A cou­ple of great blog car­ni­val editions (col­lec­tions of blog posts around spe­cific topics):

- Encephalon: neu­ro­science and psychology.

- Grand Rounds: health and medicine. 

And a good Radar Roundup of brain-related news. Note: our esti­mate for the whole mar­ket in 2007 is $225m, not $110m; and the Con­sumer Seg­ment (mostly Nin­tendo Brain Age/ Acad­emy, but not all) accounts for $80m.

 

You have sur­vived the 2007 shop­ping and eat­ing sea­son. Con­grat­u­la­tions! Now it’s time to shift gears and focus on 2008…whether you write down some New Year res­o­lu­tions or con­tem­plate some things that you want to let go of from last year and set inten­tions and goals for this year — as is a friend’s tra­di­tion on the win­ter solstice.

To sum­ma­rize the key find­ings of the last 20 years of neu­ro­science research on how to “exer­cise our brains”, there are three things that we can strive for: nov­elty, vari­ety and chal­lenge. If we do these three things, we will build new con­nec­tions in our brains, be mind­ful and pay atten­tion to our envi­ron­ment, improve cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties such as pattern-recognition, and in gen­eral con­tribute to our life­long brain health.

With these three prin­ci­ples of brain health in mind — nov­elty, vari­ety and chal­lenge — let me sug­gest a few poten­tial New Years res­o­lu­tions, per­haps some unex­pected, that will help you make 2008 a year of Brain Fit­ness: Read the rest of this entry »

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 Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

I am delighted to par­tic­i­pate in LifeTwo’s “How to be Hap­pier” week with this post. Hap­pi­ness is still largely unchar­tered ter­ri­tory for neu­ro­science. It sounds like a hid­den, elu­sive El Dorado. How­ever, once one fol­lows pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy research and Harvard’s Dr. Ben-Shahar’s advice, “The ques­tion should not be whether you are happy but what you can do to become hap­pier”, the hap­pi­ness quest starts to become more tan­gi­ble and work­able accord­ing to lat­est neu­ro­science research.

We are now going to explore the four key con­cepts of Dr. Ben-Shahar’s state­ment — 1) “you”, 2) “can”, 3) “do”, and 4) “hap­pier” — from a neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal perspective.

1) Who is “you”? Accord­ing to lat­est sci­en­tific under­stand­ing, what we expe­ri­ence as “mind”, our aware­ness, emerges from the phys­i­cal brain. So, if we want to refine our minds, we bet­ter start by under­stand­ing and train­ing our brains. A very impor­tant real­ity to appre­ci­ate: each brain is unique, since it reflects our unique life­time expe­ri­ences. Sci­en­tists have already shown how even adult brains retain a sig­nif­i­cant abil­ity to con­tin­u­ally gen­er­ate new neu­rons and lit­er­ally rewire them­selves. So, each of us is unique, with our own aspi­ra­tions, emo­tional pref­er­ences, capac­i­ties, and each of us in con­tin­u­ally in flux. A pow­er­ful con­cept to remind our­selves: “you” can become hap­pier means that “you” are the only per­son who can take action and eval­u­ate what works for “you”. And “you” means the mind that emerges from your own, very per­sonal, unique, and con­stantly evolv­ing, brain. Which only “you” can train.

2) Why the use of “can”? Well, this reminds me a great quote by Span­ish neu­ro­sci­en­tist San­ti­ago Ramon y Cajal, who said that “Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculp­tor of his own brain”. Each of us has immense poten­tial. How­ever, in the same way that Michaelangelo’s David didn’t spon­ta­neously appear out-of-the-blue one day, becom­ing hap­pier requires atten­tion, inten­tion, and actual practice.

Atten­tion: Every sec­ond, you choose what to pay atten­tion to. You can focus on the neg­a­tive and thereby train your brain to focus on the neg­a­tive. You can Read the rest of this entry »

Brain Fit­ness doesn’t require the use of expen­sive equip­ment. Your brain is enough. Today we are hon­ored to inter­view Dr. Judith Beck on how cog­ni­tive tech­niques can be applied to develop a num­ber of impor­tant men­tal skills. The lat­est appli­ca­tion of these?. Los­ing weight.

Dr. Judith Beck is the Direc­tor of the Beck Insti­tute for Cog­ni­tive Ther­apy and Research, Clin­i­cal Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­ogy in Psy­chi­a­try at the Uni­ver­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia, and author of Cog­ni­tive Ther­apy: Basics and Beyond. Her most recent book is The Beck Diet Solu­tion: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Per­son.

Dr. Beck, thanks for your time. What does the Beck Insti­tute do?

We have 3 main activ­i­ties. One, we train prac­ti­tion­ers and researchers through a vari­ety of train­ing pro­grams. Two, we pro­vide clin­i­cal care. Three, we are involved in research on cog­ni­tive therapy.

Please explain cog­ni­tive ther­apy in a few sentences

Cog­ni­tive ther­apy, as devel­oped by my father Aaron Beck, is a com­pre­hen­sive sys­tem of psy­chother­apy, based on the idea that the way peo­ple per­ceive their expe­ri­ence influ­ences their emo­tional, behav­ioral, and phys­i­o­log­i­cal responses. Part of what we do is to help peo­ple solve the prob­lems they are fac­ing today. We also teach them cog­ni­tive and behav­ioral skills to mod­ify their dys­func­tional think­ing and actions.

I under­stand that cog­ni­tive ther­apy has been tested for many years in a vari­ety of clin­i­cal appli­ca­tions. What moti­vated you to bring those tech­niques to the weight-loss field by writ­ing The Beck Diet Solution?

Since the begin­ning, I have pri­mar­ily Read the rest of this entry »

If you are based in North Cal­i­for­nia, you may be inter­ested in the classes just announced by the UC Berke­ley Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute. “Berke­ley OLLI is an inquir­ing and stim­u­lat­ing com­mu­nity of adults, age 50 and above, explor­ing new areas of knowl­edge and tra­di­tional dis­ci­plines, chal­leng­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing sub­jects.” If you are not in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area, you can check the clos­est Life­long Learn­ing Cen­ter to you in either the Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute net­work or the Elder­hos­tel one.

You can see a list­ing of their classes for the Fall 2007 ses­sion, on a fas­ci­nat­ing vari­ety of top­ics. Keep­ing our edu­ca­tional activ­i­ties since 2005 (first deliv­ered in SFSU), I will be teach­ing the fol­low­ing class

The Sci­ence of Brain Health and Brain Fit­ness (more here)

Octo­ber 9-30th, 4 classes, 6.30–8.30pm

Loca­tion: Uni­ver­sity Hall, UC Berkeley

Descrip­tion: Neu­ro­sci­en­tists have shown how the human brain retains neu­ro­plas­tic­ity (the abil­ity to rewire itself) and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis (cre­ation of new neu­rons) dur­ing its full life­time, lead­ing to a new under­stand­ing of what aging means. In this class, we will review the sci­ence behind some of key con­cepts in this field and explore their impli­ca­tions on our lifestyles: neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, the Cog­ni­tive Reserve the­ory for healthy aging, computer-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams, emo­tional self-regulation, and the 4 pil­lars for life­long Brain Health. We have all heard “Use it or lose it”. Lat­est research sug­gests, “Use it and improve it”.

If you are inter­ested in learn­ing more about the classes, you can attend the open House on Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 18, 10:00 am to 12:00 noon, at the Berke­ley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue, Berke­ley. I can only say that the SFSU classes were a lot of fun and I am sure the Berke­ley ones will be as compelling.

We are very excited to announce a work­shop hosted jointly by the Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tutes (OLLI) at Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley and San Fran­cisco State Uni­ver­sity and Sharp­Brains (us!). We are offer­ing a three-day work­shop for edu­ca­tors and brain fit­ness prac­ti­tion­ers seek­ing instruc­tional cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in the Sharp­Brains course, Exer­cis­ing Our Brains.

“Sharp­Brains has intro­duced the first science-based brain fit­ness cen­ter with infor­ma­tion and pro­grams to help peo­ple of all ages exer­cise their brains. They have offered the pop­u­lar Exer­cis­ing Our Brains course at SF State’s Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute (OLLI) since Octo­ber 2005.”

Are you see­ing all the arti­cles about Brain Fit­ness in the pop­u­lar 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?. As the lead­ing source of infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion on Brain Fit­ness, we have deliv­ered a series of cus­tomized train­ing ses­sions to com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions that com­bine mod­ules –includ­ing sci­en­tific overview, the indus­try trends and key play­ers, fun team-building exer­cises– that can be tai­lored to your organization’s spe­cific needs. Ses­sions last from 1 to 6 hours, depend­ing on your group’s com­po­si­tion and agenda and are deliv­ered either in per­son or via web con­fer­ence. If you want more infor­ma­tion on Sharp­Brains work­shops for your insti­tu­tion click on Work­shops.

Who should attend:

Edu­ca­tors and prac­ti­tion­ers who are seek­ing to teach the course Exer­cis­ing Our Brains. Ideal can­di­dates are: edu­ca­tors who are work­ing in the area of psy­chol­ogy, health, and well­ness, and who are ide­ally already affil­i­ated with learn­ing cen­ters eager to offer a brain fit­ness class.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cog­ni­tive Daily brings an intrigu­ing arti­cle titled Is the­ater the ulti­mate brain fit­ness prod­uct?, based on research pub­lished in 2004 by Helga and Tony Noice.

Very inter­est­ing results on mem­ory and problem-solving. Will inves­ti­gate whether that exper­i­ment has been repli­cated since then and we can rec­om­mend such a fun (and demand­ing) brain fit­ness activity!

If you live in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area, you may be inter­ested in the Geezer The­ater orga­nized by one of our part­ners, the Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute.

When is Brain Aware­ness Week?

March 12–18, 2007

What Will Happen

The Brain Aware­ness Week is a great oppor­tu­nity to learn more about how the brain func­tions and how to cul­ti­vate a healthy brain. The Dana Foun­da­tion and mul­ti­ple part­ners, such as Sharp­Brains, will lead out­reach events world­wide.

In the blog of the Dana Foun­da­tion we can read today that “To my knowl­edge, the brain is the only organ in the human body that is cel­e­brated and hon­ored for an entire week. This year, 2,000 orga­ni­za­tions in 69 coun­tries will observe Brain Aware­ness Week with activ­i­ties, exhibits and com­pe­ti­tions, most from March 12 through 18.”

SharpBrains-Related Activ­i­ties Dur­ing Brain Aware­ness Week

• Brain Fit­ness Aware­ness: 35 dif­fer­ent Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tutes across the United States will dis­trib­ute our Brain Fit­ness 101 guide and other mate­ri­als to their mem­bers for free. Read the rest of this entry »