SharpBrains

I hope you are having a joyful holiday season, and wish you a Happy and Prosperous 2008. The Brain Fitness field has made a great deal of progress in 2007, and we are looking forward the New Year.

Here you are have the Monthly Digest of our Most Popular Blog Posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Fitness/ Exercise Newsletter.

Let me first of all introduce you to our new "Author Speaks Series", where we will give leading scientists and experts a forum to present their new brain-related books. We are honored to kickstart the series with Larry McCleary, former acting Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Denver Children's Hospital. You can read Here his article on how to keep a brain-friendly lifestyle. This series will complement our ongoing Neuroscience Interview Series.

Brain Fitness in the News

Brain Fitness @ PBS: PBS featured a fantastic special program on neuroplasticity and brain fitness during the month of December. Before you ask: as of today, the DVD of the program is still not available in PBS online shop. We expect to see it there in 2-3 weeks. We will keep you informed.

The Huffington Post started featuring a column written by me: you may enjoy taking a look at Alvaro Fernandez - Living on The Huffington Post.

Jogging our Brains for Brain Vitality, Healthy Aging-and Intelligence!: a roundup of several great recent articles on memory, aging, IQ and cognitive abilities such as self-control.

Health & Wellness

Brain Training: No Magic Bullet, Yet Useful Tool. Interview with Elizabeth Zelinski: Dr. Zelinski, leading researcher of the IMPACT study, shares fascinating insights. For example: "...cognitive enhancement requires the engagement in a variety of activities, those activities must be novel, adaptive and challenging-which is why computer-based programs can be helpful. But even at a more basic level, what matters is being engaged with life, continually exposed to stimulating activities, always trying to get out of our comfort zones, doing our best at whatever we are doing. A major typical misconception is that there is only one general intelligence to care about. In reality, we have many different cognitive abilities, such as attention, memory, language, reasoning, and more, so it makes sense to have different programs designed to train and improve each of them."

How to Evaluate and Choose a Brain Fitness Program: To help you navigate the growing number of computer-based programs and games, we published this 10-Question Checklist, based on dozens of interviews with scientists, experts and consumers.

Travel and Engagement as Good Brain Exercise: As we've seen, novelty, variety and challenge are the key guidelines for "brain exercise" that help build new neural connections, force one to be mindful and pay attention, improve abilities such as pattern-recognition, and generally contribute to lifelong brain health. In this post we feature the brain building / mind expanding experience of a SharpBrains friend working in Namibia.

Alzheimer's Prevention and Diagnostic Tests: analysis of several recent articles on emerging research behind Alzheimer's diagnostic and prevention.

Corporate Wellness and Training

Cognitive Reserve and Intellectually Demanding Jobs: a recent study shows how "Intellectually demanding work was associated with greater benefit to cognitive performance in later life independent of related factors like education and intelligence."

Cognitive Health and Baby Boomers- 6 Points to Keep in Mind: based upon an excellent McKinsey report titled Serving Aging Baby Boomers, we discuss a variety a news articles, including interesting numbers, some bad news, and some good news.

Lifelong Learning Is Changing My Brain: Andreas, the neuroscience PhD student who spent last summer working with SharpBrains, writes some reflections on his experience and on how scientists and business professionals can learn from each other.

Brain Teasers

Traveler IQ Game: Check out this stimulating online game...

Events

Learning & The Brain Conference, February 5-7 2008, San Francisco: Sign up now for this great conference for educators who want to learn about the latest brain research findings and implications. I will be speaking at the conference giving an overview of innovative cognitive training programs. The organizers are offering a Special Discount for SharpBrains readers until January 25th 2008, so click here if interested.

If we don't talk beforehand...Happy New Year!

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You can also enjoy our previous editions of our Brain Fitness Newsletter:

- November Edition

- October Edition

- September Edition

- August Edition

- July Edition

(Note: if you are trying to download the whitepaper featuring the 11 in-depth interviews that debunk those myths, click here) 

Over the last year we have interviewed a number of leading brain health and fitness scientists and practitioners worldwide to learn about their research and thoughts, and have news to report.

What can we say today that we couldn't have said only 10 years ago? That what neuroscience pioneer Santiago Ramon y Cajal claimed in the XX century, "Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor his own brain", may well become reality in the XXI. And influence Education, Health, Training, and Gaming in the process.

We have only scratched the surface of what science-based structured cognitive (i.e., mental) exercise can do for brain health and productivity. We are now witnessing the birth of a new industry that crosses traditional sector boundaries and that may help us understand, assess and train our brains, harnessing the growing research about neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons), neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to rewire itself through experience), cognitive training and emotional regulation.

Let's now debunk 10 myths, still too prevalent, that may prevent us from seeing the full potential of this emerging field:

Myth 1: It’s all in our genes.

Reality: A big component of our lifelong brain health and development depends on what we do with our brains. Our own actions, not only our genes, influence our lives to a large extent. Genes predispose us, not determine our fates.

• “Individuals who lead mentally stimulating lives, through education, occupation and leisure activities, have reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s. Studies suggest that they have 35-40% less risk of manifesting the disease” - Dr. Yaakov Stern, Division Leader of the Cognitive Neuroscience Division of the Sergievsky Center at Columbia University.

Myth 2: The field of Cognitive/ Brain Fitness is too new to be credible.

Reality: The field rests on solid foundations dating back more decades --- what is new is the number and range of tools that are now starting to be available for healthy individuals.

• “Rigorous and targeted cognitive training has been used in clinical practice for many years. Exercising our brains systematically is as important as exercising our bodies.” - Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, neuropsychologist, clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine, and disciple of Alexander Luria.

• "Today, thanks to fMRI and other neuroimaging techniques, we are starting to understand the impact our actions can have on specific parts of the brain." - Dr. Judith Beck, Director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research.

Myth 3: Medication is and will remain the only evidence-based intervention for a number of brain-related problems.

Reality: Cognitive training programs are starting to Continue Reading »

It is always good to stimulate our minds and to learn a bit about how our brains work. Here you have a selection of the 50 Brain Teasers that people have enjoyed the most in our blog and speaking engagements.

Fun experiments on how our brains work

1. Do you think you know the colors?: try the Stroop Test.

2. Can you count?: Basketball attention experiment (Interactive).

3. Who is this?: A very important little guy (Interactive).

4. How is this possible?.

5. Take the Senses Challenge (Interactive).

6. Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?.

Attention

7. How are your divided attention skills? check out "Inside and Outside" (Interactive, from MindFit).

8. Can you walk and chew gum at the same time? try "Two in One" (Interactive, from MindFit)

9. Count the Fs in this sentence.

10. What do you see? can you alternate between 2 views?.

Memory

11. Easy one...draw the face of a penny, please. Continue Reading »

Unless you have been living in a cave, you have read by now multiple articles about the brain training and brain exercise craze: sudoku, Nintendo BrainAge, multiple online games, software like MindFit and Posit Science...

If you are looking for some fun mental stimulation now, here you have our selection of Brain Teasers.

Now, how do you know which of the new programs can help you more, or whether you need any of them? which ones are simply entertaining Games vs. which ones look like "Games" but are really Training, improving, specific cognitive and emotional skills? Well, that's why we are publishing the SharpBrains Checklist below, to help you navigate through the overwhelming and conflicting media reports and company announcements.

We have spent over 18 months interviewing scientists and reviewing available Brain Fitness and Exercise Programs worldwide, and want to share with you, right now, the research-based criteria we use to evaluate them.

10 Questions to Choose the Right Brain Fitness Program for You (and a brief explanation of why each question is important)

* 1. Are there scientists, ideally neuropsychologists, and a scientific advisory board behind the program?

(Neuropsychologists specialize in measuring and understanding human cognition and brain structure and function.)

* 2. Are there published, peer-reviewed scientific papers in PubMed written by those scientists? How many?

(Pubmed is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes millions of citations science journals. If a scientist has not published a paper that appears in that database, he or she cannot make scientific claims.)

* 3. What are the specific benefits claimed for using this program? Continue Reading »

Good WebMD 4-page article on Brain Fitness programs for seniors. Check Keeping Your Brain Fit for Life:Software companies are offering new programs that promise to keep your brain sharp as you get older.

Some quotes:

- "The notion of brain fitness has even invaded popular culture. In April, Nintendo released Brain Age, a Japanese-inspired, handheld video game to help users' minds stay active. While the game is marketed for all ages, the buyers --- now numbering more than 655,000 in the U.S. --- have mainly been older people, Nintendo of America spokeswoman Amber McCollom writes in an email."

- "Players take a nonscientific test that calculates a "brain age" for the purposes of the game. Continue Reading »