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Working Memory Training and RoboMemo: Interview with Dr. Torkel Klingberg

Wikipedia says “Recent stud­ies sug­gest that Work­ing Mem­ory can be improved by work­ing mem­ory train­ing (Kling­berg et al., 2002)…Per­haps of greater impor­tance, another study has found after a period of work­ing mem­ory train­ing an increase in a range of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and an increase in IQ test scores of approx­i­mately 8%.”

A search for “Torkel Kling­berg” in PubMed returns 26 papers pub­lished in peer-reviewed pub­li­ca­tions such as the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Child & Ado­les­cent Psy­chi­a­try, Jour­nal of Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science, and Nature Neu­ro­science.

We are happy to launch our Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Inter­view Series with an inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (AF): Wel­come. Can you let us know where you work, and what your Lab does?

Dr. Torkel Kling­berg (TK): I have a pro­fes­sor­ship at Karolin­ska Insti­tute, and lead the Devel­op­men­tal Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Lab, part of the Stock­holm Brain Insti­tute. The lab is address­ing the ques­tions of devel­op­ment and plas­tic­ity of work­ing mem­ory. We do that through sev­eral tech­niques, such as fMRI, dif­fu­sion ten­sor imag­ing to look at myeli­na­tion of white mat­ter in the brain, neural net­work mod­els of work­ing mem­ory and behav­ioral stud­ies. In addi­tion, I am a sci­en­tific advi­sor for Cogmed, the com­pany that devel­oped and com­mer­cial­izes RoboMemo.

AF: What stud­ies have you pub­lished so far? What stud­ies are in the pipeline, and will be pub­lished soon?

TK: You can find a com­plete list, and the stud­ies them­selves, at the lab home­page. Among our stud­ies are three stud­ies on the effect of work­ing mem­ory train­ing: Kling­berg et al. 2002, 2005 and Ole­sen et al. 2004. We have recently sub­mit­ted two papers on the effect of train­ing in com­bi­na­tion with med­ica­tion, and the effect of train­ing on school performance.

AF: What are the high­lights of your research so far?

TK: Our paper from 2004 in Nature Neu­ro­science, on the effect of work­ing mem­ory train­ing on brain activ­ity, and the 2005 ran­dom­ized, con­trolled clin­i­cal trial that showed the impact of work­ing mem­ory train­ing specif­i­cally in kids with ADD/ ADHD, have caught most pub­lic atten­tion, includ­ing ref­er­ences in Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can.

My other research con­cerns the neural basis for devel­op­ment and plas­tic­ity of cog­ni­tive func­tions dur­ing child­hood, in par­tic­u­lar devel­op­ment of atten­tion and work­ing mem­ory.
In short, I’d say that we have shown that work­ing mem­ory can be improved by train­ing and that such train­ing helps peo­ple with atten­tion deficits and it also improves rea­son­ing abil­ity overall.

AF: What are the effects in every-day life for a child with atten­tion deficits?

TK: When look­ing at the 1,200 chil­dren who have trained in Cogmed’s Stock­holm Clinic since start, the most com­mon effects are sus­tained atten­tion, bet­ter impulse con­trol and improved learn­ing abil­ity. Par­ents often report that their chil­dren per­form bet­ter in school and are able to keep up a coher­ent con­ver­sa­tion more eas­ily after train­ing. Being able to hold back impulses, such as anger out­bursts, and keep­ing bet­ter track of one’s things are other every-day life benefits.

AF: How are you mak­ing the pro­gram available?

TK: All rights are with Cogmed, who is mak­ing this avail­able in Swe­den and start­ing to offer this to selected clin­ics in the US this year. The pro­gram is called RoboMemo Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing Pro­gram.

AF: What do you expect that we will learn over the next 5 years in the field of Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and cog­ni­tive training?

TK: I think that we are see­ing the begin­ning of a new era of com­put­er­ized train­ing for a wide range of appli­ca­tions. Our stud­ies has mostly been aimed at indi­vid­u­als with marked prob­lems of inat­ten­tion, but there is a wider zone con­cern­ing what you define as atten­tion prob­lems, and we will see how RoboMemo can help a larger part of the pop­u­la­tion in improv­ing cog­ni­tive function.

AF: What will you talk about at CHADD?

TK: I will present the data from our pub­lished stud­ies on ADHD, as well as some new data from inde­pen­dent researchers in US uni­ver­si­ties that con­firm our find­ings con­cern­ing the effect of work­ing mem­ory training.

AF: You are writ­ing a book, cor­rect? what is it about?

TK: The book is a pop­u­lar sci­ence book about work­ing mem­ory, in the lab and in daily life. It will be out in March in Swe­den and we are cur­rently look­ing for a US publisher.

AF: Dr. Kling­berg, thanks for your time.

TK: My pleasure.

————————————–

You may also be inter­ested in the fol­low­ing posts
Inter­view with Prof. David Rabiner on Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and ADD/ ADHD
Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and brain exer­cise
Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing and Atten­tion Deficits

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Categories: Attention and ADD/ADHD, Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience Interview Series, Technology

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26 Responses

  1. […] I will be pre­sent­ing lessons from Cogmed’s Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing Pro­gram for kids with ADD/ ADHD, devel­oped by the team at Karolin­ska Insti­tute, led by Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, and by Cogmed. The pro­gram is called RoboMemo, and is one of the Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams with more solid research we have found for peo­ple with seri­ous con­cen­tra­tion dif­fi­cul­ties like ADD/ ADHD. […]

  2. […] Related Links 50 Ways to Cope With Menopause by Dr. Linda Hughey Holt and Ada P. Kahn North Amer­i­can Menopause Soci­ety Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, researcher in work­ing mem­ory Inter­view with Pro­fes­sor David Rabiner, advo­cate for chil­dren and adults with ADD/ ADHD RoboMemo remo­bi­lizes work­ing memory […]

  3. […] Related Links 50 Ways to Cope With Menopause by Dr. Linda Hughey Holt and Ada P. Kahn North Amer­i­can Menopause Soci­ety Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, researcher in work­ing mem­ory Inter­view with Pro­fes­sor David Rabiner, advo­cate for peo­ple with ADD/ADHD RoboMemo remo­bi­lizes work­ing memory […]

  4. […] Some read­ings: — Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing lead­ing researcher — Inter­view with Dr. David Rabiner, ADD/ ADHD lead­ing researcher — Reflec­tions at a meet­ing with a num­ber of school superintendents […]

  5. […] The dis­counted reg­is­tra­tion for the Seri­ous Games Sum­mit in DC, Octo­ber 30-31st, is about to end. If inter­ested, hurry up! I will be pre­sent­ing lessons from Cogmed’s Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing Pro­gram for kids with ADD/ ADHD, devel­oped by the team at Karolin­ska Insti­tute, led by Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, and by Cogmed. The pro­gram is called RoboMemo, and is one of the Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams with more solid research we have found for peo­ple with seri­ous con­cen­tra­tion dif­fi­cul­ties like ADD/ ADHD. […]

  6. […] You can read in more depth about a cou­ple of areas he touches on, such as some high­lights from the clin­i­cal work and books by Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg , and an inter­view with Cogmed’s Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, the lead­ing sci­en­tist behind RoboMemo. […]

  7. […] DG: Thank you. I enjoyed very much read­ing your inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg on work­ing mem­ory train­ing, and appre­ci­ate your help in increas­ing aware­ness of the whole field. Btw, I will be trav­el­ing next week to Spain, for a meet­ing of the Skills project. The meet­ing will be in Bilbao. […]

  8. […] Some read­ings: — Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing lead­ing researcher — Inter­view with Dr. David Rabiner, ADD/ ADHD lead­ing researcher — Reflec­tions at a meet­ing with a num­ber of school superintendents […]

  9. […] Train your brain. Accord­ing to Torkel Kling­berg at the Karolin­ska Insti­tute in Stock­holm, Swe­den, “Genet­ics deter­mines a lot and so does the early ges­ta­tion period. On top of that, there is a few per cent — we don’t know how much — that can be improved by training.” […]

  10. […] Long before Dr. Ole­sen, Dr. West­er­berg and Dr. Torkel Klingberg pub­lished their very-well-received paper about work­ing mem­ory train­ing (titled Increased pre­frontal and pari­etal activ­ity after train­ing of work­ing mem­ory), brain-training ser­vices had been avail­able here. “Speed Listening” adver­tise­ments say “Why haven’t we come up with this idea before?”, and the idea is that by lis­ten­ing 2x speed, your brain works 2x faster. I believe it was there from the 70s and, even now inside the paper bag from book­shop you can find its brochure when you buy books. World pop­u­lar speed-reading has its Japan­ese ver­sion of pro­pa­ganda that it not only speeds up your read­ing but also your brain and even “activates” your right brain. This is not based on actual research, but many peo­ple believe it. […]

  11. […] — Wednes­day: Cogmed orga­nized a pri­vate meet­ing with the 15 US-based clin­i­cians (from pedi­a­tri­cians to neu­ropsy­chol­o­gists and child psy­chi­a­trists) who have started to offer RoboMemo to their patients with work­ing mem­ory deficits-a con­di­tion in many kids and adults with ADD/ADHD. We heard incred­i­ble tes­ti­mo­ni­als from peo­ple like Dr. Bar­bara Inger­soll, Dr. Arthur Lavin, and oth­ers. Not only that, but Dr. Torkel Klingberg pre­sented some pre­lim­i­nary data com­ing from the work in the Karolin­ska Insti­tute and a repli­ca­tion study done in by Bradley Gib­son at NotreDame Uni­ver­sity (he and his team are doing very inter­est­ing work on cog­ni­tive train­ing of exec­u­tive functions). […]

  12. […] We want to con­grat­u­late Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, pro­fes­sor of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at the Karolin­ska Insti­tute and one of the founders of Cogmed, on receiv­ing the Philip’s Nordic Prize for his research on work­ing mem­ory train­ing for chil­dren diag­nosed with Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­ity Dis­or­der (ADHD). The prize rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing research in the field of neu­ropsy­chi­a­try and was pre­sented by the Nor­we­gian royal princess Märtha Louise at the Rik­shos­pi­tal in Oslo, Nor­way. Trans­lat­ing his research into an active train­ing pro­gram, Kling­berg co-founded Cogmed, a devel­oper of software-based work­ing mem­ory train­ing prod­ucts head­quar­tered in Stock­holm. Cogmed’s rig­or­ous and reward­ing pro­gram com­bines computer-based train­ing and per­sonal coach­ing to help peo­ple with atten­tion deficits strengthen their work­ing mem­o­ries. More than 80 per­cent of chil­dren who have com­pleted Cogmed’s inten­sive five-week pro­gram have demon­strated dra­matic and last­ing improve­ments to their atten­tion, impulse con­trol and prob­lem solv­ing skills. “I am hon­ored and deeply grate­ful to receive this award,” said Kling­berg. “It is a source of per­sonal joy to see these advances pos­i­tively affect the lives of chil­dren who strug­gle with atten­tion deficits. This award will help con­tinue the impor­tant research on work­ing mem­ory train­ing being con­ducted at the Karolin­ska Institute.” […]

  13. […] Jan­u­ary 26, 2007 at 4:54 pm · Filed under Edu­ca­tion, Seri­ous Games, Mem­ory Train­ing, Brain health, Brain Fit­ness, Work­ing mem­ory, Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science, Brain Train­ing, Atten­tion and ADD/ ADHD, Cog­ni­tive Train­ing, Brain-based Learn­ing, Cogmed, RoboMemo We want to con­grat­u­late Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, pro­fes­sor of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at the Karolin­ska Insti­tute and one of the founders of Cogmed, on receiv­ing the Philip’s Nordic Prize for his research on work­ing mem­ory train­ing for chil­dren diag­nosed with Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­ity Dis­or­der (ADHD). The prize rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing research in the field of neu­ropsy­chi­a­try and was pre­sented by the Nor­we­gian royal princess Märtha Louise at the Rik­shos­pi­tal in Oslo, Nor­way. Trans­lat­ing his research into an active train­ing pro­gram, Kling­berg co-founded Cogmed, a devel­oper of software-based work­ing mem­ory train­ing prod­ucts head­quar­tered in Stock­holm. Cogmed’s rig­or­ous and reward­ing pro­gram com­bines computer-based train­ing and per­sonal coach­ing to help peo­ple with atten­tion deficits strengthen their work­ing mem­o­ries. More than 80 per­cent of chil­dren who have com­pleted Cogmed’s inten­sive five-week pro­gram have demon­strated dra­matic and last­ing improve­ments to their atten­tion, impulse con­trol and prob­lem solv­ing skills. “I am hon­ored and deeply grate­ful to receive this award,” said Kling­berg. “It is a source of per­sonal joy to see these advances pos­i­tively affect the lives of chil­dren who strug­gle with atten­tion deficits. This award will help con­tinue the impor­tant research on work­ing mem­ory train­ing being con­ducted at the Karolin­ska Institute.” […]

  14. […] Our main char­ac­ter: Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, whom we had the for­tune to inter­view last Sep­tem­ber (full notes at Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing and RoboMemo: Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg), and who has since received the preti­gious Philip’s Nordic Prize. […]

  15. […] On Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing and RoboMemo: Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, pro­fes­sor at Karolin­ska Insti­tute, and direc­tor of the Devel­op­men­tal Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Lab, part of the Stock­holm Brain Insti­tute. He is also the sci­en­tific advi­sor for Cogmed Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing pro­gram (RoboMemo). […]

  16. […] On Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing and RoboMemo: Inter­view with Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, pro­fes­sor at Karolin­ska Insti­tute, and direc­tor of the Devel­op­men­tal Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Lab, part of the Stock­holm Brain Institute. […]

  17. […] Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, pro­fes­sor at Karolin­ska Insti­tute, and direc­tor of the Devel­op­men­tal Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Lab, part of the Stock­holm Brain Institute. […]

  18. […] What if we are start­ing to see good tools that enable us to train and improve work­ing mem­ory, and the abil­ity to self-regulate emo­tions, and to cul­ti­vate altru­ism? how will this influ­ence our soci­ety? where do we start? how do we become even more human? Learn More about Brain Fit­ness Join our Mes­sage Boards Find the Right Pro­gram Tags: Alfred Nobel will, con­scious fore­sight, cul­ti­vate altru­ism, Emo­tional self reg­u­la­tion, free will, genes and memes, nature and nur­ture, Nobel Peace Prize, Richard Dawkins, United Nations, Work­ing memory […]

  19. […] Today we inter­view Dr. Arthur Lavin, Asso­ciate Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor of Pedi­atrics at Case West­ern School of Med­i­cine, pedi­a­tri­cian in pri­vate prac­tice, and one of the first providers of Cogmed Work­ing Mem­ory Training in the US (the pro­gram whose research we dis­cussed with Dr. Torkel Klingberg and Dr. Bradley Gib­son). Dr. Lavin has a long stand­ing inter­est in technology-as evi­denced by Microsoft’s recog­ni­tion of his paper­less office– and in brain research and applications-he trained with esteemed Mel Levine from All Kinds of Minds-. […]

  20. […] “We have shown that work­ing mem­ory can be improved by training” – Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, Pro­fes­sor at Karolin­ska Insti­tute, and Direc­tor of the Devel­op­men­tal Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Lab, part of the Stock­holm Brain Insti­tute: Read Interview Notes […]

  21. […] If you want to learn more: Eval­u­a­tion Checklist and review of our own skep­ti­cism regard­ing some claims. Inter­view notes with neu­ro­sci­en­tists behind mil­i­tary and bas­ket­ball train­ing applications and work­ing mem­ory train­ing for kids with ADD/ ADHD. […]

  22. […] “We have shown that work­ing mem­ory can be improved by training…I think that we are see­ing the begin­ning of a new era of com­put­er­ized train­ing for a wide range of applications” – Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, Direc­tor of the Devel­op­men­tal Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Lab at Karolin­ska Insti­tute. Full Interview Notes. […]

  23. […] — “We have shown that work­ing mem­ory can be improved by training…I think that we are see­ing the begin­ning of a new era of com­put­er­ized train­ing for a wide range of applications” – Dr. Torkel Kling­berg, Direc­tor of the Devel­op­men­tal Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Lab at Karolin­ska Insti­tute. Full Inter­view Notes. […]

  24. […] You can also read our inter­view with the lead­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tist behind Cogmed, Dr. Torkel Klingberg. […]

  25. Sabrina Anderson says:

    Why is your train­ing so expen­sive? What if a child just gives up after a cou­ple of ses­sions? Wouldn’t any par­ent spend­ing 1500 dol­lars say they see improve­ments in their child? Who wants to think they just wasted that much money? These obser­va­tions seem more sub­jec­tive than any­thing really measurable.

  26. Alvaro says:

    Dear Sab­rina, it is not clear who you are ask­ing that ques­tion to. We don’t pro­vide any product.

    Let me sug­gest you ask Cogmed and/ or your kid’s clin­i­cal provider.

    Regards

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