SharpBrains

Here you have the presentation I delivered on Tuesday at ETech 2009 (this year's O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference):

Emerging Research and Technology for Life Hacking/ Brain Training

(click to open presentation in new window)

Description: Life hacking. Brain training. They are one and the same. The brain’s frontal lobes enable our goal-oriented behavior, supporting “executive functions,” such as decision-making, attention, emotional self-regulation, goal-setting, and working memory. These functions can be enhanced with targeted practice – such as life hacking. This session will provide an overview of the cognitive neuroscience underpinning life hacking, and review the state-of-the-art of non-invasive tools for brain training: neurofeedback, biofeedback, software applications, cognitive simulations, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and plain-old meditation.

It was great to meet fellow bloggers and presenters, such as Shelley Batts of Of Two Minds and Chris Patil of Ouroboros, and very inquisite and throughful audience members. Getting ready to speak at ASA/ NCOA and IHRSA next week!

Today we'll discuss some of the cognitive implications of "always on" workplaces and lifestyles via a fascinating interview with Maggie Jackson, an award-winning author and journalist. Her latest book, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, describes the implications of our busy work and life environments and offers important reflections to help us thrive in them.

This is a 2-part interview conducted via e-mail: we will publish the continuation on Thursday March 12th.

Alvaro Fernandez: New York Times columnist David Brooks said last year that we live in a Cognitive Age, and encouraged readers to be aware of this change and try and adapt to the new reality. Can you explain the cognitive demands of today's workplaces that weren't there 30-40 years ago?

Maggie Jackson: Our workplaces have changed enormously in recent decades, and it’s easy to point to the Blackberry or the laptop as the sources of our culture of speed and overload and distraction. But it’s important to note first that our 24/7, fragmented work culture has deeper roots. With the first high-tech inventions, such as the cinema, phonograph, telegraph, rail, and car, came radical changes in human experience of time and space. Distance was shattered – long before email and red-eye flights. Telegraph operators – not online daters – experienced the first virtual love affairs, as evidenced by the 1890s novel Wired Love. Now, we wrestle with the effects of changes seeded long ago.

Today, the cognitive and physical demands on workers are steep. Consider 24/7 living. At great cost to our health, we operate in a sleepless, hurried world, ignoring cues of sun and season, the Industrial Age inventions of the weekend and vacation, and the rhythms of biology. We try to break the fetters of time – and live like perpetual motion machines. That’s one reason why we feel overloaded and stressed – conditions that are corrosive to problem-solving and clear thinking.

At the same time, our technologies allow us access to millions of information bites – producing an abundance of data that is both wondrous and dangerous. Unless we have the will, discipline and frameworks for turning this information into wisdom, we remain stuck on the surface of Continue Reading »

As you may know, memory relies mostly on some temporal (in green) and frontal (in red) areas of the brain. These may be the areas that will get stimulated when you (assuming you are American or have lived in the US for long) try to remember the missing words in the American proverbs below.

However when it comes to internationals proverbs below you may have to use your reasoning skills more than your memory skills, as it is likely that you do not know these proverbs. In this case, the frontal exercise is more intense. Try to guess what the final words of each international proverb might be. Use your logical skills.

If you live outside the USA, your experience will probably be the reverse.

US proverbs

1. The early bird gets the ___________.
2. After all is _______ and done, more is said than __________.
3. From ___________ beginnings come great ____________. Continue Reading »

Here you have The 10 Most Popular Brain Fitness & Cognitive Health Books, based on book purchases by SharpBrains' readers during 2008.

Enjoy!

	1. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Pear Press, March 2008) - Dr. John Medina, Director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, writes an engaging and comprehensive introduction to the many daily implications of recent brain research. He wrote the article Brain Rules: science and practice for SharpBrains readers.
	2. The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person (Oxmoor House, March 2007) - Dr. Judith Beck, Director of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research, connects the world of research-based cognitive therapy with a mainstream application: maintaining weight-loss. Interview notes here.
	3. The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (Viking, March 2007) - Dr. Norman Doidge, psychiatrist and author of this New York Times bestseller, brings us "a compelling collection of tales about the amazing abilities of the brain to rewire, readjust and relearn". Laurie Bartels reviews the book review here.
	4. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain(Little, Brown and Company, January 2008) - Dr. John Ratey, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, summarizes the growing research on the brain benefits of physical exercise. Laurie Bartels puts this research in perspective here.

	5. The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning (Stylus Publishing, October 2002) - Dr. James Zull, Director Emeritus of the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education at Case Western Reserve University, writes a must-read for educators and lifelong learners. Interview notes here.
	6. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves (Ballantine Books, January 2007) - Sharon Begley, Newsweek' excellent science writer, provides an in-depth introduction to the research on neuroplasticity based on a Mind & Life Institute event.
	7. Thanks: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton Mifflin, August 2007) - Prof. Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology at UC Davis and Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Positive Psychology, writes a solid book that combines a research-based synthesis of the topic as well as practical suggestions. Interview notes here.
	8. The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind (Oxford University Press, January 2001) - Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine, provides a fascinating perspective on the role of the frontal roles and executive functions through the lifespan. Interview notes here.
	9. The Brain Trust Program: A Scientifically Based Three-Part Plan to Improve Memory (Perigee Trade, September 2007) - Dr. Larry McCleary, former acting Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Denver Children's Hospital, covers many lifestyle recommendations for brain health in this practical book. He wrote the article Brain Evolution and Health for SharpBrains.
	10. A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain (Pantheon, January 2001) - In this book (previous to Spark), Dr. John Ratey provides a stimulating description of how the brain works. An excellent Brain 101 book to anyone new to the field.

A recent CNN article explains well why a growing number of companies use brainteasers and logic puzzles of a type called “guesstimations” during job interviews:

- "Seemingly random questions like these have become commonplace in Silicon Valley and other tech outposts, where companies aren't as interested in the correct answer to a tough question as they are in how a prospective employee might try to solve it. Since businesses today have to be able to react quickly to shifting market dynamics, they want more than engineers with high IQs and good college transcripts. They want people who can think on their feet."

What are technology companies (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) and consulting companies (McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture...) looking for? They want employees with good so-called Executive Functions: problem-solving, cognitive flexibility, planning, working memory, decision-making, even emotional self-regulation (don’t try to solve one of these puzzles while being angry, or stressed out).

Want to try a few? Below you have our Top 7 Guesstimations/ Logic Puzzles for Brain Challenge:

Please try to GUESS the answers to the questions below based on your own logical approach. The goal is not to find out (or Google) the right answer, but to Continue Reading »

Dr. Pascale Michelon recently shared with our readers which brain areas and cognitive functions are engaged as we solve the type of brain teaser known as Spot the Difference, where we have to find the differences between two versions of one image: Continue Reading »

My natural rhythms are in cycle with the school calendar. January 1st takes a back seat to my new year, which gets ushered in with the month of September when there is crispness in the air that gradually shakes off the slower, more relaxed pace of summer.Conveniently, my career in teaching meshes with my natural cyclical year. And as this year draws to a close, I am re-energized by the pace of summer, knowing that anything may pop in to my mind as I engage in activities not directly related to school. But before that happens, I’d like to reflect on this past year, in particular as it was my first year of blogging about the brain.

My interest in the brain stems from wanting to better understand both how to make school more palatable for students, and professional development more meaningful for faculty. To that end, I began my Neurons Firing blog in April, 2007, have been doing a lot of reading, and been attending workshops and conferences, including Learning & the Brain.

If you agree that our brains are designed for learning, then Continue Reading »

How many differences can you spot?

You have seen and maybe tried that exercise or game in the Sunday paper many times: find 5 differences between the two images.

You may like it or not. You may think it is only for kids. But it is a GREAT brain exercise!

Let’s see what cognitive processes and which brain areas are involved in this exercise:

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 »

Not a day goes by without a significant depression-related announcement. Yesterday, one could read that Older Women More Likely to Suffer Depression (than Older Men; in the Washington Post). Today, we see that St. Jude Starting Trial On Brain Stimulation For Depression (CNN). A few days ago, Blue Cross of California Launched Maternity Depression Program (press release).

Time to step back and ask ourselves questions such as, "What is going On", "What is Depression", "What Treatments Work, and What is the Latest Research". Fortunately, thanks to our collaboration with Greater Good Magazine, Jill Suttie offers a fascinating answers to those questions-and more. Enjoy.

---------------------------

Closing the Circuit

Helen Mayberg's research could revolutionize depression treatment.

--- By Jill Suttie.

At some point in their lives, 5 to 12 percent of American men and 10-25 percent of women will suffer an episode of depression, making it the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder today. Unlike normal sadness, which passes with time, depression feels unstoppable and causes people to lose interest in nearly all activities. Because it affects a person's ability to eat, sleep, work, and function normally, it exacts a huge cost on the economy, estimated at $30 billion dollars annually. The cost in human suffering cannot be measured.

Millions of people diagnosed with depression turn to medication as a treatment, and many of the most popular Continue Reading »