Here you have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

News and Events

Brain Health Pro­mo­tion by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging: You may be inter­ested in the excel­lent agenda the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging has put together for health pro­fes­sion­als, from Sep­tem­ber 2-5th in San Fran­cisco, devot­ing a full day to Brain Health. Alvaro will par­tic­i­pate in 3 of the ses­sions, includ­ing giv­ing a keynote on the Future of Brain Health.

Can Google Kill Neu­rons and Rewire Your Whole Brain?: The Atlantic Monthly pub­lished an arti­cle titled Is Google Mak­ing Us Stu­pid, which basi­cally blamed Google for lit­er­ally rewiring our brains into more stu­pid brains (not being able to pay atten­tion, read deep books…). We are not very impressed by the super­fi­cial treat­ment given to this very impor­tant topic.

Mobile Brain Train­ing, Sci­en­tific Learn­ing, and More News: Overview of cog­ni­tive health and fit­ness news, includ­ing recent research on how phys­i­cal exer­cise can help diag­nosed Alzheimer’s patients, the new Mac ver­sion of Posit Science’s audi­tory pro­cess­ing train­ing pro­gram, and more.

Mar­ket Analysis

Top 10 Brain Health Pre­dic­tions: In an emerg­ing mar­ket, like brain health and train­ing, it is dif­fi­cult to make pre­cise pro­jec­tions. Here we point out a num­ber of trends that exec­u­tives, con­sumers, pub­lic pol­icy mak­ers, and the media should watch closely in the com­ing years. Your feed­back is very wel­come…we will give a com­pli­men­tary copy of our mar­ket report to the per­son who pro­vides the most insight­ful addi­tional pre­dic­tion by August 10th.

Cog­ni­tive Health Pio­neers: Thank You! The qual­ity and vari­ety of our client list brings up the cross-sector demand for qual­ity infor­ma­tion in the emerg­ing brain fitness/ cog­ni­tive health cat­e­gory. And it helps us pri­or­i­tize efforts and cov­er­age of mar­ket and research news and trends.

Research Analy­sis

Encephalon blog car­ni­val: Brain & Mind Research: We hosted Encephalon´s 50th edi­tion, where you will find a selec­tion of superb blog posts on all things Brain and Mind. Exam­ples? you may enjoy Face­book Ate My Psy­chi­a­trist or per­haps the Com­pul­sive Col­lect­ing of Toy Bul­lets and Tele­vi­sions.

Atten­tion Deficits At Work: Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon pro­vides an in-depth overview of a recent study by Ron de Graaf and col­leagues, in which they found that an aver­age of 3.5% of work­ers (in ten coun­tries) meet the cri­te­ria for adult ADHD, In the US, the per­cent­age increased to 4.5%. This has clear effects on productivity.

Edu­ca­tion and Learning

Learn­ing & the Brain: Resources for Edu­ca­tors: Edu­ca­tor Lau­rie Bar­tels reviews her favorite brain resources for teach­ing and learn­ing: books, con­fer­ences, and websites.

Brain Teasers

Top 25 Brain and Mind Haikus. Yours?: Read­ers have con­tributed a good num­ber of haikus on brain-related top­ics. You can fol­low the link to check out our Favorite 7, and many other fun ones…which ones do you like the most?

Some recent brain train­ing and health news:

1) A Promis­ing Debut for Com­put­er­ized Therapies

2) Fit­ness pro­tects brain in Alzheimer’s patients

3) Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram Clas­sic comes to Mac

4) Posit Sci­ence gains own­er­ship of Sci­en­tific Learn­ing (NSDQ: SCIL) BrainConnection.

5) Brain train­ing on your mobile

6) You must remem­ber this: how the mind works

Here you have the links and my com­men­tary for these news: Read the rest of this entry »

You may be inter­ested in the excel­lent agenda the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging has put together for health pro­fes­sion­als on a vari­ety of aging top­ics, includ­ing a full day devoted to dis­cussing Brain Health Pro­mo­tion: The Next Steps.

When are where: Sep­tem­ber 2nd-5th, in San Fran­cisco, CA. Brain Health Pro­mo­tion day is Sep­tem­ber 5th.

To check the full agenda: Click here.

To reg­is­ter: Reg­is­ter Now (early reg­is­tra­tion until August 25th).

I will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in three ses­sions. Please let me know if you are attend­ing, we may be able to orga­nize a Sharp­Brains lunch on Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 5th.

1) How Change Mak­ers Like You Can Con­tribute to the Future of Brain Health

Sep­tem­ber 5th, 9.00–10.30 am

Neu­ro­science, and cog­ni­tive sci­ence in gen­eral, are com­ing to a fun­da­men­tally new under­stand­ing of the life­long plas­tic­ity of the brain and what aging means. This presents tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties, and chal­lenges, to any­one car­ing for other people’s brains (on top of their own). In this ses­sion, we will pro­vide an overview of the research and mar­ket trends that may affect brain health in the next five to ten years, will explore new roles to serve our com­mu­ni­ties cou­pled with the need to rein­vent exist­ing ones, and will help nav­i­gate the increased num­ber of brain heath options today. Read the rest of this entry »

A few col­leagues and I just had an inter­est­ing exchange on the recent arti­cle at The Atlantic, Is Google Mak­ing Us Stu­pid?, which basi­cally blamed Google for lit­er­ally rewiring our brains into more stu­pid brains (not being able to pay atten­tion, read deep books…) based on a num­ber of per­sonal anec­dotes and a lit­tle research.

My 2 cents: this is a com­plex topic and we’d first need to clar­ify the ques­tion, before look­ing for answers to sup­port or refute it. I found the Atlantic arti­cle super­fi­cial for a mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion, with its title and main premise mak­ing lit­tle sense: Google can not makes us stu­pid, in the same way that guns don’t make us vio­lent or pens don’t make us good writers.

Read­ers have con­tributed a good num­ber of haikus on brain-related top­ics. Below you have my  Favorite 7, and many other fun ones…which ones do you like the most?

Also, Can you write a haiku describ­ing any­thing cross­ing your mind now? Remem­ber the sim­ple rules: write 3 lines, which don’t need to rhyme, con­tain­ing 5,7, and 5 syl­la­bles. You can leave your haiku as a com­ment for extra points…

My Favorite 7 Brain and Mind Haikus

- Techne, the philoso­pher, wonders:

Solve the big ques­tions:
How do I know when I know?
Who knows the knower?

- Steve, the envi­ron­men­tal­ist, requests:

Neu­ro­plas­tic good.
Plas­tic, though lasts for­ever.
Always recycle!

Read the rest of this entry »

Busy as we have been, we only recently com­piled the list of orga­ni­za­tions who have pur­chased our Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket Report so far. We were impressed by the qual­ity and vari­ety rep­re­sented, and the cross-sector demand for qual­ity infor­ma­tion in the emerg­ing brain fitness/ cog­ni­tive health cat­e­gory. See­ing the list helps us pri­or­i­tize efforts and cov­er­age of mar­ket and research news and trends.

Below you have a selec­tion of main cat­e­gories, and a few selected clients:

• Research cen­ters and uni­ver­si­ties: Har­vard Med­ical School, US Army Research Lab, MaRS Dis­cov­ery Dis­trict, Ore­gon Cen­ter for Applied Sci­ence, Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Austin, Uni­ver­sity of Michigan.
• Older adults orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ties: AARP, Sun­rise Senior Liv­ing, Bel­mont Vil­lage Senior Living.
• Health­care Providers: Sut­ter Health, Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal Health Sys­tem, Neu­ro­Care Net­work, Mindmedi Clinic. Read the rest of this entry »

In an emerg­ing, dynamic, high growth mar­ket, like brain train­ing, it is dif­fi­cult to make pre­cise pro­jec­tions. But, we can observe a num­ber of trends that exec­u­tives, con­sumers, pub­lic pol­icy mak­ers, and the media should watch closely in the com­ing years, as brain fit­ness and train­ing becomes main­stream, new tools appear, and an ecosys­tem grows around it.

1. We pre­dict an increased empha­sis on brain main­te­nance in loca­tions rang­ing from retire­ment com­mu­ni­ties to gyms. As a computer-savvy baby boomer pop­u­la­tion looks for ways to stay men­tally fit, brain fit­ness, or brain train­ing, is becom­ing part of their vocab­u­lary and concern.

2. Phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise will be bet­ter inte­grated. Phys­i­cal exer­cise has been shown to increase the rate of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, whereas men­tal exer­cise helps ensure the sur­vival of any newly cre­ated neu­rons. Today both activ­i­ties usu­ally take place in very dif­fer­ent set­tings: the for­mer, in health clubs, the later, in uni­ver­si­ties. We pre­dict that the bor­ders between them will become more dif­fuse. Expect new pro­grams such as brain fit­ness pod­casts that allow us to train work­ing mem­ory as we jog or exer­cise bikes with built-in brain games.

3. Watch for a Read the rest of this entry »

Wel­come to Encephalon 50th edi­tion, where you will find another superb col­lec­tion of blog posts on all things Brain and Mind.

Enjoy these contributions:

Sci­ence & Technology

Mind Hacks reports that Face­book ate my psy­chi­a­trist. We can learn about the ben­e­fits of social net­work­ing sites like Face­book, bring­ing great per­spec­tive to recent and mis­guided media spec­u­la­tion (fuelled by a recent talk at the Royal Col­lege of Psy­chi­a­trists). Vaughan, will you please report on the ben­e­fits of par­tic­i­pat­ing (and, bet­ter, host­ing) Encephalon?.

Dun­geons And Drag­ons — Or Mazes And Mon­sters?: Pod­Black Cat offers a thought-provoking review of the ther­apy (includ­ing self-therapy) appli­ca­tions of role-playing games such as the clas­sic Dun­geons And Drag­ons and the more recent mas­sively mul­ti­player online games.

Cog­ni­tive Daily cov­ers another type of game. Read the rest of this entry »

As promised in my pre­vi­ous post (10 Brain Train­ing Tips To Teach and Learn), here are some of the resources that inform my under­stand­ing of the brain: books, con­fer­ences, and websites.

BOOKS

There are a mul­ti­tude of books about the brain. For edu­ca­tors, the best of these are books that demys­tify the lan­guage of neu­ro­science while pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion applic­a­ble to the teaching/learning process.

Among the more pro­lific or well-known authors of this type include Jeb Schenck, Robert Syl­wester, Bar­bara Givens, Robert Marzano, Mar­ilee Sprenger, and Eric Jensen.

I have found books Read the rest of this entry »

One of our favorite pop­u­lar sci­ence pub­li­ca­tions is Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can Mind, a mag­a­zine that always brings good arti­cles on brain & mind issues and some fun teasers.

We are there­fore pleased that Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can is offer­ing a Spe­cial Part­ner­ship offer for Sharp­Brains read­ers: a sub­scrip­tion to Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can Mind mag­a­zine, at 55% off the cover price. Plus, they offer an exclu­sive gift for new sub­scribers: a spe­cial pub­li­ca­tion on Secrets of the Expert Mind.

You can click Here to learn more about this offer.

Descrip­tion: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND is a new mag­a­zine from the edi­tors of Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can — tak­ing read­ers inside the most riv­et­ing break­throughs in psy­chol­ogy, neu­ro­science and related fields.

Read the rest of this entry »