Build­ing Blocks for a Bet­ter Future

The best alter­na­tive for tomor­row should be bet­ter than the best alter­na­tive avail­able today. How do we get there, when “cog­ni­tion” and “brain fit­ness” remain elu­sive con­cepts in pop­u­lar cul­ture? I believe that the lack of pub­lic edu­ca­tion is the major obsta­cle that lim­its the brain fit­ness field’s poten­tial to deliver real-world ben­e­fits, since only informed demand will ensure the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of ratio­nal, struc­tured “rules of the road.” What could be done to address this and other par­tic­u­lar obsta­cles? Read the rest of this entry »

Engag­ing peo­ple where they are in the life-course

Eighty per­cent of the 38,000 adults over age 50 who were respon­ders in the 2010 AARP Mem­ber Opin­ion Sur­vey indi­cated “stay­ing men­tally sharp” was their top ranked inter­est and con­cern (Dinger, 2010). What exactly does this phrase mean? And what role can tech­nol­ogy play in “stay­ing men­tally sharp”? Intel CEO Paul Otellini has said, “You have to start by think­ing about what peo­ple want to do… and work back­ward.” Read the rest of this entry »

The ter­mi­nol­ogy “fun­da­men­tal attri­bu­tion error” describes the ten­dency to over­value personality-based expla­na­tions for observed human behav­iors, while under­valu­ing sit­u­a­tional expla­na­tions for those behav­iors.  I believe that a pri­mary rea­son behind many per­ceived and real eth­i­cal chal­lenges in the brain fit­ness field is due not so much to cer­tain stake­hold­ers’ lack of per­sonal or pro­fes­sional ethics, but derives from the flawed soci­etal con­struct that under­pins cur­rent, rel­e­vant inno­va­tions. To improve the ethics of the brain fit­ness busi­ness and its appli­ca­tion (and empower con­sumers’ informed deci­sion mak­ing), there must first be agree­ment about a mean­ing­ful, appro­pri­ate way to ana­lyze and guide inno­va­tion. This is the crux of the prob­lem. The cur­rent med­ical model is not up to the task at hand, since it is heav­ily skewed toward inva­sive drugs and devices dri­ven by disease-based mod­els, and fails to lever­age Read the rest of this entry »

The recent dis­cov­ery that expe­ri­ence can change brain struc­ture and func­tion at any age has sparked numer­ous health, edu­ca­tion, and pro­duc­tiv­ity appli­ca­tions whose value and lim­i­ta­tions we are only start­ing to grasp.

Brain fit­ness has quickly become a main­stream aspi­ra­tion among baby boomers and elders, pri­mar­ily in North Amer­ica. It has fueled a grow­ing inter­est in brain fit­ness classes, brain fit­ness cen­ters, and brain fit­ness pro­grams, along with atten­dant oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges. An increas­ing num­ber of adults want use­ful tools to pro­tect cog­ni­tive health and performance—not nec­es­sar­ily to reverse aging—and what they are find­ing is an expand­ing and noisy mar­ket­place where they (and also pro­fes­sion­als) need to care­fully eval­u­ate their own needs and the avail­able options (Fer­nan­dez and Gold­berg, 2009). Read the rest of this entry »

Dur­ing a debrief­ing after the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, Rick Moody, Direc­tor of the Office of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs at AARP, sug­gested that I con­tribute a thought-leadership piece to a spe­cial issue on brain health for one of their pro­fes­sional pub­li­ca­tions by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging. You can now read the result, over 3,000 words on “The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom”:

• Tomor­row, Jan­u­ary 5th: Part 1 — The Business
• This Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 6th: Part 2 — The Ethics
• Next Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 9th: Part 3 — The Real Need
• Next Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 10th: Part 4 — The Future

You can track and dis­cuss each part as it becomes avail­able via my Twit­ter account, our Face­book page, LinkedIn group, and RSS feed. Enjoy, and please add your 2 cents!

Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and I, co-authors of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, will cover the main high­lights from our new book and address the ques­tions sub­mit­ted by read­ers.
When: Tues­day July 21st, 10am Pacific Time; 1pm East­ern Time.

How to Reg­is­ter: Click HERE for more infor­ma­tion and to Reg­is­ter.
Title: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness:
18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp

Book descrip­tion: While most of us have heard the phrase “use it or lose it,” very few under­stand what “it” means, or how to prop­erly “use it” in order to main­tain brain func­tion and fit­ness. The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness is an invalu­able guide that helps read­ers nav­i­gate grow­ing brain research and iden­tify the lifestyle fac­tors and prod­ucts that con­tribute to brain fit­ness. By gath­er­ing insights from eigh­teen of the world’s top sci­en­tists and offer­ing tools and detailed descrip­tions of over twenty prod­ucts, this book is an essen­tial guide to the field of brain fit­ness, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive health.

An acces­si­ble and thought-provoking read, The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness edu­cates life­long learn­ers and pro­fes­sion­als in health­care, edu­ca­tion, busi­ness, etc., on emerg­ing trends and fore­casts of what the future will hold.

To order book via Amazon.com:

- Print book ($24.95): click Here
– Kin­dle ver­sion ($9.99): click Here

Our first book is avail­able in Amazon.com!

After sev­eral meet­ings with Dr. Gold­berg, who kindly responded to my ini­tial unso­licited let­ter, we decided to part­ner and cre­ate Sharp­Brains with a mis­sion to “to pro­vide indi­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies and insti­tu­tions with inde­pen­dent, high-quality, research-based, infor­ma­tion and guid­ance to nav­i­gate the grow­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness market.”

Since then, we have launched one of the most pop­u­lar brain web­sites, blogs and newslet­ters, two annual mar­ket reports that have become the stan­dard in our field, a life­long learn­ing cur­ricu­lum taught in mul­ti­ple uni­ver­si­ties, and we are now pleased to bring to you our first book. We hope you enjoy it.

Book descrip­tion: While most of us have heard the phrase “use it or lose it,” very few under­stand what “it” means, or how to prop­erly “use it” in order to main­tain brain func­tion and fit­ness. The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness is an invalu­able guide that helps read­ers nav­i­gate grow­ing brain research and iden­tify the lifestyle fac­tors and prod­ucts that con­tribute to brain fit­ness. By gath­er­ing insights from eigh­teen of the world’s top sci­en­tists and offer­ing tools and detailed descrip­tions of over twenty prod­ucts, this book is an essen­tial guide to the field of brain fit­ness, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive health. An acces­si­ble and thought-provoking read, The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness edu­cates life­long learn­ers and pro­fes­sion­als in health­care, edu­ca­tion, busi­ness, etc., on emerg­ing trends and fore­casts of what the future will hold.

Praise for the book

“Finally, an insight­ful and com­plete overview of the sci­ence, prod­ucts and trends to debunk old myths and help us all main­tain our brains in top shape. A must-read for every­one with a brain – an instant clas­sic.”
—Glo­ria Cavanaugh, for­mer Pres­i­dent & CEO of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and found­ing Board mem­ber of the National Alliance for Caregiving

“The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness offers a valu­able and stim­u­lat­ing blue­print for any­one who wants to grow older sus­tain­ably — that is, with sound mind and good humor. Fer­nan­dez and Gold­berg are the pio­neers we’ve been wait­ing for to help us do exactly that. Buy­ing this book is the ulti­mate no-brainer.“
—Joel Makower, Exec­u­tive Edi­tor, GreenBiz.com, and author, Strate­gies for the Green Economy

“A mas­ter­ful guide to the brain train­ing rev­o­lu­tion. Promises to stim­u­late a much needed con­ver­sa­tion that will nudge soci­ety to build a new brain fit­ness cul­ture on solid, research-based, foun­da­tions.“
—P. Murali Doraiswamy MD, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try, Duke Uni­ver­sity and Co-author of The Alzheimer’s Action Plan

“Our cur­ricu­lum and research cir­cle will begin sum­mer work by read­ing The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, a much-needed new resource to help us bet­ter under­stand our brains and minds and how to nour­ish them through life.“
—Susan E. Hoff­man, Direc­tor, Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute at UC Berkeley

“All of us research­ing healthy brain func­tion owe Sharp­Brains a debt of grat­i­tude for pro­mot­ing a science-based approach to brain health edu­ca­tion and offer­ing an unbi­ased view of the land­scape. Now, with The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg serve up plen­ti­ful food for thought to sat­isfy the grow­ing num­ber of adults who are hun­gry for a healthy mind.“
—Joshua R. Stein­er­man, M.D., Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­ogy and Direc­tor of the Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Dis­ease Clin­i­cal Tri­als Pro­gram at Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Med­i­cine, Mon­te­fiore Med­ical Center

“I am a neu­ro­sur­geon and have a great inter­est in the rapidly advanc­ing field of neu­ro­science, espe­cially the areas of neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis and neu­ro­plas­tic­ity. New devel­op­ments hap­pen so fast that it is dif­fi­cult to keep up. This book by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Elkhonon Gold­berg offers a spec­tac­u­lar intro­duc­tion to the field, valu­able both to the pub­lic at large and health­care pro­fes­sion­als.“
—Guy Otis Daniel­son III, MD, Pres­i­dent of the Neu­ro­Care Net­work Tyler, Texas

“Finally, a book that makes sense out of the con­fus­ing brain fit­ness move­ment! I believe brain fit­ness could very well be the next big thing. Baby boomers like me are get­ting older and we want to stay men­tally sharp, main­tain if not strengthen our cog­ni­tive skills, and above all avoid men­tal decline and Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Unfor­tu­nately, there’s been many con­flict­ing claims and con­fus­ing prod­ucts that has made it dif­fi­cult for me and thou­sands of oth­ers peo­ple to decide just what we should do. Sharp­Brains’ guide is an hon­est, clearly writ­ten exam­i­na­tion of brain fit­ness con­cepts, the under­ly­ing sci­ence, and the best prod­ucts and ser­vices out there. It’s a first-class, pio­neer­ing resource that sum­ma­rizes all I need to know about how to stay sharp for many more years.“
—David Bun­nell, founder of PC, PC World, Mac­world and BioWorld

Con­tinue read­ing about (and order!) The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp

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 Read the rest of this entry »

Here you have a few recent great blog car­ni­vals (col­lec­tions of selected blog posts focused on spe­cific topics):

- Grand Rounds: health and medicine

- Encephalon: neu­ro­science and psychology

- COTC: busi­ness and entrepreneurship

- Human Resources: arti­cles for HR professionals

- Edu­ca­tion: arti­cles for K12 teach­ers and staff

- Tan­gled Bank: gen­eral science 

- Books: good book reviews

 

We also just found a great overview of the brain fit­ness mar­ket in French, sum­ma­riz­ing many of the top­ics we have writ­ten about:

Des logi­ciels qui boos­t­ent le cerveau… et son marché

Here is ques­tion 22 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions.

Ques­tion:

Are there spe­cific brain fit­ness pro­grams for kids? My kids have prob­lems with math-why should they do these things that may dis­tract them?

Key Points:

• Learn­ing stress man­age­ment skills can reduce test anx­i­ety and improve learn­ing readiness.
• If stress lev­els are too high, con­cen­tra­tion and focus are neg­a­tively impacted.

Answer:

Read the rest of this entry »