SharpBrains

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 »

Some very interesting brain fitness software market news:

1) Scientific Learning To Buy Out Soliloquy

- "Scientific Learning Corp. has announced that it will acquire Soliloquy Learning from JTT Holdings. Both Scientific Learning and Soliloquy provide technology solutions for education. The acquisition will cost SLC about $11 million and is expected to be completed this month."

- "Scientific Learning is the developer of Fast ForWord, a family of reading intervention tools targeted toward students who are characterized as struggling learners and designed to develop the required "neurocognitive skills" for reading and learning in general. Soliloquy is also a reading intervention developer."

Comment: this acquisition consolidates Scientific Learning (NSDQ: SCIL) as the leading company in the education segment of the brain fitness market. It will be interesting to track what research gets done on the neural and cognitive effects of Soliloquy, since Scientific Learning's Fast Forword is backed by extensive literature.

2) Technomedia Partners With SBT to Accelerate Its International Expansion

- "Technomedia, a Canadian provider of talent management and human capital development solutions, announced its partnership with the SBT (Scientific Brain Training) group, a European provider of training and evaluation of cognitive functions." Continue Reading »

Some weeks ago we explained how useful Concept Maps can be to quickly visualize the key ideas in a field, and their relationships.

Let me show you this fantastic example. A few weeks ago I was interviewed by David Pescovitz of the Institute for the Future (blog) to discuss The Future of Work and Cognitive Fitness trends. They had an artist who drew the graph below IN REAL TIME, AS WE SPOKE. Very impressive.

Please open the full image by clicking on it, and spend a few minutes reading around, top-down, left-to right.

You will learn much about what the future may bring (will Human Resources staff become "Cognitive Resources Managers"?), and also how to display complex information in beautiful visual form.

"

Kudos to the Institute for the Future, an independent nonprofit research group,  for a fascinating event on The Future of Work.

Credit for the Map: Anthony Weeks, from Grove Consultants.

(Dear RSS readers: I'd really appreciate if you could Digg this post. You can find the Digg button if you visit this post in our blog. Thanks!)

Following our July and August editions, here you have our Monthly Digest of the Most Popular Blog Posts. Today, October 2nd, we will list the most popular September posts. You can consider it your monthly Brain Exercise Magazine.

(Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our RSS feed, check our Topics section, and subscribe to our monthly newsletter at the top of this page).

Market News

Education, Training, Health events: some events I will blog about/ speak at over the next 2-weeks.

Brain Fitness and SharpBrains.com in the Press: including a great Washington Post article.

Brains Way Smarter Than Ours (and yours, probably): roundup of relevant news, including some Awards.

News you can use

10 (Surprising) Memory Improvement Tips: on the relationship between stress and memory.

Judith Beck: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person: a cognitive therapy pioneer tells us about the latest application of brain training: diets.

Brain Wellness: Train Your Brain to Be Happier: our essay to participate in LifeTwo's Happiness week.

Research

11 Neuroscientists Debunk a Common Myth about Brain Training: summary of our 11 original interviews with leading neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists.

Neuroplasticity 101 and Brain Health Glossary: no one is born knowing it all...check this summary of concepts and keywords that can help navigate through the brain fitness field.

Working Memory: an image that says much: bad and good news.

Best of the Brain from Scientific American: review of this great book.

An online application system is now open for the AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships.

Corporate Training & Leadership

Carnival of the capitalists with a brain: we hosted this business blog carnival with a brain spice.

Executive Functions and Google/ Microsoft Brain Teasers: examples of what our executive functions are.

Software Product News

MindFit by CogniFit, and Baroness Susan Greenfield: a brain fitness program starting to get traction in Europe.

Penn Treaty First To Offer Brain Fitness Program: today's press release on another brain training software (Posit Science)'s deal with an insurance provider.

Visualization Software of IBM for the Future of Medicine: Interview: “It’s like Google Earth for the body”. Hopefully it will include the brain.

Brain Teasers

Brain Teasers with a Neuroscience angle: enjoy.

SharpBrains Announcements

Services: we will formally announce soon how we "help companies, health providers, investors, and policymakers understand and profit from the emerging brain fitness field." But now you know.

Speaking: if your organization needs a good speaker and brain fitness expert, please contact us.

Finally, we are starting to look for qualified guest bloggers to add their perspective. If you are interested, please contact us and let us know about what you would like to write about, and include a brief bio or links to samples. Thank you.

As we announced last month, we have started to offer a Monthly Digest of the Most Popular Blog Posts. Today, September 2nd, we will list the most popular August posts. Consider it your monthly Brain Exercise Magazine.

(Also, remember that you can subscribe to receive our RSS feed, check our Topics section, and subscribe to our monthly newsletter at the top of this page).

News You Can Use

The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains: our most successful post so far, on how to maintain fit brains, with over 70,000 readers in a few days!

Physical Exercise Boosts Memory: "It is important for people of all ages to do 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise several times a week."

Brain Fitness Market News

Brain Fitness Program 2.0, MindFit, and more: overview and commentary on recent New York Times and The Times articles.

Brain Training Games and "Games": 10-questions to help evaluate programs making brain training claims.

Neurotechnology, Health and Brain Fitness News: a few announcements.

Corporate Wellness and Training

Training the Aging Workforce: an overview of demographic trends and implications, relevant to every HR and Training professional and boomer.

On Learning and "Being Smart"

Feed Your Brain with Fun Neuroscience: some of my favorite quotes from our Neuroscience Interview Series.

Smart Brains, Becoming Smarter, and Intelligence: an essay by David Gamon on what being "smart" means and what happens as we age.

Research

Cognitive training research: MindFit, Lumosity, Posit Science, Cogmed: overview of some recently published and ongoing studies.: overview of some recently published and ongoing studies.

Cognitive Enhancement and Exercise, by Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg: a nice podcast interview with our co-founder, neuroscientist Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg.

I hope you enjoy these articles and find them useful. And stimulating!. Please feel free to suggest topics you would like me to cover in the future.

Alice Snell kindly brings to our attention her nice post, Baby Boomers: The Beat Goes On, commenting on several reports and articles on the aging workforce challenge. 

This is a very important topic, and directly related to what we are doing. Let me provide an overview with these 10 points. First, some context:

1) The Conference Board published a good report in 2005 titled America’s Aging Workforce Posing New Opportunities and Challenges. Quotes:

Not only in the US: the largest single group within the UK workforce in 2006 was comprised of people between 45 and 59.

2) Some consulting companies like Accenture seem to be betting that the solution will be to improve technology for knowledge transfer and train younger employees as soon as possible (interview notes of the conversation between Accenture's CEO Bill Green and William J. Holstein, editor in chief of Chief Executive magazine.)

3) And the market for Talent Management and Succession Planning solutions has been growing steadily, and Continue Reading »

Today I have an announcement to make. You probably are seeing all the articles about Brain Fitness in the press and wondering, “What is this all about?”, “Can someone help me navigate through all the programs out there?”, “How is Brain Fitness relevant to me in my personal life or at work?”. Well...we are delivering a series of workshops to companies and organizations combining modules -including scientific overview, the industry trends and key players, fun team-building exercises- that can be tailored to each organization's specific needs. Sessions last from 1 to 6 hours, depending on the group's composition and agenda and are delivered either in person or via web conference.

We want to be able to reach more organizations, so please let us know of any ideas!

Some recent examples

1. Managing Stress for Peak Performance (we mentioned some notes on an Accenture session)

New and challenging situations – such as taking on new responsibilities– can trigger reactions in our brain and body that limit or even block our decision-making abilities. These reactions may also harm our long-term brain power and health. Although we cannot avoid change and stressful situations, we can learn how to manage our stress levels to ensure peak performance-even in tough moments. The latest neuroscience research proves that stress management is a trainable “mental muscle.” This is true for any high pressure profession, be it trading, sports, or simply modern life.

2. The Science of Brain Health and Brain Fitness (similar to what I will teach at UC Berkeley OLLI)

Neuroscientists have shown how the human brain retains neuroplasticity (the ability to rewire itself) and neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons) during its full lifetime, leading to a new understanding of Continue Reading »

Eliane writes a great post estimating the size of the Serious Games Market, building on the overall PriceWaterhouseCoopers report that seemed to indicate that the Global Video Game Market is Set to Explode.

Some quotes

• "The overall gaming audience continues to expand and become somewhat more female and older than in the past thanks to casual games and games becoming an "important part of culture" - which in my view would embed the Serious Games segment."
• "Whereas the military was one of the first customers of Serious Games, it has been joined by a long line of users, including other government agencies, healthcare providers, schools (both K-12 and universities) and Fortune 500 companies (for team building, leadership training, sales training and product education, among others)."
• "This is my conservative estimate: the Serious Games market would be ranging between $200 - 400 million per year only in US, in 2007. "
• "There is now an emergent supply chain for Corporate Serious Games, with a number of corporations taking Continue Reading »
  Learn More about Brain Fitness

  About Our Market Report

  Join Our Newsletter

  Tags: Brain Fitness, Brain health, brain health games, brain health serious games, Brain Training, brain training programs, Cognitive Training, Corporate Training, Fortune 500 companies, healthcare providers, leadership blog, leadership training, military training, Nintendo Brain Age, sales training and product education, Serious Games, Serious Games market, team building, train cognitive skills, videogames

  • Comments(4)
  • eMail to a friend