How do you know when something is fast moving towards a Gladwellian tipping point? When health insurance companies and public policy makers launch significant initiatives.

For example, the government of Ontario recently announced a $10 million investment with Baycrest Research Centre who will partner with MaRS Venture Group to develop and commercialise brain fitness technologies. The investment was matched by an additional $10 million from private sources.

Another important development was the $18 million agreement between the Australian-based Brain Resource Company (ASX:BRC) and OptumHealth in the US. This will allow for the provision of web-based cognitive assessments as part of a clinician’s decision support systems.

These are some initiatives covered in a webinar Top Ten Cognitive Fitness Events of 2008 presented in December for SharpBrains’ clients. Alvaro Fernandez described the state of play and main drivers behind the growth of the burgeoning brain fitness market – which I will try and summarize here.

The key drivers seem to be Read the rest of this entry »

Just saw a very interesting press release regarding computer-based neurocognitive assessments – a critical part of the brain fitness puzzle. How long will it take before consumers can have access to a reliable and credible annual “mental check-up”/ cognitive baseline?

HeadMinder Cognitive Stability Index: Computerized Neurocognitive … (Press release)

- “The HeadMinder web-based Cognitive Stability Index (CSI) has proven more useful for blast-concussion detection than the ANAM computerized test battery the DoD currently employs. The CSI provides an immediate solution to clear the backlog of 400,000 IED-exposed service members in less than two years.”

- “The CSI is a 30-minute, Internet-based, computerized test that provides automated, objective measures of attention, memory, response speed, and processing speed for initial evaluation of cognitive functioning. The CSI produces standardized reports that enable triage and decision-making appropriate to a user’s qualifications – from medic to neuropsychologist to neurologist and other treatment team members.”

We covered this emerging type of assessments in the article Computerized Cognitive Assessments: opportunities and concerns

- “In fact, one of the Read the rest of this entry »

Over the next weeks we are going to be sharing the Executive Summary of our market report The State of the Brain Fitness Software Market 2008 with members and clients of several partner organizations (the British Columbia Seniors Living Association, where I will be speaking this Thursday, Neurotech Reports, where I will speak on October 24th, and the Health 2.0 conference, where we are sponsoring a panel on gaming for health), so it is only fair that we first share it with our own readers.

Executive Summary

A spate of recent global news coverage on brain fitness and brain training reflects a growing interest in natural, non drug-based interventions to keep our brains sharp as we age. This interest is very timely, given an aging population, increasing prevalence of Alzheimer’s rates, and soaring health care costs in the US that place more emphasis than ever on prevention and lifestyle changes.

US brain fitness market: significant and growing

We estimate the size of the US brain fitness market was $225m in 2007 – more than double what it was in 2005. Whereas K12 school systems were the largest buyers in 2005, consumers were responsible for most of the growth from 2005 to 2007. We estimate that the consumer segment grew from a few million in 2005 to $80m in 2007, and foresee significant market growth driven not only by consumers but also by healthcare and insurance providers.

Market dynamics

As we speak to diverse audiences about this emerging field around the country we are frequently asked the following questions:

- Why are we talking about the brain fitness field at all?

Over the past decade, teams backed by neuroscientists around the world Read the rest of this entry »

A few colleagues referred me over the weekend to a very nice article at business publication Portfolio.

While the article does an excellent job at introducing the reader to the concept and promise of computerized cognitive assessments, it also contributes to the mythology of “Brain Age”.

Let’s first take a look at the article How Smart Are You: The business of assessing cognition and memory is moving from testing brain-impaired patients to assessing healthy peoples’ brains online.

A couple of quotes:

- “Cognitive Drug Research is one a handful of businesses, most of them outside of the U.S., that work with pharmaceutical companies to test how new drugs for everything from nicotine addiction to Alzheimer’s disease affect the mind’s ability to remember things, make decisions, and analyze information.”

- “Cognitive tests have been around for a century as examinations taken with paper and pencil. In the 1970s and ’80s the tests shifted to computers, Cognitive Drug Research founder Keith Wesnes says.

So far, so good. In fact, one of the key highlights from the market report we released in March was that “Large-scale, fully-automated cognitive assessments are being used in a growing number of clinical trials. This opens the way for the development of inexpensive consumer-facing, baseline cognitive assessments.” And we profiled a few leading companies in the space: Brain Resource Company, Cognitive Drug Research, CNS Vital Signs and CogState.

Now, the article is accompanied by a 5-7 minute quick test that promises to give us our “Brain Age”. And this doesn’t come from Nintendo, but from Cognitive Drug Research, a respected science-based company.

You can check it out Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote this article for the March/ April edition of the publication Aging Today, published by the American Society on Aging, and received permission to reproduce it here.

—————- 

In recent years, most professionals in aging have become aware of the growing scientific evidence showing that human brains retain the ability to generate neurons and change over a lifetime, discoveries that have broken the scientific paradigm prevalent during the 20th century. Furthermore, neuroimaging and cognitive training studies are showing how well-directed exercise presents people major opportunities for healthy brain aging.

How can people use emerging technologies to keep their brains healthy and productive as long as possible? An emerging market for brain health– $225 million market in 2007, in the United States alone, of which consumers account for $80 million–is trying to address that question in a way that complements other important more traditional pillars (and multi-billion industries) of brain health, such as physical exercise, balanced diet, stress management (stress has been shown to actually kill neurons and reduce the rate of creation of new ones) and overall mental stimulation and lifelong learning.

2007 AN ACTIVE YEAR

A series of important events took place in 2007, a seminal year for the brain health field, beginning in January when many mainstream media publications, such as Time Magazine and CBS News, started to publish major stories on neuroplasticity and brain exercise. This media coverage followed the publication of the long-awaited results from national clinical trials showing that significant percentages of the participants age 65 and older who trained for five weeks improved their memory, reasoning and information-processing speed. Findings from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) Study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Dec. 20, 2006) and revealed that even after five years, participants in the ACTIVE computer-based program showed less of a decline in information-processing skills than those in a control group that received no cognitive training.

Read the rest of this entry »

We often are told that we offer too much content for you to read given various time pressures… but it is tough for us to write less given the wealth of areas we cover around cognitive and emotional training.

To make your life easier (and please feel free to give us feedback!), what we will do is to offer a Monthly Digest of Most Popular Blog Posts. Today, August 1st, we will list the most popular July posts. 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).

News you can use

Trading performance psychology and self-talk

Stress Management for Lawyers

Mental Training for Gratitude and Altruism 

 

Brain Fitness/ Training Market News

MarketWatch on Beating forgetfulness and boosting the brain

Nintendo BrainAge, Lumosity, Happy Neuron, MyBrainTrainer…

Brain Health through Serious Games and Brain Exercise

Brain Fitness Workshops

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Brain Fitness class at UC Berkeley

 

Healthy Aging

Interview with Neuroscientist Yaakov Stern: Build Your Cognitive Reserve 

Judson Laipply’s Dancing Brain

Jack and Elaine LaLanne and Brain Health 

Exercise Your Brain! Enjoy Learning!

 

Attention Deficits

Read the rest of this entry »