Hi!
This is Andreas, the Norwegian MD/PhD in neuroscience candidate who worked as an intern at SharpBrains a few months ago. Now I’m back in chilly Oslo where I’ve just begun my PhD program on cognitive training for patients with memory problems.

Today I felt it was time to reflect upon my 3 month stay in San Francisco earlier this year. It all started when in April when the Norwegian school of entrepreneurship said: You’ve got a ticket to San Francisco, now you got to find the perfect start-up company to work for.

Being interested in brain training, I googled “Brain fitness San Francisco” and guess what I found? I got in touch with Alvaro Fernandez, the co-founder of SharpBrains.com and two months later I started working with him and his team.

As a scientist, being placed in an exciting start-up company in a novel market like brain fitness was a huge learning experience that gave me hands-on knowledge of business and entrepreneurial culture. Being a neuroscience student, I know that learning physically changes my brain, strengthening it.

Here’s a list of some of the key things I’ve learned:

1) First of all, one of key rules for brain fitness is learning. In SharpBrains I immediately got to experience what a great learning culture can be all about – from key insights in entrepreneurship to how to make creative videos and writing for the web. The urge for constant learning is both fun and stimulating – and I appreciate Alvaro’s suggestion to write this post.
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A couple of good recent articles:

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Brain Games will give adults all the challenge they can handle

Baltimore Sun, MD. Mar 22, 2007.The reporter provides a great survey of products. The only parts I find missing are:

1) what specific cognitive skill/s is/are being trained by each product? if we understand that the brain has a variety of structural and functional areas, it becomes evident that different programs may be training different “mental muscles”.

2) How does each program enable the user measure progress in an objective way? I’d say this is the main difference between “games” and brain fitness programs. If you have a wildly different brain age everytime you try…that so-called brain age is not very credible.

Does brain exercise fight dementia?
Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription), MN. Mar 18, 2007.As the article mentions, no program can claim to “prevent Alzheimer’s”. And I haven’t seen Posit Science (or us) claim such a thing, or imply it. But what can be claimed is meaningful: Read the rest of this entry »

Here is question 14 of 25 from Brain Fitness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Questions. To download the complete version, please click here.

Question:
Does a brain fitness program prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia?

Key Points:

• Studies have shown mentally active people have lower rates and later onset of symptoms for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. These diseases involve a number of variables like family history, physical fitness, nutrition, and brain fitness.
• People who remain intellectually active and engage in hobbies reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by one third.

Answer:
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