Several months ago we came across an excellent resource for cognitive/ brain fitness aimed at helping companies offer quality brain health information to their employees.
While it is true that we often tend to believe all this "brain fitness" stuff is most relevant to our parents and/ or grandparents, trust me, if you are reading this, you need it. Everyone with a brain can benefit from learning about how his or her brain works and how to maintain it with proper care.
And, from a company's point of view, aren't "talent" and "human capital" really all about brain fitness and cognitive performance?
The Conference Board and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives (descriptions below) published in 2008 a 44-page booklet to "teach simple, practical strategies for incorporating brain-friendly practices into day-to-day life". Your Brain at work: Making the science of cognitive fitness to work for you is the first of three planned booklets on cognitive fitness.
The Conference Board and the Dana Alliance have allowed SharpBrains to share the following Action Plan with our readers, straight from Your Brain at work brochure. At the bottom of this post we also share instructions on how individuals and companies can get their own copies of this excellent brochure. Continue Reading »
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Our first Brain Training/ Fitness Webinar Series was a success with several hundred participants and great feedback. If you could not participate, you can still review the presentation slides by clicking Here. A key message from the series: it is exciting that our brains remain more flexible, at all ages, than was once thought possible. The implications? Every single owner of a brain can benefit from learning more about how to maintain the "It" in "Use It or Lose It." And which tools, if any, can be helpful. But, remember, there are no magic pills for cognitive health and performance.
Market News
National Neurotechnology Initiative: Neurotech leaders ask for help to support a pending bill on funding for applications of brain research.
Lumos Labs raises $3 m in venture capital: This website provides a stimulating Continue Reading »
I just read a very interesting article in Newsweek: Executive Functions: The School Skill That May Matter More Than IQ. A few quotes:
- "But recent advances in psychology and brain science are now suggesting that a child's ability to inhibit distracting thoughts and stay focused may be a fundamental cognitive skill, one that plays a big part in academic success from 
preschool on. Indeed, this and closely related skills may be more important than traditional IQ in predicting a child's school performance."
- "EF (executive functions) comprises not only effortful control and cognitive focus but also working memory and mental flexibility—the ability to adjust to change, to think outside the box."
- "When the teacher holds up a circle they clap, with a triangle they hop, and so forth. The kids are taught to talk themselves through the mental exercise: "OK, now clap." "Twirl now." This has been shown to flex and enhance the brain's ability to switch gears, to suppress one piece of information and sub in a new one. It takes discipline; it's the elementary school equivalent of saying "I really need stop thinking about next week's vacation and focus on this report."
The main points: executive functions are crucial for success in life, AND they can be trained. I couldn't agree more with the article in that cognitive training should be part of the education curriculum and receive more research dollars to determine exactly how to best do so.
I read another very interesting article on Alzheimer's Disease. Which may look like a completely different topic than the one above...but please bear with me. Continue Reading »
In the past two days, The New York Times has published two excellent articles on brain and cognitive fitness. Despite appearing in separate sections (technology and editorial), the two have more in common than immediately meets the eye. Both raise key questions that politicians, health policy makers, business leaders, educators and consumers should pay attention to.
1) First, Exercise Your Brain, or Else You’ll ... Uh ..., by Katie Hafner (5/3/08). Some quotes:
- "At the same time, boomers are seizing on a mounting body of evidence that suggests that brains contain more plasticity than previously thought, and many people are taking matters into their own hands, doing brain fitness exercises with the same intensity with which they attack a treadmill."
Continue Reading »
We just received these two very thought-provoking essays on Alzheimer's Disease and brain health, as part of a writing workshop, led by Susan Hill in Lakeland, Florida, with a group of grade 9-11 homeschoolers.
Without further ado, here you are both Essays:
Essay A. Preventing Alzheimer’s at Work
-- By Josh H
5,000,000: that is the number of people in the United States alone who are affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Research has shown that those who held jobs such as sanitation workers or trash collectors in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are more at risk for Alzheimer’s disease than people who held jobs such as doctors or scientists at the same age. If everyone knew this, the world would benefit, and it could impact the lives of everyone.
Continue Reading »
Ever wondered what explains the sometimes surreal, often misguided, health policies by our government? Well, it is beyond our humble brains to capture and articulate what may be going on...but we now see that lack of access to quality information is certainly not the main problem. Decision-making processes, and structural incentives, would probably merit more attention....
I mention this because we are really impressed by the just-published 24-page special 
issue on Preventing Memory Loss by Congressional Quarterly Researcher, one of the main publications in Capitol Hill.
The publication is not free, but worth the price for anyone active professionally in the healthcare sector, or interested in learning about latest research and policy trends, from academics to students. You can buy Buy the Electronic PDF ($4.95) or Buy the Printed Copy ($15 - $5 discount using promotion code "L8BRAIN" = $10).
Description
As the nation's baby boomers age, they are increasingly worried that their memories will deteriorate --- and with good reason. An estimated 10 million boomers will develop Alzheimer's disease or another memory-destroying neurodegenerative condition in the coming years. Policy makers and health officials worry that the resulting bulge in the number of sufferers will burden the nation's already strained health-care system. In the wake of these concerns, a vibrant brain-fitness industry is offering a variety of ways to help people keep their brains healthy, including the use of cognition-enhancing drugs and exercise. But many experts say much of what the public is being told is of limited value, at best. Intensified brain research begun years ago at the National Institutes of Health is just now beginning to produce data that scientists hope will advance efforts to prevent memory loss, but they worry that flat federal funding since 2003 may compromise the drive for solutions.
Continue Reading »
Last year, Jeffrey Gonce, a Psychology teacher at Red Land High School (West Shore School District, PA) asked his students to "complete a project describing a recent brain (or genetic) study that affects behavior." The students could opt to post their articles online, and Jeffrey was kind enough to send us a link to read the results. We enjoyed reading them all, and published in our blog this beautiful essay, titled "Tis better to give than receive", written by Alexandra, which was subsequently included in a number of neuroscience an psychology blogs. Earlier this year we highlighted this piece on Musical training as mental exercise for cognitive performance, written by Megan.
This quarter, Jeffrey also sent us his students' essays, and we are going to recognize and publish this great essay by high school student Kristin H.
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Alzheimer's Disease
-- By Kristin H.
Alzheimer's is a disease which causes people, generally of an older age, to lose memory and forget how to accomplish simple tasks. Dementia is the disease which Alzheimer's is a part and about four million Americans were diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1999, a number which is expected to grow (Altman 8-9). Dementia is an unspecific brain disease commonly associated with memory loss and another serious brain dysfunction. Dementia is an incurable disease ("Dementia"). A new drug treatment that replaces the enzyme missing in an Alzheimer's brain may be able to cure Alzheimer's disease in it's late stages (Coghlan).
Continue Reading »
Here you are have the bi-monthly Digest of our 10 most Popular blog posts. (Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our blog RSS feed, or to our newsletter at the top of this page if you want to receive this digest by email).
First, an announcement: March 10-16th is
Brain Awareness Week, an international effort organized by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives to advance public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. Join the hundreds of activities worldwide by visiting the
International Calendar of events, or the week's
main website.
Over the last few days we have seen an engaging conversation going on. In a couple of posts, representatives from Posit Science brain fitness gym have left comments that have prompted me to ask a series of detailed questions. I will present those questions in a post, so they are easier to find.
Eric, Henry: please address these questions, so we all contribute to helping consumers and institutions navigate through this emerging landscape of "brain fitness gyms" and separate what is real today from what is promising and may be real tomorrow. Continue Reading »
That is the goal of Stanford University Media X: to foster deep collaborations between industry and academia, as highlighted in Business Week's recent article The Virtual Meeting Room. The 5th Annual Media X Conference on Research, Collaboration, Innovation and Productivity served its purpose well for the last couple of days: very fun and insightful presentations by Stanford researchers (and a few external experts) and a great list of participants to get to know.
No doubt, a great source of mental stimulation for all of us. Charles House, Media X's Executive Director, framed the dialogue as an effort to generate the right questions and then engage the best minds in answering them.
Some of (my) main take-aways
- "The world does not come to us as neat disciplinary problems, but as complex interdisciplinary challenges" (great quote by Dean John Hennessy)
- Personal Robotics is poised to explode soon-and software will be key (predicted by Paul Saffo)
- An inconvenient truth: Al Gore had to be convinced to bring his presentation into a movie, since he was very attached to each and every of his X hundred slides. We are happy it happened!
- Neuroscientists know what patterns in the brain indicate certain intentions-and are starting to use technologies to help immobilized patients communicate with external devices based merely on their thoughts
- We need to learn to embrace change- a lot of it is coming!
Now, some key points from several presentations (there were more than these, but I couldn't attend all). I encourage you to visit the website of each presenter if you are interested in learning more about that topic.
a. Paul Saffo on Innovation
- It usually takes 20 years since basic science until applications reach inflection point and take the world by storm
- Next big thing: personal robotics. Indicators: Continue Reading »
