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.

Sev­eral hun­dred peo­ple par­tic­i­pated in our first Brain Fit­ness Webi­nar Series, and are glad how the exper­i­ment well. We are already think­ing of top­ics and speak­ers for a sec­ond one, so stay tuned!

In case you couldn’t attend them, we are shar­ing the slides we used (we did not record the webi­nar ses­sions). Here you go:

1) Webi­nar #1: Pre­sen­ta­tion Slides Here.

In “The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket, 2008, I pro­vided an overview of the sci­ence, mar­ket, and ven­dor land­scape of the emerg­ing brain fit­ness soft­ware mar­ket, based on our recent mar­ket report.
– Tar­get audi­ence: Exec­u­tives, pro­fes­sion­als, investors, reporters and blog­gers inter­ested in learn­ing more about the brain fit­ness mar­ket.
– More infor­ma­tion: Mar­ket Report.

2) Webi­nar #2: Pre­sen­ta­tion Slides Here.

In “Brain Rules for Think­ing Smarter, John Med­ina, devel­op­men­tal mol­e­c­u­lar biologist

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been trav­el­ling much over the last 2 weeks to speak at a num­ber of con­fer­ences and uni­ver­si­ties. I promised I would be shar­ing some of the key high­lights, but we have decided to do some­thing bet­ter to do jus­tice to the rich­ness and com­plex­ity of the field we cover. We are going to launch an exper­i­ment: a Brain Fit­ness Webi­nar Series.

This inau­gural Brain Fit­ness Webi­nar Series will con­sist of 3 free live ses­sions. The series cov­ers the most fun­da­men­tal advances in cog­ni­tive sci­ence and their impli­ca­tions for indi­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions. And we are hon­ored to have John Med­ina lead of the sessions!

Each event is inde­pen­dent, in topic and in reg­is­tra­tion process.

Webi­nar #1: In “The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket, 2008, I will pro­vide an overview of the sci­ence, mar­ket, and ven­dor land­scape of the emerg­ing brain fit­ness soft­ware mar­ket, based on our recent mar­ket report on this grow­ing cat­e­gory.
– Tar­get audi­ence: Exec­u­tives, pro­fes­sion­als, investors, reporters and blog­gers inter­ested in learn­ing more about the brain fit­ness mar­ket.
– More infor­ma­tion: Mar­ket Report.
– Date and time: Tues­day May 27th, 2pm EDT/ 11am PDT
Reg­is­ter: Here

Webi­nar #2: In “Brain Rules for Think­ing Smarter, John Med­ina, devel­op­men­tal mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gist and author of Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Striv­ing and Thriv­ing at Work, Home, and School will empha­size the impor­tance of phys­i­cal exer­cise, stress man­age­ment and avoid­ing mul­ti­task­ing alto­gether.
– Tar­get audi­ence: Any­one who wants to learn more about brain health and per­for­mance.
– More infor­ma­tion: The Sci­ence of Think­ing Smarter, by John Med­ina.
– Date and time: Tues­day June 3rd, 2pm EDT/ 11am PDT
Reg­is­ter: Here

Webi­nar #3: In “The Sci­ence and Prac­tice of Brain Fit­ness,” I will pro­vide an overview of the Brain 101, lat­est research find­ings and impli­ca­tions for how to improve brain health and per­for­mance based on my classes and speak­ing engage­ments.
– Tar­get audi­ence: Any­one who wants to learn more about brain health and per­for­mance
– Date and time: Tues­day June 10th, 2pm EDT/ 11am PDT
Reg­is­ter: Here

I hope you find this series stim­u­lat­ing. Just pick the event that sounds more rel­e­vant to your interests!

Very good arti­cle in Mar­ket­Watch titled Beat­ing for­get­ful­ness and boost­ing the brain. Prob­a­bly the best we have seen so far pro­vid­ing an over­all indus­try per­spec­tive on a nascent field. I rec­om­mend read­ing the whole arti­cle, but here you have some teasers:

• “As boomers age, the drive to cor­rect such dis­com­fort has impli­ca­tions for health and well­ness, employ­ment and cor­po­rate train­ing — even sports. It’s giv­ing rise to a bur­geon­ing busi­ness of brain-boosting prod­ucts and ser­vices, as well as explo­ration into “cog­ni­tive enhanc­ing” pre­scrip­tion drugs.”
• “The mar­ket for brain-fitness soft­ware tar­get­ing U.S. adults is esti­mated to be $80 mil­lion to $100 mil­lion this year, up from $60 mil­lion last year and $2 mil­lion in 2005, accord­ing to Sharp­Brains, a San Francisco-based por­tal that helps indi­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies nav­i­gate brain-training infor­ma­tion, prod­ucts and services.”
• “It’s also easy to con­fuse age-related mem­ory prob­lems with the effects of undi­ag­nosed depres­sion or anx­i­ety, which are reversible, said Dr. Gene Cohen, direc­tor of the Cen­ter on Aging, Health & Human­i­ties at George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity Med­ical Center”
• “The busi­ness of brain train­ing started tak­ing off after Read the rest of this entry »