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 »

We offered some Brain Fitness Predictions in our Market Report , including…

“7. Doctors and pharmacists will help patients navigate through the overwhelming range of available products and interpret the results of cognitive assessments. This will require significant professional development efforts, given that most doctors today were trained under a very different understanding of the brain than the one we have today.”

The American Medical News, a weekly newspaper for physicians published by the American Medical Association, just published an excellent article along those lines:

Steps to a nimble mind: Physical and mental exercise help keep the brain fit
– Neuroscience is uncovering techniques to prevent cognitive decline.

A few quotes:

- It’s an example that highlights a wave of new thinking about the importance of brain fitness.

- Until recently, conventional wisdom held that our brains were intractable, hard-wired computers. What we were born with was all we got. Age wore down memory and the ability to understand, and few interventions could reverse this process. But increasingly, evidence suggests that physical and mental exercise can alter specific brain regions, making radical improvements in cognitive function.

- With nearly 72 million Americans turning 65 over the next two decades, physicians need the tools to handle growing patient concerns about how to best maintain brain health. Armed with this new brand of science, frontline physicians will be better equipped to address the needs of aging baby boomers, already in the throes of the brain fitness revolution.

- “Encourage them to exercise the brain in novel and complex ways,” he says.

Full article: here

One of the physicians quoted in the article is Gary J. Kennedy, MD, Director of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in NYC and a professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

To put the AMA article in better perspective for SharpBrains readers, we asked Dr. Kennedy a few follow-up questions. Below you have his questions.

Alvaro Fernandez (AF): Can you summarize how cognitive functions tend to evolve as we age?

Gary Kennedy (GK): As we age cognitive functions that rely on Read the rest of this entry »

As you have probably seen, the Cognitive Health and Brain Fitness field is rapidly evolving, so let me highlight some of the main recent developments affecting the field:

1) Public policy initiatives:
- The Government of Ontario, Canada, announced a $10m investment in Baycrest Research Center to help develop and commercialize brain fitness technologies. This $10m investment was matched with an additional $10m by local investors.
- In the US, The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 was signed into law, included in the recently-approved economic bailout bill. The passage of this law has significant implications for healthcare providers and technology vendors alike.

2) Computerized Cognitive Assessments Used by the US Military:
The US Army launched a new policy requiring cognitive screenings of all soldiers before deployment (in order to better diagnose potential problems such as PTSD and TBI upon return). ANAM was the selected computerized battery of tests.

3) Venture & Angel Fundraising for Cognitive Training companies:
A number of developers have raised money. CogniFit received $5m (from Milk Capital), Lumos Labs $3m (FirstMark Capital -previously called Pequot Ventures-, Norwest Venture Partners), Scientific Brain Training $1.5m (issued shares), Vivity Labs $1m (undisclosed angel investors), This is, of course, on top of the February $10.6 investment in Dakim (Galen Partners) that we already included in our market report.

4) Major Initiatives by Insurance Companies:
- Allstate launched a large-scale research project to measure impact of Posit Science InSight (visual processing training) on driver safety for adults over 50.
- OptumHealth announced a 3-year, $18m agreement with Brain Resource to offer web-based cognitive assessments as part of clinicians’ decision support systems.
- Humana decided not to renew its agreement with Posit Science to offer Posit’s auditory processing training program to Medicare members.

5) New Research:
- In a significant new study, a team from the University of Michigan published a high-quality paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing how computerized working memory training can generalize and improve fluid intelligence (one of the domains that tends to decline with age).
- Learning and Teaching Scotland released an internal study showing how Nintendo Brain Training can help children’s math and concentration skills. The study gained significant media attention, despite the fact it hasn’t been published in a respected journal.

Note: This is an excerpt from the 6-Month Market Update we will  release later this month, covering the many important developments that have occurred since we launched the inaugural Brain Fitness Market Report in March this year. This special report will be available exclusively for our Premium Research Sponsors.

Press release: Here 

– “Lumos Labs, developer of Lumosity.com, the leading web-based provider of scientifically-tested brain training games, today announced that it has raised $3 million of equity financing from Pequot Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), and existing investors including Michael Dearing. The investor group brings expertise that will catalyze the ongoing development of Lumosity.com and support Lumos Labs’ mission to improve lives by enhancing brain fitness.

– “Lumos Labs is at the center of a booming interest in cognitive exercise and the emerging science about the remarkable plasticity of the brain, said Amish Jani of Pequot Ventures. Lumosity.com has seen tremendous demand from users and partners alike by leveraging the power of the web to deliver a unique platform for brain fitness.

Great news for the sector. The more tools available for leading mentally stimulating lives, the better we will all be.

Lumosity.com (click Here to get a sense of their games) provides a great user experience at a reasonable cost. From an investor’s perspective, we believe Lumos Labs is a very serious contender in the brain fitness space, and it has indeed been executing a very smart online strategy.

Now, I am not sure what “scientifically-tested brain training games” really means. While preparing our Brain Fitness Software Market Report we reviewed all published research on the efficacy behind different programs, and didn’t find any for Lumosity (which has some very interesting internal, but not published, data).

We gave Lumosity a score of 2 ouf of 10 in Clinical Validation (with Nintendo Brain Age getting a score of 1, and NovaVision, cleared by the FDA for use with stroke/ TBI patients, getting a 5).

Read the rest of this entry »

The LA Times just completed a wonderful 4-part series on how learning and memory work. The  NYT re-emphasized the importance of physical exercise for neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons). To put this news in better perspective, let’s review some good lifestyle options we can follow to maintain, and improve, our vibrant brains. 

1. 1. Learn what is the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”. A basic understanding will serve you well to appreciate your brain’s beauty as a living and constantly-developing dense forest with billions of neurons and synapses. 
2. 2. Take care of your nutrition. Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but consumes over 20% of the oxygen and nutrients we intake? As a general rule, you don’t need expensive ultra-sophisticated nutritional supplements, just make sure you don’t stuff yourself with the “bad stuff”.
3. 3. Remember that the brain is part of the body. Things that exercise your body can also help sharpen your brain: physical exercise enhances neurogenesis.
4. 4. Practice positive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mindset and you look forward to every new day in a constructive way. Stress and anxiety, no matter whether induced by external events or by your own thoughts, actually kills neurons and prevent the creation of new ones. You can think of chronic stress as the opposite of exercise: it prevents the creation of new neurons.
5. 5. Thrive on Learning and Mental Challenges. The point of having a brain is precisely to learn and to adapt to challenging new environments. Once new neurons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they survive depends on how you use them. “Use It or Lose It” does not mean “do crossword puzzle number 1,234,567″. It means, “challenge your brain often with fundamentally new activities”. 
6. We are (as far as we know) the only self-directed organisms in this planet. Aim high. Once you graduate from college, keep learning. The brain keeps developing, no matter your age, and it reflects what you do with it.
7. Explore, travel. Adapting to new locations forces you to pay more attention to your environment. Make new decisions, use your brain.
8. Don’t Outsource Your Brain. Not to media personalities, not to politicians, not to your smart neighbour… Make your own decisions, and mistakes. And learn from them. That way, you are training your brain, not your neighbour’s.
9. Develop and maintain stimulating friendships. We are “social animals”, and need social interaction. Which, by the way, is why ‘Baby Einstein’ has been shown not to be the panacea for children development.
10. Laugh. Often. Especially to cognitively complex humor, full of twists and surprises. Better, try to become the next Jon Stewart (Note: I just corrected his name from “John”…which may call for a #11: Spellcheck!)

Now, remember that what counts is not reading this article-or any other-, but practicing a bit every day until small steps snowball into unstoppable, internalized habits…so, pick your next battle and try to start improving at least one of these 10 habits today! For more in-depth information on these topics, check our Brain Fitness Topics section.

Today is International Women’s Day 2007.

Global consulting company Accenture organized a series of events, and I was fortunate to lead a fun workshop on The Neuroscience of Stress and Stress Management in their San Francisco office, helping over 125 accomplished women (and a few men) learn what stress is, its implications for our brain functioning, performance and health, and of course some tips and techniques to develop our “stress management” muscles. It was an honor to be able to wrap up a great event that included District Attorney Kamala D. Harris, two of the co-authors of This is Not the Life I Ordered, a video by Senator Dianne Feinstein, and some great Accenture women.