A rare aha moment in 2011 set me chas­ing new problem-solving research. The study Ratio­nal Ver­sus Intu­itive Problem-Solving: How Think­ing ‘Off the Beaten Path’ Can Stim­u­late Cre­ativ­ity pub­lished in Psy­chol­ogy of Aes­thet­ics, Cre­ativ­ity, and the Arts stung me out of a spot of intel­lec­tual arro­gance. From my per­spec­tive, John Dewey’s 19th cen­tury step-wise Read the rest of this entry »

Inter­est­ing trend mini-report pre­pared by Inter­Con­ti­nen­tal Hotels Group, quot­ing Sharp­Brains data. Trends that will influ­ence 2012 (IHG press release):

“BRAIN SPA: The desire to learn more will influ­ence des­ti­na­tion deci­sions. Brain Spa looks at our grow­ing appetite to expand and keep our intel­lect in good health – in fact we are pre­pared to travel for it. Forbes has tipped the mar­ket for goods and ser­vices that claim to enhance IQ as the next tril­lion dol­lar indus­try and Brain Fit­ness soft­ware is already worth $265 mil­lion in the US. The mar­ket for goods and ser­vices respond­ing to the new demand for men­tal stim­u­la­tion is expected to grow between $1 bil­lion to $5 bil­lion by 2015.”

To Learn More:

• Pro­tect Your Asset by Being Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach

Spon­sored Ad

Time for Sharp­Brains’ April 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing new  per­spec­tives and research on how, and why, we can think about shap­ing our brains for bet­ter life­long health and functioning.

Fea­tured Perspectives:

• Why I Wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, by Bar­bara Arrowsmith-Young
• Pro­tect Your Asset by Being Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach, by Alvaro Fernandez
• Promis­ing New Neu­rocog­ni­tive Inter­ven­tion for Preschool­ers with ADHD (TEAMS), by Dr. David Rabiner

New Research & Resources:

• Daniel Kah­ne­man on the Need to Think Slow (at times)
• Why our brains weigh 1.3 kilo­grams, have ~100 bil­lion neu­rons, con­sume 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe
• Can You Make Your­self Smarter? Yes. Real ques­tion is, How?
• Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­apy, deliv­ered as a Videogame, Can Help Lower Anx­i­ety and Depression
• Con­nect­ing the (Brain) Dots: Under­stand­ing Brain Func­tional Networks
• New WHO Report: Global demen­tia cases expected to exceed 115 mil­lion by 2050

Sharp­Brains News:

• We thank three new 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Spon­sors: About­My­Brain, Advanced Brain Tech­nolo­gies, Unit­ed­BioSource Corporation

Note: Please remem­ber that 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit early-bird reg­is­tra­tion rates end tomor­row, Tues­day May 1st. We hope you can join us! To Learn More and Reg­is­ter, please Click Here.

Have a great month of May!

We have always thought that “our brain shapes us.” I wrote my new book, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain (May 2012; Free Press, Fore­word by Nor­man Doidge), to prove that the reverse is equally true. I wanted to demon­strate how “we can shape our brains.”

Imag­ine hav­ing a brain that is capa­ble and inca­pable at the same time. Grow­ing up, I had severe learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties. I lived in a world that was con­fus­ing and incom­pre­hen­si­ble. As I was to later dis­cover, a crit­i­cal part of my brain was not work­ing prop­erly, the end result being that all lan­guage was expe­ri­enced as for­eign and my trans­la­tor was Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I had the good for­tune of spend­ing four days in Nuevo Val­larta, Mex­ico, with over 300 amaz­ing indi­vid­u­als from 40+ coun­tries who had been named Young Global Lead­ers by the World Eco­nomic Forum. The sum­mit agenda was insight­ful and inspir­ing, con­ver­sa­tions with other par­tic­i­pants always proved to be eye-opening and stim­u­lat­ing, and the over­all atmos­phere was con­struc­tive. You can read more about some of those con­ver­sa­tions here.

What I’d like to high­light in this arti­cle is the remark­able (and optional) activ­ity that started off every day at 7 in the morn­ing. Called “Pro­tect Your Asset” Read the rest of this entry »

A new arti­cle in The New York Times, Can You Make Your­self Smarter, pro­vides a great overview of work­ing mem­ory and cog­ni­tive training:

- “We see atten­tion and work­ing mem­ory as the car­dio­vas­cu­lar func­tion of the brain,” Jaeggi says.“If you train your atten­tion and work­ing mem­ory, you increase your basic cog­ni­tive skills that help you for many dif­fer­ent com­plex tasks.” Read the rest of this entry »

Team­work Builds Big Brains (Sci­ence Now):
– “The aver­age adult human’s brain weighs about 1.3 kilo­grams, has 100 bil­lion or so neu­rons, and sucks up 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe. It’s much big­ger than an ani­mal our size needs. Accord­ing to a new com­puter model, the brains of humans and related pri­mates are so large because we evolved to be social crea­tures.“
– “The idea behind the so-called social intel­li­gence hypoth­e­sis is that we need Read the rest of this entry »

We are excited to announce the stel­lar and grow­ing ros­ter of speak­ers and mod­er­a­tors @ 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit, includ­ing sev­eral in-depth edu­ca­tional work­shops to address top­ics of high inter­est based on your feed­back. You can now Watch this 3-minute tuto­r­ial about the 2012 Sum­mit, and Reg­is­ter at early-bird rates before April 30th. We hope you can join us!

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CONFIRMED SPEAKERS AND MODERATORS

Read the rest of this entry »

Please take a look at the  pre­lim­i­nary Sum­mit Agenda fea­tur­ing a stel­lar ros­ter of con­firmed Speak­ers and Mod­er­a­tors and  includ­ing sev­eral in-depths workshops:

• How Nation­wide Insur­ance rolled-out a Brain-based Cor­po­rate Well­ness Ini­tia­tive, with Kath­leen Herath, Asso­ciate Vice Pres­i­dent Health & Pro­duc­tiv­ity, Nation­wide Insurance.
• How to Con­nect Neu­ro­science and Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion: A School-based Exam­ple, with Howard Eaton, CEO, Eaton Edu­ca­tional Group and Annette Good­man, Chief Edu­ca­tion Offi­cer, Arrow­smith Program.
• How to Set Up a Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter to Drive Cog­ni­tive Retrain­ing and Rehab, with Kate Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter, Wal­ter Reed National Mil­i­tary Med­ical Center.
• How to Improve Cog­ni­tive Care and Pro­long Inde­pen­dence in Senior Liv­ing, with Rod­ney Stoops, Admin­is­tra­tor, Prov­i­dence Place Retire­ment Community.

To Learn More, you can click on:

• Sum­mit Speak­ers and Moderators
• Sum­mit Agenda
• How to Reg­is­ter at early-bird rates

So Much for Snap Deci­sions (The Wall Street Jour­nal):
– “How is it that so many peo­ple make deci­sions that, from their per­spec­tive, seem so right—and turn out so wrong? Blame it, in part, on think­ing “fast.”

- “On some occa­sions, when the stakes are high, exam­in­ing the evi­dence more systematically—especially the evi­dence that makes you uncomfortable—is likely to be worthwhile.”

- “This is how sci­en­tists often oper­ate in eval­u­at­ing their own ideas. They imag­ine a severe reviewer who will be search­ing for weak­nesses in their argument.”

To Learn More:

• Think­ing, Fast and Slow (book)
• Great con­ver­sa­tion between Daniel Kah­ne­man and Char­lie Rose (video)
• Brain Teaser with fun cog­ni­tive bias: Con­sider Linda