A spate of recent 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 the aging population, increasing Alzheimer's rates, and soaring health care costs that place more emphasis than ever on prevention and changing lifestyle.
This past Tuesday, the MIT Club of Northern California, the American Society on Aging, and SmartSilvers sponsored an event on The Emerging Brain Fitness Software Market: Building Better Brains to explore the realities and myths of this growing field. The panel was moderated by Zack Lynch, Executive Director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization, and composed of a venture capitalist and 3 CEOs of program developers in the field. Before the panel, I had the chance to present an overview of the state of the Brain Fitness Software Market based on our upcoming report to be released on March 4th.
Why are we talking about this field at all? Well, for one, an increasing number of companies are achieving significant commercial success in packaging "brain exercise". An example is the line of Nintendo games, such as Brain Age and Brain Training, that have shipped over 15 million units worldwide despite limited scientific support, since 2005. What is less visible is that a number of companies and scientists are Continue Reading »
Today we are fortunate to interview Dr. Jerri Edwards, an Associate Professor at University of South Florida's School of Aging Studies and Co-Investigator of the influencial ACTIVE study. Dr. Edwards was trained by Dr. Karlene K. Ball, and her research is aimed toward discovering how cognitive abilities can be maintained and even enhanced with advancing age.
Main focus of research
Alvaro Fernandez: Please explain to our readers your main research areas
Jerri Edwards: I am particularly interested in how cognitive interventions may help older adults to avoid or at least delay functional difficulties and thereby maintain their independence longer. Much of my work has focused on the functional ability of driving including assessing driving fitness among older adults and remediation of cognitive decline that results in driving difficulties.
Some research questions that interest me include, how can we maintain healthier lives longer? How can training improve cognitive abilities, both to improve those abilities and also to slow-down, or delay, cognitive decline? The specific cognitive ability that I have studied the most is processing speed, which is one of the cognitive skills that decline early on as we age.
ACTIVE results
Can you explain what cognitive processing speed is, and why it is relevant to our daily lives?
Processing speed is mental quickness. Just like a computer with a 486 processor can do a lot of the same things as a computer with a Pentium 4 processor, but it takes much longer, our minds tend to slow down with age as compared to when we were younger. We can do the same tasks, but it takes more time. Quick speed of processing is important for Continue Reading »
Very interesting collection of recent news...let's connect some dots
1) Great article titled Boom time for retirees (Financial Times)
- "By 2015, boomers will have a net worth of some $26,000bn (£12,750bn, €17,670bn) – equivalent to a year’s gross domestic product for the US and eurozone combined. They will control a larger proportion of wealth, income and consumption than any other generation in the country – the first time that consumers over 50 have held such sway over the world’s largest economy."
- "But as the boomers aged – by 2015 they will all be outside the fabled under-49 cohort – corporate America failed to grow old with them. Marketing experts argue that the continued focus of large companies such as P&G and Gap on the youth of “generation X” and “generation Y” overlooks a simple statistic: the 18-49 age group will grow by only 1m people in the next 10 years, compared with the 22.5m Americans set to enter the 50-plus bracket."
- “The last thing the [boomer] generation needs is a company that tells them they need tools to address their lack of dexterity,” he says. “They don’t want geriatric tools, they want cool stuff.”
Main take-way: baby boomers are always "awake" and reinventing things...companies, advertisers, time to wake-up!
Full article: Boom time for retirees
2) The article is based upon this excellent McKinsey report Continue Reading »
(Thanks for the lead, Tom!)
David Brooks writes a great column (requires subscription) in the NYT titled A Critique of Pure Reason. He expands the usual restricted understanding of "education" to incorporate a wider sense of "learning", by discussing
1. Where
Each of us has one and same brain, for school (or work) and for "real" life. Labels such as "formal" or "informal" learning are quite irrelevant from a neural development point of view. What hapens at home is as important as what happens in school.
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"They will understand that schools filled with students who can’t control their impulses, who can’t focus their attention and who can’t regulate their emotions will not succeed, no matter how many reforms are made by governors, superintendents or presidents."
Skills in that list, that usually don't get explicit attention, and they should, since they are both critical and trainable:
Continue Reading »
