Happy 2007 to everyone!

We have just formulated our New Year Resolution: make 2007 the year when brain plasticity and Brain Fitness became mainstream concepts.

How do we start? well, let’s announce the launch of the Carnival of Brain Fitness (a Blog Carnival is basically the vehicle that blogs use to share posts around specific topics).

Goal: to facilitate a dialogue about this emerging field across multiple perspectives, from scientists and health professionals, to education and training ones, to basically everyone who has conducted an experiment on his on her brain and mind, and has news to report.

Context: The scientific foundations lie in neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, cognitive training and stress management. Medical and health applications range from stroke and TBI rehabilitation to ADD/ADHD and early Alzheimer’s to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and cognitive therapy. Educational and training applications go from helping kids improve reading abilities to helping manage stress and anxiety – including work with the “mental game” in sports and high-demand activities pr professions. Each of us may also have experiences to report, where we saw first hand, no matter our age, our innate ability to refine and transform ourselves (and our brains).

Mechanics: If you’d like to contribute,send an email with links to up to 3 blog posts to brainfitnesscarnival@sharpbrains.com or visit this page. For the inaugural edition the posts do not need to be recent – send anything you deem can help establish a good starting point. We will host the first 2-3 issues of the carnival and then will gladly look for host volunteers among frequent contributors. We encourage worldwide submissions: as long as your submitted posts are in English, even if your blog isn’t. You can also nominate someone else’s posts.

Publication date: the Carnival will be published the third Friday of every month, to ensure good weekend reading material.

Deadline: if you want to submit your posts for the inaugural issue, Friday January 19th, we need to receive your submission by end of Wednesday January 17th, California time. Again, no need for new posts for the inaugural issue, just good ones (and we have seen many during late 2006).

Sections: we propose to start with the following

1. Science

2. Medicine, Health and Wellness

3. Education and professional development

4. News about the field

5. Personal stories and specific techniques and programs

6. Brain Teasers, to add some healthy entertainment to the mix

Looking forward a fun and learning year, and wishing you the same,

-The SharpBrains Team