Here you are have the Monthly Digest of our Most Popular Blog Posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Exercise Magazine.

Gratitude is a very important emotion to cultivate, as Professor Robert Emmons tells us in this interview, based on his last book. Please take some time to read it, and to find at least one thing you are thankful for-it will be good for your health.

We are grateful about a very stimulating November:

Brain Fitness Market News

10 Neurotechnology Trends: a leading industry organization released their Top 10 NeuroTrends for 2007, and brain fitness matters appeared in 3 of them.

Thank Boomers for Buffing Up Brain Market: great overview of the market from a technology point of view, quoting our market projections. To clarify the numbers mentioned: we project $225m in the US alone for the brain fitness software market (growing from $70m in 2003), broken-down as follows: $80m for the Consumer segment, $60m in K12 Education, $50m in Clinical applications, and $35m in the Corporate segment. The Consumer segment, with a healthy aging value proposition, is the most recent one but the most rapidly growing.

Exercise On the Brain: a NYT OpEd: a widely read opinion piece in the New York Times, written by 2 neuroscientists, that somehow seems to miss the research behind the value of mental stimulation and cognitive training. Other neuroscience teams and us write letters to the editor that go unpublished. Should you have any contacts with journalists, please ask them to contact us: we are always happy to serve as a resource to the media.

Posit Science @ GSA: well-designed Brain Training Works: a timely heads up on how well-designed computer-based programs can be a great complement to other interventions. We will be interviewing the leading researcher behind that study during the next 2 weeks, so keep tuned!

Brain and Mind News and Articles: a variety of links to good media reports, including a spectacular special on memory in National Geographic.

News You Can Use

Marian Diamond on the brain: leading neuroscientist Marian Diamond, now 81, shares her prescription for lifelong brain health- diet, exercise, challenge, newness and tender loving care.

From Meditation to MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction): a report on the benefits of meditation and how it is becoming more mainstream in medicine.

Teasers

50 Mind and Brain Games for adults: you may have seen these teasers, but we want to alert you we have opened a new section in the site where you can easily find our growing collection of teasers

Your Haiku, please?: a friendly challenge to your brain.

Education and Lifelong Learning

Carol Dweck on Mindsets, Learning and Intelligence: we found a fascinating interview on the importance on having a growth and learning oriented mindset. Both for kids and adults.

Is Intelligence Innate and Fixed?: some reflections based on biology.

Corporate Training, Wellness and Leadership

Cognitive Fitness and The Future of Work: an excellent concept map on how neuroscience may influence the workplace of the future, drawn in real time as I spoke at an Institute for the Future event.

Emotional Intelligence and Faces: how many universal emotions and facial expressions are there?

Events

Use It or Lose It, and Cells that Fire together Wire together: I spoke at the Italian Consulate in San Francisco, where we explored some of the basic concepts we should all know about how our brains and mind work.

Let me practice the Gratitude concept…Thank You for your attention and participation!

You can also enjoy our previous editions of this monthly digest:

- October

- September

- August

- July

Following our September edition, here you are have our Monthly Digest of the Most Popular Blog Posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Exercise Magazine.

(Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our RSS feed, check our Topics section, and subscribe to our monthly newsletter at the top of this page if you want to receive this Digest by email).

Brain Fitness Market News

Cognitive Fitness as a New Frontier of Fitness: excellent Los Angeles Times article, covering the cognitive exercise angle of healthy aging and leading science-based players.

A Brain Fitness Vacation: what does this mean? Well, read this fun article to discover.

Rethinking the Brain Fitness Business: thought-provoking article on the future of the sector from a business point of view.

Cognitive Fitness @ Harvard Business Review: HBR makes a first attempt to bring neuroscience research into helping leaders perform at peak levels and maintain sharp brains.

News You Can Use

Train Your Brain to Be Happier: implications of neuroscience and positive psychology research for our daily lives-and our happiness. Please keep tuned if you are interested in this topic: we will publish soon a great interview with Dr. Robert Emmons, leading researcher in the field of gratitude.

Cognitive Fitness: 10 Debunked Myths: what are some misconceptions that prevent many people from seeing the tremendous potential from this emerging research?. Read this post to discover and discuss.

10 (Surprising) Memory Improvement Tips: and why stress management is important for memory and our brain.

Teasers

Top 50 Brain Teasers and Games with a neuroscience angle: a list of the most popular mind games in our blog.

Events

10 Highlights from the 2007 Aspen Health Forum: a summary of impressions from this great event, including what can happen when you have scientists and politicians in the same room.

Brain Fitness @ Education, Training, Health events: an overview of a number of conferences and university classes with a brain fitness angle.

Thought-provoking posts

Darwin’s adult neuroplasticity: reflections of a beautiful mind that -as self-reported at the age of 72- could have been even more beautiful.The Gene Delusion: IQ and the environment: do genes determine our fates? They don’t. They why do we seem to believe so so often?.

Discounts for SharpBrains readers

Learning & The Brain Conference: the best conference bringing neuroscience research to educators’ minds, February 7-9th in San Francisco. Register before January 25th, 2008, for a discounted price and to make sure you can attend and see our workshop!

MindFit 10% special discount: a 10% discount on one of the most popular brain fitness programs, that combines both an in-depth assessment of cognitive skills with personalized training.

Books and Resources

Best of the Brain from Scientific American: a superb collection of essays for the curious among us.

Selected Resources: Articles, Books, Papers: numerous links to media articles, scientific papers, and recommended books.

Enjoy!

Following our July and August editions, here you have our Monthly Digest of the Most Popular Blog Posts. Today, October 2nd, we will list the most popular September posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Exercise Magazine.

(Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our RSS feed, check our Topics section, and subscribe to our monthly newsletter at the top of this page).

Market News

Education, Training, Health events: some events I will blog about/ speak at over the next 2-weeks.

Brain Fitness and SharpBrains.com in the Press: including a great Washington Post article.

Brains Way Smarter Than Ours (and yours, probably): roundup of relevant news, including some Awards.

News you can use

10 (Surprising) Memory Improvement Tips: on the relationship between stress and memory.

Judith Beck: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person: a cognitive therapy pioneer tells us about the latest application of brain training: diets.

Brain Wellness: Train Your Brain to Be Happier: our essay to participate in LifeTwo’s Happiness week.

Research

11 Neuroscientists Debunk a Common Myth about Brain Training: summary of our 11 original interviews with leading neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists.

Neuroplasticity 101 and Brain Health Glossary: no one is born knowing it all…check this summary of concepts and keywords that can help navigate through the brain fitness field.

Working Memory: an image that says much: bad and good news.

Best of the Brain from Scientific American: review of this great book.

An online application system is now open for the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships.

Corporate Training & Leadership

Carnival of the capitalists with a brain: we hosted this business blog carnival with a brain spice.

Executive Functions and Google/ Microsoft Brain Teasers: examples of what our executive functions are.

Software Product News

MindFit by CogniFit, and Baroness Susan Greenfield: a brain fitness program starting to get traction in Europe.

Penn Treaty First To Offer Brain Fitness Program: today’s press release on another brain training software (Posit Science)’s deal with an insurance provider.

Visualization Software of IBM for the Future of Medicine: Interview: “It’s like Google Earth for the body”. Hopefully it will include the brain.

Brain Teasers

Brain Teasers with a Neuroscience angle: enjoy.

SharpBrains Announcements

Services: we will formally announce soon how we “help companies, health providers, investors, and policymakers understand and profit from the emerging brain fitness field.” But now you know.

Speaking: if your organization needs a good speaker and brain fitness expert, please contact us.

Finally, we are starting to look for qualified guest bloggers to add their perspective. If you are interested, please contact us and let us know about what you would like to write about, and include a brief bio or links to samples. Thank you.