Several hundred people participated in our first Brain Fitness Webinar Series, and are glad how the experiment well. We are already thinking of topics and speakers for a second one, so stay tuned!

In case you couldn’t attend them, we are sharing the slides we used (we did not record the webinar sessions). Here you go:

 

1) Webinar #1: Presentation Slides Here.

In “The State of the Brain Fitness Software Market, 2008,” I provided an overview of the science, market, and vendor landscape of the emerging brain fitness software market, based on our recent market report.
- Target audience: Executives, professionals, investors, reporters and bloggers interested in learning more about the brain fitness market.
- More information: Market Report.
 

2) Webinar #2: Presentation Slides Here.

In “Brain Rules for Thinking Smarter,” John Medina, developmental molecular biologist

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Today I had a great conversation with Martin Buschkuehl, one of the U Michigan researchers involved in the cognitive training study that has received much media attention since early last week, when the study was published at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

I will publish the interview notes next week. For the moment, let me paraphrase his answer to the question: “Why are computerized programs like the one you used fundamentally different from, say, simply doing many crossword puzzles?”.

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A few updates and announcements:

- 1) My apologies for slow blogging, due to travel. I participated yesterday in a fun panel discussion at ETech on Use Your Head- The Future of Mind Hacks. You can read some take-aways (in Italian, so this may be good brain exercise) here.

- 2) We will release our report The State of the Brain Fitness Software Market 2008 next Monday (Update: Tuesday March 11th!), to coincide with Brain Awareness Week. Make sure to visit our blog next Monday if you want to learn more.

- 3) The National Museum of Health and Medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is planning some great activities during Brain Awareness Week (Thank you, Tim). Learn more about their “Partners in Education” activities for students in the Washington DC area.

- 4) The Dana Foundation has released a great research report to address the question “Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter?” Enjoy the report and some excellent related resources Here.

- 5) Eric Jensen has written a great article on Brain-Based Education for PDK International Journal of Education. Enjoy it!

Senia writes a great article on How You Tell the Story of Your Life in Positive Psychology News Daily. As part of the story, she mentions a very fun study on the power of the Placebo effect.

From Senia’s post:

“In the February, 2007 issue of Psychological Science, Langer and colleague Alia Crum reported that they took 84 hotel workers and told one group that “the work they do (cleaning hotel rooms) is good exercise and satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle. Examples of how their work was exercise were provided.” Langer and Crum told the control group nothing. Four weeks later, Langer and Crum returned to find some measurements of both groups: the control group hadn’t changed physically, but the test group had decreased all of the following: weight, blood pressure, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and body mass index.

Langer and Crum describe this study as supporting the theory that exercise affects health at least partly due to the placebo effect. Furthermore, we can ask, what are the stories that these hotel workers are telling themselves? Why do the hotel workers suddenly believe that they actively affect their exercise regiment?”

Implication: the placebo effect is real, and it can help our health.

A few fun questions to consider:

- How do we prevent other people from selling us stuff that only works based on the placebo effect?

- Once we decide to do something, shouldn’t we try to “placebo” ourselves in order to get the most of it? this is another manifestation of the importance of emotional self-regulation.

Enjoy the long weekend