognitive reserve.

[00:16:03] Rats in enriched environments have structurally superior brains; Study: Torasdotter, Marita, et al. "Environmental enrichment results in higher levels of nerve growth factor mRNA in the rat visual cortex and hippocampus." Behavioural brain research 93.1-2 (1998): 83-90.

[00:16:40] Auditory training program with rats reversed over 20 auditory processing deficits in the adult brain; Study: de Villers-Sidani, Etienne, et al. "Recovery of functional and structural age-related changes in the rat primary auditory cortex with operant training." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107.31 (2010): 13900-13905.

[00:17:21] Intelligence Unshackled Podcast: Pioneer of Plasticity Dr. Michael Merzenich.

[00:22:54] Maintaining cognitive activity as a predictor of physical activity; Study: Cheval, Boris, et al. "Relationship between decline in cognitive resources and physical activity." Health Psychology (2020).

[00:25:29] Demand-driven decline theory.

[00:26:20] Retiring earlier associated with higher mortality; Study: Wu, Chenkai, et al. "Association of retirement age with mortality: a population-based longitudinal study among older adults in the USA." J Epidemiol Community Health 70.9 (2016): 917-923.

[00:27:00] “Widowhood effect” - 66% increased chance of death in the first three months after your spouse dies. Study: Moon, J. Robin, et al. "Short-and long-term associations between widowhood and mortality in the United States: longitudinal analyses." Journal of public health 36.3 (2014): 382-389.

[00:29:56] The "better off dead" rule. 

[00:32:32] Why the young are protected from cognitive decline: early demands on the nervous system.

[00:37:57] How schools may undermine cognitive development.

[00:40:03] What to do: recreate the demands on the nervous system of youth.

[00:45:06] Book: The Laws of Brainjo: The Art & Science of Molding a Musical Mind, by Josh Turknett.

[00:48:19] Teaching children - what should learning look like?

[00:54:15] Book: The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children, by Alison Gopnik.

[00:56:34] jturk.net.

[00:56:45] Derek Sivers.