Sharp Brains: Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

Dec 8, 2006

Cognitive Training and Brain Fitness Computer Programs: Interview with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg

By: Alvaro Fernandez

Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg is a clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­ogy at New York Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine, and author of over 50 peer-reviewed papers. His areas of exper­tise include exec­u­tive func­tions, mem­ory, atten­tion deficit dis­or­der, demen­tia, trau­matic brain injury, and oth­ers. Dr. Gold­berg was a stu­dent and close asso­ciate of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria. His book The Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civ­i­lized Mind (Oxford Uni­ver­sity Press, 2001) has received crit­i­cal acclaim and has been pub­lished in 12 lan­guages. His recent book The Wis­dom Para­dox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older (Gotham Books, Pen­guin, 2005) offers an inno­v­a­tive under­stand­ing of cog­ni­tive aging and what can be done to fore­stall cog­ni­tive decline. It has been, or is in the process of being, pub­lished in 13 languages.

We are for­tu­nate that Dr. Gold­berg is Sharp­Brains Co-Founder and Chief Sci­en­tific Advi­sor. His book The Wis­dom Para­dox inspired me to embark in this path, and has been a key sound­ing board in the devel­op­ment of what we are doing.

—————————————-

Key take-aways

- “Use It and Get More of It” reflects real­ity bet­ter than “Use It or Lose It”.

- Let’s demys­tify cog­ni­tion and the brain. Every­one needs to have a basic under­stand­ing of the brain-and how to cul­ti­vate it.

- Well-directed men­tal exer­cise is a must for cog­ni­tive enhance­ment and healthy aging.

—————————————-

Roots: Vygot­sky and Luria

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (AF): Elkhonon, maybe we could start with Vygot­sky. At one of my Stan­ford classes, I became fas­ci­nated by his the­ory of learn­ing. Which links into mod­ern neu­ropsy­chol­ogy.

Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg (EG): Vygot­sky pro­posed that learn­ing requires inter­nal­iza­tion. And that inter­nal­iza­tion equals, lit­er­ally, a change in the brain of the learner. Of course there weren advanced neu­roimag­ing tech­niques those days, so sci­en­tists could only spec­u­late about what hap­pened in healthy brains. But they could care­fully ana­lyze what hap­pened with patients who had suf­fered any kind of seri­ous brain prob­lem, from strokes to trau­matic brain injury. And this is how neu­ropsy­chol­ogy was born: Alexan­der Luria, Vygot­sky dis­ci­ple, and my own men­tor, was com­mis­sioned to help reha­bil­i­tate Russ­ian sol­diers with brain injuries dur­ing WWII. This pro­vided invalu­able clin­i­cal mate­r­ial for under­stand­ing the mech­a­nisms of the healthy brain. Much of mod­ern cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science rests its foun­da­tion in Luria’s work.

Neu­roimag­ing

AF: and now we have new neu­roimag­ing techniques.

EG: Pre­cisely. It is often said that new neu­roimag­ing meth­ods have changed neu­ro­science in the same way that the tele­scope changed astron­omy. We use MRI, PET, SPECT, fMRI and MEG both in neu­ro­science research and in clin­i­cal prac­tice. None of these tech­niques is per­fect, but used prop­erly they pro­vide us with a much bet­ter under­stand­ing than we had only 30 years ago.

Research and work

AF: please tell us about your main research and prac­ti­cal inter­ests.

EG: As you can see in my papers and books, I will cat­e­go­rize them in 3 areas-a) computer-based cog­ni­tive training/ Brain Fit­ness over­all, b) healthy cog­ni­tive aging, and c) frontal lobes and exec­u­tive func­tions. I am also inter­ested in mem­ory, hemi­spheric inter­ac­tion, and in a gen­eral the­ory of cor­ti­cal func­tional orga­ni­za­tion, but we will leave this for another occa­sion and focus today on those three areas.

First, Cog­ni­tive Training/ Brain Fit­ness. Rig­or­ous and tar­geted cog­ni­tive train­ing has been used in clin­i­cal prac­tice for many years. It can help improve mem­ory, atten­tion, con­fi­dence and com­pe­tence, rea­son­ing skills, even how to reduce anx­i­ety and deal with uncom­fort­able situations.

Sec­ond, healthy cog­ni­tive aging. The brain evolves as we age. Some areas, such as pat­tern recog­ni­tion, get bet­ter with age. Some require extra-workouts in order to reduce “chinks in the armor” and increase neu­ro­pro­tec­tion through the Cog­ni­tive (or Brain) Reserve). Hence, the need for tar­geted cog­ni­tive training.

Third, the Frontal lobes and exec­u­tive func­tions, which per­me­ate seem­ingly very dif­fer­ent prob­lems such as ADHD and Alzheimer’s, are crit­i­cal for our iden­tity and suc­cess­ful daily func­tion­ing so they require extra attention.

Frontal Lobes and exec­u­tive functions

AF: Please tell us more about what the Frontal Lobes are

EG: We researchers typ­i­cally call them the Exec­u­tive Brain. The pre­frontal cor­tex is young by evo­lu­tion­ary terms, and is the brain area crit­i­cal to adapt to new sit­u­a­tions, plan for the future, and self-regulate our actions in order to achieve long-term objec­tives. We could say that that part of the brain, right behind our fore­head, acts as the con­duc­tor of an orches­tra, direct­ing and inte­grat­ing the work of other parts of the brain.

I pro­vide a good exam­ple in The Exec­u­tive Brain book, where I explain how I was able to orga­nize my escape from Rus­sia into the US.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, the path­ways that con­nect the frontal lobes with the rest of the brain are slow to mature, reach­ing full oper­a­tional state between ages 18 and 30, or maybe even later. And, given that they are not as hard-wired as other parts of the brain, they are typ­i­cally the first areas to decline.

Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and Brain Fit­ness

AF: And is that one of the areas where cog­ni­tive training/ Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams can help

EG: Yes. Most pro­grams I have seen so far are bet­ter at train­ing other brain areas, which are also very impor­tant, but we are get­ting there, with exam­ples such as work­ing mem­ory train­ing, emo­tional self-regulation and domain-specific decision-making. Some of the spec­tac­u­lar research and clin­i­cal find­ings of the last 20 years that remain to be dis­cov­ered by the pop­u­la­tion at large are that we enjoy life­long brain plas­tic­ity and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, that the rate of devel­op­ment of new neu­rons can be influ­enced by cog­ni­tive activ­i­ties, and that intense men­tal chal­lenges pro­vide extra resis­tance to aging.

Exer­cis­ing our brains sys­tem­at­i­cally ways is as impor­tant as exer­cis­ing our bod­ies. In my expe­ri­ence, “Use it or lose it” should really be “Use it and get more of it”. And computer-based pro­grams are prov­ing to be a great vehi­cle for that.

Emo­tions and Art

AF: We have been talk­ing mostly about cog­ni­tion or “think­ing”. What about the role of emo­tions, as shown by the great research by Dama­sio?

EG: Great ques­tion. Until recently, emo­tions were sim­ply not rel­e­vant for many cog­ni­tive neu­ro­sci­en­tists. That is chang­ing, and there is more and more research look­ing into what makes us “uniquely human”: attrib­utes like moti­va­tion, judg­ment, empa­thy, insight into oth­ers, emo­tional self-regulation.

AF: how does that link into the role of art? Can we con­sider art cre­ation and appre­ci­a­tion as brain exer­cise?

EG: Indeed, and a great one. This is still open ter­ri­tory, but my per­sonal opin­ion is that art’s main pur­pose is in fact exer­cis­ing brains. As I men­tion in The Wis­dom Para­dox, I wouldn’t be sur­prised if piano lessons were shown to improve over­all sharp­ness and lucid­ity. Any activ­ity changes the brain, and sys­tem­atic pro­grams can be designed to lead that change in a bet­ter way than ran­dom daily activ­i­ties. Learn­ing a com­plex skill such as learn­ing the piano helps train and develop some parts of the brain. Well-designed computer-programs help train and develop other parts.

Key Mes­sages

AF: if we had to sum­ma­rize your key mes­sages to the pub­lic, based on your research and clin­i­cal career, what would you say?

EG: first, I would say, “For­get about Use It or Lose It”. It is “Use It and Get More of It!”. Sec­ond, I would like to con­tribute to demys­tify cog­ni­tion and the brain, enabling peo­ple to increase their self-awareness, their knowl­edge of the brain and how to cul­ti­vate it through­out life. Finally, I would high­light the impor­tance of well-directed men­tal exer­cise, on one hand, and of sup­port­ive social net­works, on the other. I am enthused about the oppor­tu­nity to work with you and Sharp­Brains and get the word out.

AF: so are we. It is a plea­sure to col­lab­o­rate on such an endeavor. Which I am sure will pro­vide us with plenty of brain exercise.

EG: as long as you don’t stress out, that’s good! Good night, Alvaro.

AF: Good night, Elkhonon.

——————————–

Spe­cial Offer: For a lim­ited time, you can receive a com­pli­men­tary copy of our Brain Fit­ness 101 e-Guide: Answers to your Top 25 Ques­tions, writ­ten by Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, by sub­scrib­ing to our monthly newslet­ter. You can sub­scribe Here.

Related blog posts

- Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity 101 and Brain Fit­ness Glos­sary: an overview of the emerg­ing sci­ence and some key con­cepts to under­stand it.

- Brain Train­ing Games and “Games”: a 10-Question Check­list on how to eval­u­ate pro­grams that make brain-related claims.

- Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Psy­chol­ogy Inter­view Series: in-depth inter­views with 11 sci­en­tists and experts in cog­ni­tive train­ing and brain fitness.

- Books on neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and mem­ory train­ing: reviews of Train Your Brain, Change Your Mind, by Sharon Beg­ley, and The Brain That Changes Itself, by Nor­man Doidge. Both books are fas­ci­nat­ing and pow­er­ful; each would have mer­ited appear­ing in the 2007 New York Times List of 100 Notable Books.

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Categories: Attention and ADD/ADHD, Brain Fitness Industry, Cognitive Neuroscience, Education & Lifelong Learning, Health & Wellness, Neuroscience Interview Series, Peak Performance, Professional Development

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48 Responses

  1. » What do successful Traders and Students have in common   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    December 10, 2006 at 1:54

    […] — Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Training […]

  2. Data Obsessed says:
    December 11, 2006 at 3:52

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “An intro­duc­tion to the field of software-based Brain Fit­ness and Brain Train­ing through an inter­view with one of the lead­ing scientists.” […]

  3. JANE’S MENTAL HEALTH SOURCE PAGE » Blog Archive » Edition for December 12, 2006 says:
    December 13, 2006 at 9:43

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “An inter­view with a lead­ing expert in the field of cog­ni­tive train­ing.” Jane’s Note: I sus­pect that the “bolded” phrases are Alvaro’s own high­lights of notable points. I do like the new (and more effec­tive) per­spec­tive of “use it and get more of it” over the old “use it or lose it.” […]

  4. Bryan C. Fleming » Personal Growth Carnival -23rd Edition says:
    December 13, 2006 at 8:32

    […] Steve Faber presents Debt Free Year End Finan­cial Review Laura Young presents Becom­ing More Dis­ci­plined Ray­mond David Salas presents Effort­less Suc­cess Vic­tor Fam presents Some Thoughts, Back­ground and Evo­lu­tion of My Ideal Goal Angela Ran­dall presents Take charge of your life NOW! Patri­cia presents Dream Your Dreams to Achieve Great­ness and Inspire the World Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Joseph presents How to attain success […]

  5. Andy says:
    December 13, 2006 at 11:18

    His work pro­vides extra moti­va­tion (for me per­son­ally, at least) to keep my mind active and chal­lenged. There’s a time and a place for inten­tional “down time” but not the men­tal (to some­times accom­pany phys­i­cal) lazi­ness that seems to be fairly com­mon today. I enjoy life more when I’m intel­lec­tu­ally stimulated.

  6. The Carnival of Thoughtful Consideration #1 at ThoughtfulConsideration.com says:
    December 13, 2006 at 11:53

    […] Alvaro presents Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion say­ing, “An inter­view with one of the lead­ing sci­en­tists in the field of cog­ni­tive train­ing and Brain Fitness…and prob­a­bly thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion too!” […]

  7. Alvaro says:
    December 14, 2006 at 8:38

    Andy, thanks for your nice com­ment. Yes, men­tal stim­u­la­tion is impor­tant “food” for our brains. Yes, “inten­tional “down time”” is also needed to man­age stress.

    Keep enjoy­ing life

  8. thoughtsphilosophies.com » Carnival Day Today says:
    December 15, 2006 at 8:46

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “Inter­view with lead­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tist, with tips on brain exer­cise. May be use­ful con­text for any­one inter­ested in train­ing their time man­age­ment and focus­ing ability.” […]

  9. Towards Better Life Carnival Edition #3 (December 17, 2006) « Towards Better Life says:
    December 15, 2006 at 10:31

    […] Alvaro Fer­nan­dez presents Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing posted at Sharp­Brains: Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion, say­ing, “Inter­view with one of the lead­ing sci­en­tists in the field of brain fit­ness and health.” […]

  10. Marie Matthews says:
    December 30, 2006 at 5:28

    1) I just read ” The Wis­dom Para­dox”. I live in LA and I am a teacher, thus not very rich. I am 63 years old. Does Dr. Gol­berg offer soft­ware for peo­ple like me to use on my own com­puter and enhance my brain as I tran­si­tion into old age?
    If not, are there decent alternatives?

    2) I teach “at risk stu­dents” in an alter­na­tive school in the inner city. My stu­dents are char­ac­ter­ized by a total or par­tial lack of the “exec­u­tive” abil­i­ties of the frontal lobes ( plan­ning, empa­thy. prob­lem solv­ing etc…). Many also exhibit symp­toms of Dislexia, ADD, Depres­sion …. Com­ing from poor socio-economic back­ground where decent health­care is rare they tend to self-medicate with drugs (mainly mar­i­jana) and alco­hol and in the process seem to worsen their prob­lems.
    Intu­itively I have based my teach­ing on devel­op­ing brain skills to help with the traits they are miss­ing. Thus my inter­est in brain research. But my efforts have been hap­haz­ard and not sys­tem­atic because I obvi­ously lack the nec­es­sary knowl­edge. Is there any­thing that can help me (from books to sofware) to cre­ate a more effec­tive program?

    I would be so grate­ful if you could help me. Thank you.

    Marie Matthews, San Pedro (LA) California

  11. Alvaro says:
    December 30, 2006 at 5:48

    Dear Marie,

    First of all, thanks for con­tact­ing us. We are very happy that you read The Wis­dom Paradox.

    1) The pro­grams that Dr. Gold­berg uses in his clin­i­cal prac­tice would not nec­es­sar­ily be appro­pri­ate for a healthy per­son, such as your­self. (And in this web­site we do not offer clin­i­cal advice). From we pro­grams we offer now, the one that we would rec­om­mend for you is Mind­Fit Com­pre­hen­sive Work­out Pro­gram. You can read more infor­ma­tion in our Get Started section

    2) Great ques­tion regard­ing pro­gram for exec­u­tive func­tion devel­op­ment in teenagers. This is a new field, and we have not found a tool we rec­om­mend for over­all frontal lobe train­ing for teenagers. We also do not pro­vide med­ical advice for peo­ple with spe­cific conditions-that would be a role for an school psy­chol­o­gist, prob­a­bly you have resources avail­able at the dis­trict level.

    The one pro­gram avail­able that could help a good num­ber of your stu­dents (and staff) is Freeze-Framer Stress Man­age­ment Pro­gram, men­tioned in this Tech­nol­ogy & Learn­ing arti­cle http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=193700663. It is the best pro­gram we have found for emo­tional self-regulation (anx­i­ety reduc­tion, anger man­age­ment, reduc­tion of impul­siv­ity) and has both good sci­ence and good school-based tes­ti­mo­ni­als to sup­port its value for teach­ers, school admin­is­tra­tors and stu­dents. Your school could start by get­ting one copy, for the prin­ci­pal or school psy­chol­o­gist office, that can be shared by as many peo­ple as you want (there are sep­a­rate log-ins). Some schools apply for grants to be able to install the pro­gram in sev­eral com­put­ers in their labs. You can learn more in our Get Started Sec­tion, or in the Solu­tions one, under Schools.

    Will be happy to talk next week, and pro­vide more con­text and address your questions.

    Regards, and happy 2007

  12. » Inaugural Edition: Brain Fitness Blog Carnival #1   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    January 19, 2007 at 3:05

    […] You may be inter­ested in my own inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing, try­ing to syn­the­size the many years of his research and clin­i­cal prac­tice around cog­ni­tive fitness. […]

  13. » Neuroscience Interview Series: on learning and "brain gyms"   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    January 23, 2007 at 7:37

    […] Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing. Dr. Gold­berg is a neuropsychologist and clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­ogy at New York Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine. He was a stu­dent and close asso­ciate of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria, and has writ­ten The Exec­u­tive Brain and The Wis­dom Paradox. […]

  14. Dave’s Whiteboard » Blog Archive » Neurons: use ‘em, get more says:
    January 30, 2007 at 10:02

    […] My choice today was this inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg; it touched on top­ics like brain-fitness pro­grams and cog­ni­tive train­ing. Con­cise but wide-ranging, links to other top­ics, and nuggets like these: I would say, “For­get about Use It or Lose it.” It is “Use It and Get More of It!” […]

  15. » TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), Iraq and neuropsychology   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    March 2, 2007 at 11:46

    […] For a bet­ter pre­spec­tive, this is a quote from our inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Cog­ni­tive Train­ing, talk­ing about the birth of mod­ern neu­ropsy­chol­ogy dur­ing World War II: “Of course there weren’t advanced neu­roimag­ing tech­niques those days, so sci­en­tists could only spec­u­late about what hap­pened in healthy brains. But they could care­fully ana­lyze what hap­pened with patients who had suf­fered any kind of seri­ous brain prob­lem, from strokes to trau­matic brain injury. And this is how neu­ropsy­chol­ogy was born: Alexan­der Luria, Vygotsky’s dis­ci­ple, and my own men­tor, was com­mis­sioned to help reha­bil­i­tate Russ­ian sol­diers with brain injuries dur­ing WWII. This pro­vided invalu­able clin­i­cal mate­r­ial for under­stand­ing the mech­a­nisms of the healthy brain. Much of mod­ern cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science rests its foun­da­tion in Luria’s work.” […]

  16. » Growing Super Athletes (each of our kids)   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    March 4, 2007 at 5:52

    […] In short, through tar­geted and repeated prac­tice, that trains/ devel­ops the appro­pri­ate brain net­works. What cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gists and educators would call “internalization”. See our inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Training. […]

  17. karen landers says:
    March 13, 2007 at 5:01

    am inter­ested in pur­chas­ing the sharp brain com­puter soft­wear pro­gram. recently had my mom diag­nosed with alzheimers.any help with where to pur­chase would be appreciated.

  18. Alvaro says:
    March 14, 2007 at 12:41

    Dear Karen,

    Sorry to hear about your mom. None of the pro­grams we have is aimed at peo­ple with Alzheimer’s (we focus on pre­ven­tion and cog­ni­tive improve­ment for healthy indi­vid­u­als), in prin­ci­ple. Your mom’s doc­tor should see if our com­pre­hen­sive men­tal work­out (in the Get Started sec­tion) might be help­ful for her, based on her sit­u­a­tion and priorities.

    The Alzheimer’s Foun­da­tion has a num­ber of books and resources-they may also know of computer-programs more help­ful for your mom.

    Regards

  19. » Baby Boomers, Healthy Aging and Job Performance   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    March 25, 2007 at 8:44

    […] 8– Computer-based brain exer­cise pro­grams are great vehi­cles or tools to help us with our stress man­age­ment (here) and men­tal stim­u­la­tion (here) needs, as com­pli­ments to other activ­i­ties in our daily lives. This is why you are read­ing more about the Brain Fitness movement these days, grounded on the research behind adult neu­ro­plas­tic­ity (Brain Fit­ness Glos­sary). And, of course, why we launched our Brain Fit­ness Center. […]

  20. » Books on neuroplasticity and memory training   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    April 3, 2007 at 8:35

    […] We coudn’t be hap­pier about the grow­ing num­ber of books pop­u­lar­iz­ing the key lessons about brain train­ing that Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg has been research­ing and writ­ing about for years, and that moti­vated us to embark our­selves in the Sharp­Brains adventure. […]

  21. » Customer Satisfaction Survey/ Tech Museum Awards    « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    April 5, 2007 at 10:56

    […] We usu­ally spend more time in this blog talk­ing about brain fit­ness sci­ence, pro­grams and trends than talk­ing about peo­ple. Today we are going to change that, since we have been receiv­ing great feed­back from a num­ber of sources. While we still need to improve a lot, we can start to see the results of what we do in our “brain fit­ness cen­ter”. And we couldn’t be hap­pier about the nom­i­na­tion this week of Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and myself, as Sharp­Brains cofounders, for The Tech Museum Awards — Tech­nol­ogy Ben­e­fit­ing Human­ity, in the Health category. […]

  22. Senia.com Positive Psychology Coaching » The “When I feel like it” Reason says:
    April 17, 2007 at 11:12

    […] Gilbert says the rea­son that “the human being is the only ani­mal that thinks about the future” is that we have a well-developed frontal lobe. Alvaro and Car­o­line write won­der­ful entries about the inter­est­ing aspects of the frontal lobe all the time at Sharp­Brains (see here, here, and here). Gilbert says, “The frontal lobe — the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slow­est to mature, and the first to dete­ri­o­rate in old age — is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and expe­ri­ence the future before it happens.” […]

  23. » All about Brain Fitness   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    April 28, 2007 at 9:15

    […] We are very happy to see how the science-based brain fit­ness field is emerg­ing, and we have pre­pared a Hot Top­ics sec­tion to keep you well informed. Our Chief Sci­en­tific Offi­cer, Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, has been writ­ing about brain fit­ness for many years. Here you have a selec­tion of the most pop­u­lar posts: Hot Top­ics on Mem­ory, Brain Fit­ness, Brain Teasers, Men­tal Exer­cise, Stress Man­age­ment, Phys­i­cal Exer­cise, Nutri­tion, News, Prod­ucts, Events, Stu­dents, Sci­ence, Resources, and more. […]

  24. » Lifelong Learning and Brain Fitness: San Francisco event, May 16th   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    May 2, 2007 at 6:56

    […] —————————————- The growing move­ment for improv­ing brain health has brought many inter­ested pro­fes­sion­als and inter­ested com­mu­nity mem­bers to the table.  Shar­ing our infor­ma­tion, activ­i­ties and planned events to pro­mote brain health increases the power of our reach.    Please join us on May 16, 2007 from noon to 1:30pm for a com­pli­men­tary gath­er­ing co-sponsored by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging  and hosted by the Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tutes (OLLI) at San Fran­cisco State University and Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, and SharpBrains. Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, well-known neu­ro­sci­en­tist and author THE WISDOM PARADOX: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger as Your Brain Grows Older  and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO and Co-Founder of  SharpBrains and Instruc­tor of the Exer­cis­ing Our Brains class, will pro­vide an overview of the sci­ence and trends behind the emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness field .   Please bring infor­ma­tion on your work and events to share with oth­ers inter­ested in brain health. […]

  25. » Brain Fitness Program: how to select the right one   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    May 9, 2007 at 3:07

    […] Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Training […]

  26. » Brain Training: the Art and the emerging Science   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    May 29, 2007 at 11:00

    […] Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing. Dr. Gold­berg is a neuropsychologist and clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­ogy at New York Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine. He was a stu­dent and close asso­ciate of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria, and has writ­ten The Exec­u­tive Brain and The Wis­dom Paradox. […]

  27. » Brain training to live long and strong   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    June 14, 2007 at 8:53

    […] You can also read our more detailed (and prob­a­bly more pre­cise) inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness and Cog­ni­tive Training […]

  28. » On Bill Gates Harvard commencement speech (and his Frontal Lobes)   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    June 17, 2007 at 8:58

    […] Cer­tainly, good advice for us too to refine our Brain Fit­ness efforts. Here you have a rel­e­vant frag­ment of my (AF)recent interview with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg (EG): […]

  29. » Summary of the CDC Cognitive Health Roadmap   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    June 29, 2007 at 7:50

    […] 2) To dis­sem­i­nate the lat­est sci­ence to increase pub­lic under­stand­ing of cog­ni­tive health and to dis­pel com­mon mis­con­cep­tions. The dis­cov­ery of life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis has given us a new pos­i­tive view upon the human brain — This is still a con­cept not many know of. “Use it or lose it” and “Use It and Get More of It” needs to reach all peo­ple. See this good overview on the topic. […]

  30. Brain Science Podcast #16: The Pre-frontal Lobes « the Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Dr. Ginger Campbell says:
    July 19, 2007 at 2:26

    […] Inter­view from Sharp Brains […]

  31. » Cognitive Enhancement and Exercise, by Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    August 8, 2007 at 10:35

    […] Dr. Gin­ger Camp­bell just pub­lished a nice pod­cast interview with our co-founder and chief sci­en­tific advi­sor Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, whom we also inter­viewed some months ago on brain improve­ment research and ideas. […]

  32. » Brain Training Games and "Games"   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    August 16, 2007 at 8:48

    […] Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and Brain Fit­ness overall […]

  33. » Feed Your Brain with Fun Neuroscience   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    August 25, 2007 at 2:20

    […] “Exer­cis­ing our brains sys­tem­at­i­cally ways is as impor­tant as exer­cis­ing our bod­ies. In my expe­ri­ence, “Use it or lose it” should really be “Use it and get more of it”.- Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist, clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­ogy at New York Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine, and dis­ci­ple of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria: Read Inter­view Notes […]

  34. » Executive Functions, Google/ Microsoft Brain Teasers, and News   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    September 5, 2007 at 5:50

    […] For more con­text on what those are, here are some quotes from my Inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg: AF: Please tell us more about what the Frontal Lobes are […]

  35. » 11 Neuroscience Quotes that Will Change Your Views on "Brain Training"   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    September 6, 2007 at 12:52

    […] “Exer­cis­ing our brains sys­tem­at­i­cally is as impor­tant as exer­cis­ing our bod­ies. In my expe­ri­ence, “Use it or lose it” should really be “Use it and get more of it”.- Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist, clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­ogy at New York Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine, and dis­ci­ple of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria. Full Inter­view Notes. […]

  36. » Brain Fitness and SharpBrains.com in the Press   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    September 13, 2007 at 10:49

    […] Com­ments: the arti­cle touches many key points. I espe­cially enjoy the quote “To be effec­tive, sci­en­tists say men­tal activ­ity must become pro­gres­sively more chal­leng­ing. Oth­er­wise, the brain adjusts and learns to per­form repet­i­tive tasks with less effort”, which explains why well-designed pro­grams can be more effec­tive than doing cross­word puz­zle num­ber 512,789. The arti­cle also relates how many retire­ment com­mu­ni­ties and senior cen­ters and indi­vid­u­als are try­ing out the new brain fit­ness pro­grams com­ing to mar­ket, and shows some healthy skep­ti­cism on the state of the research. Now, this is an invi­ta­tion to the reporter to interview neuropsychologist Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg to get the full pic­ture of the sci­ence behind the field, since these pro­grams haven’t appeared in a vac­uum. Our 10-Question Eval­u­a­tion Checklist can pro­vide use­ful guid­ance to any­one con­sid­er­ing a program. […]

  37. Rusty Rosenberger says:
    September 30, 2007 at 1:55

    Let me train you twice per week for a month, and your phys­i­cal fit­ness will improve,
    relieve stress, build an unbe­liev­able self con­fi­dence, tone and tighten all mus­cles, while learn­ing a fan­tas­tic self defense, all fore men­tioned ben­e­fits accom­plished train­ing only a total of one hour weekly.

  38. Alvaro says:
    September 30, 2007 at 3:23

    Hello Rusty, we are on the same boat, with com­ple­men­tary focus. Your expe­ri­ence is in phys­i­cal train­ing, which we often say is one of the key pil­lars of brain health. Now, the point is that is not the only pil­lar; if you want to exer­cise spe­cific brain areas, or “men­tal mus­cles”, a well-designed men­tal work­out may be more effi­cient and direct. Please spend some more time on the site, and let us know how to make this point more clear.

  39. » Memory, Cognitive Abilities and Executive Functions   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    December 5, 2007 at 8:18

    […] A highly rec­om­mended book, if you are inter­ested in learn­ing more about Exec­u­tive Func­tions and Frontal Lobes, is The Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civ­i­lized Mind , by Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg. You can read an in-depth review here. […]

  40. Sean Pedersen says:
    December 28, 2007 at 4:48

    A local pri­vate school is sug­gest­ing a brain based com­puter pro­gram they call the SMaRts pro­gram in order to teach our daugh­ter to learn audi­tory recep­tive skills to develop her learn­ing and lan­guage and rea­son­ing. Our daugh­ter is 9 years old and we believe she can ben­e­fit greatly from this pro­gram but we can­not find this pro­gram any­where. Appar­ently there are dif­fer­ent lev­els to com­plete based on accu­racy, then speed, then speed and accu­racy. Once a stu­dent com­pletes a level fire­works go off on the com­puter screen and they are con­grat­u­lated! Do you have any insight as to the name of this pro­gram, who sells it or where it can be found? Thanks, Sean

  41. Alvaro says:
    December 28, 2007 at 7:24

    Hello Sean,

    I have never heard of “SMaRts pro­gram”. Which is sur­pris­ing, because we are quite up to speed with all cog­ni­tive train­ing lit­er­a­ture. The clos­est I can think of is that the school is using Sci­en­tific Learning’s Fast For­Word, and for sone rea­son decided to rename it. But you should ask for the real name and spe­cific peer-reviewed stud­ies on its valid­ity. Some other tips to eval­u­ate computer-based pro­grams:
    http://www.sharpbrains.com/blog/2007/08/16/brain-training-games-and-games/

  42. » Brain Fitness Software Trends   « Brain Fitness Revolution at SharpBrains      says:
    January 3, 2008 at 6:50

    […] 3) The Brain’s Role in Trad­ing Per­for­mance — “Dr. Gold­berg, co-author of the afore­men­tioned chap­ter, sug­gests that engag­ing in tasks that require use of the frontal lobes may in fact strength their func­tion. This has pro­found impli­ca­tions for the treat­ment of demen­tia and atten­tion deficits and may also play an impor­tant role in improv­ing per­for­mance at such cog­ni­tive tasks as trading. ” […]

  43. Ellen Nash says:
    June 29, 2008 at 12:23

    Do you have online courses avail­able? I am a Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion teacher and want to learn more about work­ing with dis­abil­i­ties and how the brain can be trained using “games”.

  44. Alvaro says:
    June 30, 2008 at 2:12

    Hello Ellen,

    We offered some online webi­nars last month, and may be offer­ing them again. Please sub­scribe to our newslet­ter to be notified.

    Now, the best resource for your school may be our Mar­ket Report, which pro­vides an overview of the whole field. We offer dis­counts to schools and aca­d­e­mic institutions.

    Regards

  45. Dr. Chris Wolf says:
    July 9, 2008 at 3:23

    Dr. Gold­berg is a for­mer pro­fes­sor of mine. He is a vir­tual ency­clo­pe­dia of neu­ro­science. I highly rec­om­mend his books which are a joy to read.

  46. Alvaro says:
    July 9, 2008 at 8:04

    Chris, thank you for vsit­ing us and your com­ment. I couldn´t agree more!

  47. Robert Forsythe MD says:
    November 23, 2008 at 4:53

    I would like any infor­ma­tion on treat­ment of anoxic brain injury. Includ­ing ery­thro­po­etin, cog­ni­tive exer­cises ie com­puter games, phys­i­cal exer­cise, vit B sup­ple­ments, omega 3, return to work, or other treat­ments to shorten recov­ery or to improve out­come at one year.
    Thank you Robert Forsythe MD

  48. Alvaro Fernandez says:
    November 25, 2008 at 10:16

    Dear Robert, we don’t offer clin­i­cal advice via this blog, I sug­gest you con­sult with a neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist to help direct the rehab of your patient. Regards

Welcome to SharpBrains!

As seen in The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, CNN and more, we are a mar­ket research & pub­lish­ing firm track­ing the research and mar­ket­place for brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health. Our blog was recently ranked # 3 Ana­lyst Blog.
News: Win­ners of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards were announced on May 24th, 2010. Learn more Here.

Top 30 Articles

  1. Top 50 Brain Teasers, by Sharp­Brains Team
  2. The Ten Habits of Highly Effec­tive Brains, by Alvaro Fernandez
  3. Why do You Turn Down the Radio When You’re Lost?, by Car­o­line Latham
  4. Brain Plas­tic­ity: How learn­ing changes your brain, by Pas­cale Michelon
  5. Top 10 Brain Fit­ness Future Trends, by Alvaro Fernandez
  6. 7 FAQs on Men­tal Exer­cise, by Alvaro Fernandez
  7. It is Not Only Cars That Deserve Good Main­te­nance: Brain Care 101, by Alvaro Fernandez
  8. Eval­u­a­tion Check­list for Brain Fit­ness prod­ucts and games, by Alvaro Fernandez
  9. MIT Event on Brain Games: Con­text, Trends, Ques­tions, by Alvaro Fernandez
  10. Stress Man­age­ment Work­shop for Inter­na­tional Women’s Day, by Alvaro Fernandez
  11. Mind­ful­ness and Med­i­ta­tion in Schools for Stress Man­age­ment, by Jill Sutie
  12. Stress and Neural Wreck­age: Part of the Brain Plas­tic­ity Puz­zle, by Gre­gory Kellet
  13. How can I improve my short term mem­ory?, by Car­o­line Latham
  14. Cog­ni­tive and Emo­tional Devel­op­ment Through Play, by David Elkind
  15. Judith Beck: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son, by Alvaro Fernandez
  16. Easy Steps to Improve Brain Health, by Car­o­line Latham
  17. Info­graphic: State of the Mar­ket 2009, by Paul Van Slembrouck
  18. Improve Mem­ory with Sleep, Prac­tice, and Test­ing, by Bill Klemm
  19. 10 Brain Tips To Teach and Learn, by Lau­rie Bartels
  20. Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and Brain Fit­ness, by Alvaro Fernandez
  21. Max­i­mize the Cog­ni­tive Value of Your Men­tal Work­out, by Schlomo Breznitz
  22. Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram and Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity @ PBS, by Alvaro Fernandez
  23. Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion for Adults & Teens with ADHD, by David Rabiner
  24. Can Intel­li­gence Be Trained? Mar­tin Buschkuehl shows how, by Alvaro Fernandez
  25. How Strong is the Research Sup­port for Neu­ro­feed­back in Atten­tion Deficits?, by David Rabiner
  26. Exer­cis­ing the body is exer­cis­ing the mind, by Adrian Preda
  27. Brain Evo­lu­tion and Why it is Mean­ing­ful Today to Improve Our Brain Health, by Larry McCleary
  28. Phys­i­cal Exer­cise and Brain Health, by Pas­cale Michelon
  29. Posit Sci­ence, Nin­tendo Brain Age, and Brain Train­ing Top­ics, by Alvaro Fernandez
  30. Sleep, Tetris, Mem­ory and the Brain, by Shan­non Moffet
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