Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion yes­ter­day on life­long cog­ni­tive fit­ness, “men­tal cap­i­tal­ism”, and more,  with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, mod­er­ated by Harry Moody, Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs at AARP. You learn more about upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions Here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Reminder:—> Join Live Q&A with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez by click­ing HERE, today Novem­ber 15th at 11am Pacific Time/ 2pm East­ern Time. Chat about the present and future of cog­ni­tion, learn­ing, brain train­ing, tech­nol­ogy and more with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-founder of SharpBrains.com and co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. You can also learn more about the Brain Fit­ness Q&A Series.

(Editor’s note: below you have part 5 of the 6-part The Neu­ro­bi­ol­ogy of Stress series. If you are join­ing the series now, you can read the pre­vi­ous part Here.)

Stayin’ Alive

The Human Brain Likes to Be in Balance

For­tu­nately, the brain has some built — in safety sys­tems. Too much cor­ti­sol in the blood sig­nals the brain and adrenal glands to decrease cor­ti­sol pro­duc­tion. And under nor­mal con­di­tions, when the stress is over­come or brought under con­trol (by fight­ing, flee­ing, or turn­ing into an immo­bile statue, or by mas­ter­ing the threat), the hypo­thal­a­mus starts send­ing out the orders to stand down. Stop pro­duc­ing cor­ti­sol!  Event over!  Under con­tin­u­ous stress, how­ever, this feed­back sys­tem breaks down. The hypo­thal­a­mus keeps read­ing the stress as a threat, furtively send­ing mes­sages to the pitu­itary gland, which screams out to the adrenal glands to keep pump­ing out cor­ti­sol, which at this point begins to be neu­ro­toxic — poi­son to the brain. Read the rest of this entry »

Pre­dict­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease More Accu­rate Through Cog­ni­tive Changes Than Bio­mark­ers (Med­ical News):

• “Mea­sur­ing people’s changes in cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties is a bet­ter pre­dic­tor of Alzheimer’s dis­ease than changes in bio­mark­ers, researchers from the Ben­ito Menni Com­plex Assis­ten­cial en Salut Men­tal, Barcelona, Spain, reported in Archives of Gen­eral Psy­chi­a­try, a JAMA journal.”
• “The inves­ti­ga­tors used a range of tests to assess Read the rest of this entry »

Obe­sity linked to Cog­ni­tion (Health­Canal):

- “Obese peo­ple tend to per­form worse than healthy peo­ple at cog­ni­tive tasks like plan­ning ahead, a lit­er­a­ture review has found, con­clud­ing that psy­cho­log­i­cal tech­niques used to treat anorex­ics could help obese peo­ple too.” Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. John Docherty is an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try at the Weill Med­ical Col­lege, Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, Direc­tor of Post Grad­u­ate Edu­ca­tion there, and Chief Med­ical Offi­cer of Brain Resource. Trained as a clin­i­cal research fel­low in neu­ropsy­chophar­ma­col­ogy at NIMH, he later returned as Chief of the Psy­choso­cial Treat­ments Research Branch, respon­si­ble for all fed­er­ally sup­ported psy­choso­cial treat­ment research in men­tal health nation­wide. He over­saw the land­mark National Col­lab­o­ra­tive Study of the Treat­ment of Depres­sion and served as a mem­ber and Chair­man for over 10 years on the NIMH and then NIDA Treat­ment Research IRGs. Dr. Docherty has wide expe­ri­ence in suc­cess­fully imple­ment­ing inno­va­tion in both clin­i­cal oper­a­tions and man­aged health care. He founded North­east Psy­chi­atric Asso­ciates in 1985. As National Med­ical Direc­tor for National Med­ical Enter­prises, he over­saw med­ical con­trol and qual­ity improve­ment in 74 hos­pi­tals in 34 states. He was the Exec­u­tive Vice-President and Chief Med­ical Offi­cer for Merit Behav­ioral Care, which then cov­ered 30 mil­lion peo­ple. In 1998, he founded Com­pre­hen­sive Neu­ro­Science (CNS). Its Care Man­age­ment Tech­nolo­gies are cur­rently imple­mented in 17 state Med­ic­aid plans. Dr Docherty has received numer­ous hon­ors and awards and has authored over 100 sci­en­tific publications.

(Editor’s note: this inter­view with Dr. John Docherty was orig­i­nally pub­lished in Sharp­Brains’ mar­ket report Trans­form­ing Brain Health with Dig­i­tal Tools to Assess, Enhance and Treat Cog­ni­tion across the Lifes­pan, pub­lished in July 2010)

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Dr. Docherty, it is a plea­sure to be with you today to dis­cuss the main theme of Sharp­Brains’ 2010 mar­ket report – how the con­ver­gence of sci­en­tific find­ings and tech­nol­ogy plat­forms and tools is reshap­ing how as a soci­ety and as indi­vid­u­als we will take care of cog­ni­tion and men­tal well­ness along the life­course, giv­ing birth to the emerg­ing dig­i­tal brain health and fit­ness mar­ket. Can you first briefly dis­cuss your career tra­jec­tory and your cur­rent role at Brain Resource?

Dr. John Docherty: Sure. The main theme of my work since the 1960s has remained the same, “How do we put knowl­edge into effec­tive use to improve men­tal health?” Over the last cen­tury, med­i­cine made tremen­dous progress in gen­er­at­ing sci­en­tific and clin­i­cal knowl­edge. Basic research dis­cov­ery sci­ence and clin­i­cal treat­ment devel­op­ment sci­ence have made great progress. Within Psy­chi­a­try there was stan­dard set­ting advance in the 1960’s through the NIMH-VA coop­er­a­tive stud­ies to the method­ol­ogy of assess­ing the effi­cacy of psy­chophar­ma­co­log­i­cal drugs. This work estab­lished prin­ci­ples adopted for the study of med­ica­tions in the other areas of med­i­cine. The study of psy­chother­apy, how­ever, lagged in devel­op­ment. In my role of Chief of the Psy­choso­cial Treat­ments Branch of the NIMH , I helped con­tribute to the advance of that work by sup­port­ing the efforts of an extra­or­di­nary group of indi­vid­u­als led by Irene Waskow who car­ried out the TDCRP. This study estab­lished the method­olo­gies that made pos­si­ble the effec­tive sci­en­tific study of the effi­cacy of psy­chother­a­pies. The evi­dence base and of such treat­ments as CBT, DBT, Moti­va­tional Enhance­ment Treat­ment and other evidence-based psy­chother­a­pies derives directly from this study and its sem­i­nal influ­ence. This was a con­tri­bu­tion to the sci­ence of Clin­i­cal Treat­ment Devel­op­ment research.

I would say that my major inter­est, how­ever, has been in the next step, the sci­ence of knowl­edge trans­fer. There has been and remains a long and costly (in terms par­tic­u­larly of unnec­es­sary suf­fer­ing) lag between the devel­op­ment of new knowl­edge and its com­mon and effec­tive use in practice.

In order the help the field moved for­ward, I have worked for the last 20 years in the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of meth­ods to effec­tively trans­fer knowl­edge into prac­tice. Read the rest of this entry »

We often hear inter­est from peo­ple of all ages in being par­tic­i­pants in the cog­ni­tive research we are doing in our UCSF lab. How­ever, all of our exper­i­ments to date have been focused on under 20 year olds and the over 60 age group, and many peo­ple fall in between. Well, we have just launched our first exper­i­ment aimed at explor­ing the impact of dis­trac­tion and mul­ti­task­ing on per­for­mance across the lifes­pan, with a large enough num­ber of par­tic­i­pants to allow for gen­der com­par­isons. So, we are reach­ing to peo­ple of all ages with the oppor­tu­nity to be par­tic­i­pate in this cool new experiment.

This is a behav­ioral study using a video game that we cre­ated and devel­oped to eval­u­ate these skills. It sets the stage for both a brain train­ing and brain record­ing exper­i­ment to fol­low. Tak­ing part requires an approx­i­mately two-hour study at our lab at the UCSF Mis­sion Bay cam­pus (mul­ti­ple days/times avail­able for the test­ing). We are look­ing for right handed indi­vid­u­als that are not col­or­blind, and not on any med­ica­tion for a neurological/psychiatric dis­or­der. Read the rest of this entry »

In spite of the recent eco­nomic down­turn, rev­enues for dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies to assess, enhance and treat cog­ni­tion, or dig­i­tal brain health and fit­ness tools, grew 35% in 2009. “The con­ver­gence of demo­graphic and pol­icy trends with cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science dis­cov­er­ies and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion is giv­ing birth to a nascent mar­ket­place that can fun­da­men­tally trans­form what brain health is, how it is mea­sured, and how it is done,” says Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, mem­ber of the World Eco­nomic Forum’s Coun­cil on the Aging Soci­ety and Editor-in-Chief of the report. “This ground­break­ing report can help pio­neers shape the emerg­ing toolkit to ben­e­fit an aging soci­ety that increas­ingly seeks new ways to enhance cog­ni­tive func­tion­al­ity and men­tal well­ness across the lifespan.”

“As the brain is thrust into the cen­ter of the health­care ecosys­tem, inno­v­a­tive cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness appli­ca­tions will play an increas­ingly impor­tant role in defin­ing neu­ro­cen­tric health,” adds Jake Duna­gan, Research Direc­tor at the Insti­tute For The Future.

Report: Trans­form­ing Brain Health with Dig­i­tal Tools to Assess, Enhance and Treat Cog­ni­tion across the Lifes­pan: The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2010.

A major­ity among the 1,900+ decision-makers and early-adopters sur­veyed said they trusted the effec­tive­ness of non-invasive options above inva­sive options to enhance crit­i­cal brain func­tion­al­ity. Pro­fes­sional and intel­lec­tual chal­lenges were rated very effec­tive by 61% of respon­dents, aer­o­bic exer­cise and read­ing books by 42%, med­i­ta­tion by 38%, com­put­er­ized brain train­ing by 26%, tak­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs by 13%, tak­ing sup­ple­ments by 12%, and self-medicating with drugs by 1%.

These are among the key find­ings of a 207-page mar­ket report released today by Sharp­Brains and pre­pared in col­lab­o­ra­tion with 24 lead­ing sci­en­tists and 10 inno­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions — the most com­pre­hen­sive such research study done to ana­lyze emerg­ing research, tech­nolo­gies and marketplace.

“We must do for brain health in the 21st cen­tury what we largely accom­plished in car­dio­vas­cu­lar health in the past cen­tury. It’s time to take sci­en­tific insights out of the lab and to iden­tify prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions, mak­ing the main­te­nance of good brain fit­ness a pub­lic health pri­or­ity,” indi­cates William Reich­man, MD, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Baycrest.

Other Report High­lights are: Read the rest of this entry »

We just announced a new ses­sion at upcom­ing Sharp­Brains Sum­mit:

Mon­day Jan­u­ary 18th, 2010, 3.30-4pm: The Future of Cog­ni­tive Health Tech – Intel’s Per­spec­tive
Two researchers at Intel Cor­po­ra­tion and the Tech­nol­ogy Research for Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing (TRIL) Cen­tre will pro­vide an overview of why and how Intel Cor­po­ra­tion is sup­port­ing R&D ini­tia­tives to help develop home-based auto­mated appli­ca­tions to assess, mon­i­tor and help main­tain cog­ni­tion among older adults. They will also share key lessons learned so far, and out­line chal­lenges and poten­tial guide­lines for the field at large based on ethno­graphic research and first-hand prod­uct development.

* Mar­garet Mor­ris, Senior Researcher, Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group
* Muki Hansteen-Izora, Prod­uct Research and Incu­ba­tion Divi­sion Strate­gist, Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group

Muki Hansteen-Izora, Senior Design Researcher and Strate­gist with the Prod­uct Research and Incu­ba­tion divi­sion of Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group. Muki is also the Intel lead and co-PI for the Tech­nol­ogy Research for Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing (TRIL) Centre’s Cog­ni­tive Func­tion research strand, which is inves­ti­gat­ing how inter­ac­tive media and gam­ing tech­nolo­gies can sup­port cog­ni­tion in older pop­u­la­tions. Prior to join­ing Intel, Muki served as a lead researcher at Philips Research Labs. He holds a degree in Cul­tural Anthro­pol­ogy from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia at Santa Cruz, and com­pleted his grad­u­ate train­ing in Learn­ing, Design, and Tech­nol­ogy at Stan­ford University.

Mar­garet Mor­ris, Senior Researcher in Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group. Mar­garet stud­ies the ways that emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies can enhance men­tal and phys­i­cal well­be­ing. She con­ducts ethno­graphic research to iden­tify needs and works with engi­neers to develop and eval­u­ate exploratory pro­to­types. Prior to join­ing Intel in 2002, she stud­ied tech­nol­ogy adop­tion in Sapient’s Expe­ri­ence Mod­el­ling group. Margie com­pleted her Ph.D. in Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­ogy with a minor in Behav­ioural Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, her clin­i­cal intern­ship at the San Fran­cisco VA Med­ical Cen­tre, and her post­doc­toral fel­low­ship at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity. She has a B.A. in Eng­lish from Haver­ford College.

To learn more and reg­is­ter: click on Sharp­Brains Sum­mit.

Our inau­gural Sharp­Brains Sum­mit con­tin­ues to grow momen­tum — here goes a quick update.

New Speak­ers:

Thomas M. War­den is Assis­tant Vice Pres­i­dent and Leader of Allstate’s Research and Plan­ning Cen­ter (ARPC). He helps sets ARPC’s research agenda and man­age its exe­cu­tion by 60-member ARPC staff, lead­ing the devel­op­ment of sig­nif­i­cant inno­va­tions that con­tribute to Allstate’s prof­itable growth. He is a Char­tered Finan­cial Ana­lyst and has an M.B.A. from Har­vard University.

Dr. Lau­rence Hir­sh­berg directs the Neu­roDe­vel­op­ment Cen­ter and serves on the fac­ulty of the Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try and Human Behav­ior of the Brown Uni­ver­sity Med­ical School as Clin­i­cal Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor. The Neu­roDe­vel­op­ment Cen­ter is one of the 20 research sites world­wide par­tic­i­pat­ing in the largest study of neu­ro­phys­i­o­log­i­cal mark­ers for depres­sion. Dr. Hir­sh­berg is a licensed clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and cer­ti­fied in EEG biofeed­back by the Biofeed­back Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Insti­tute of Amer­ica, and recently served as Guest Edi­tor and con­trib­u­tor to a spe­cial issue of Child and Ado­les­cent Psy­chi­atric Clin­ics of North Amer­ica devoted to emerg­ing inter­ven­tions in applied neu­ro­science, includ­ing neu­ro­feed­back and other brain based interventions.

New Sil­ver Sponsor:

A.G.E. Mat­ters is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Adult and Geri­atric Eval­u­a­tion Clinic in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with a mis­sion to pro­vide swift and con­tin­u­ally upgraded access to community-based, com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment of cog­ni­tion, func­tion and behav­ior; per­son­al­ized pro­grams of pre­ven­tion, coun­sel­ing, edu­ca­tion and treat­ment; and nutri­tional and lifestyle rec­om­men­da­tions, cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams, and med­ica­tions of proven benefit.

New Part­ners:

The Alzheimer’s Drug Dis­cov­ery Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in 2004 as a pub­lic char­ity to sup­port the advance­ment of drugs to pre­vent, treat, and cure Alzheimer’s dis­ease, related demen­tias, and cog­ni­tive aging. Our strat­egy of ven­ture phil­an­thropy is based on the idea that our research grant recip­i­ents are engaged in projects that are poten­tially viable in the mar­ket­place with a pos­si­ble return on investment.

The Inter­na­tional Coun­cil on Active Aging® (ICAA) was founded in the belief that uni­fy­ing the efforts of the orga­ni­za­tions focused on older adults ben­e­fits both the peo­ple they reach and the orga­ni­za­tions them­selves. Today, the vision is shared by over 8,000 orga­ni­za­tions con­nected to the ICAA network.

The Knowl­edge Media Design Insti­tute (KMDI) is a leader in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research and teach­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto. Our work spans the sci­en­tific study of the ways in which media and media tech­nolo­gies shape, and are shaped by, human activ­ity, and the prac­ti­cal work of found­ing an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary nexus for the design of such media. Adopt­ing a human-centred and par­tic­i­pa­tory approach to design, our goal is to enhance human skill rather than dimin­ish it, and to encour­age cre­ativ­ity and innovation.

The USC Davis School of Geron­tol­ogy has con­sis­tently pio­neered inno­v­a­tive edu­ca­tional pro­grams includ­ing the world’s first Ph.D. in Geron­tol­ogy, the first joint Master’s degree in Geron­tol­ogy and Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, and the first under­grad­u­ate Health Sci­ence Track in Geron­tol­ogy. Research in mol­e­c­u­lar biol­ogy, neu­ro­science, demog­ra­phy, psy­chol­ogy, soci­ol­ogy and pub­lic pol­icy is con­ducted under the aus­pices of the Ethel Percy Andrus Geron­tol­ogy Cen­ter, founded in 1964.

Still much much more work ahead…but we are excited to see how this is shap­ing up!

For more infor­ma­tion, and to Reg­is­ter a early-bird rates, click on Sharp­Brains Sum­mit.