Just a quick note to announce a new Sil­ver Spon­sor of the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, and link to a cou­ple stim­u­lat­ing online conversations.

The Insti­tute For the Future is an inde­pen­dent, non­profit strate­gic research group with more than 40 years of fore­cast­ing expe­ri­ence. The core of our work is iden­ti­fy­ing emerg­ing trends and dis­con­ti­nu­ities that will trans­form global soci­ety and the global mar­ket­place. We pro­vide our mem­bers with insights into busi­ness strat­egy, design process, inno­va­tion, and social dilem­mas. Our research spans a broad ter­ri­tory of deeply trans­for­ma­tive trends, from health and health care to tech­nol­ogy, the work­place, and human iden­tity. The Insti­tute for the Future is located in Palo Alto, California.

I have been col­lab­o­rat­ing infor­mally with IFTF projects for a few years, and it is excit­ing to col­lab­o­rate on the upcom­ing Sum­mit and related work.

Now, two stim­u­lat­ing links:

1) Ency­clo­pe­dia Bri­tan­nica Blog is host­ing an online con­ver­sa­tion on Multi-tasking:

“Mul­ti­task­ing” remem­ber when that was some­thing com­put­ers did? They were sup­posed to do it for our ben­e­fit, to make our lives eas­ier, but some­how it hasn’t quite worked out that way. With fast com­put­ers, the Inter­net, and smart phones in our pock­ets, today we’re always teth­ered to The Net­work, and some­times it seems we’re doing its bid­ding instead of it doing ours. There’s so much to do, it comes at us so fast, and it all has to be done now. The solu­tion: for­get what you were taught about doing one thing at a time and start doing sev­eral things at once. Call your office from the express­way. Bring that Black­berry to the meet­ing. Answer e-mails over din­ner. Multitask.

Of course, whether mul­ti­task­ing really is effi­cient is a mat­ter both of pub­lic debate and clin­i­cal research, and it’s just one of the ques­tions we plan to get into next week in a new forum on the sub­ject here at the Bri­tan­nica Blog.”

You can par­tic­i­pate Here.

2) For extra brain & mind read­ing, you can visit  yesterday’s Encephalon edi­tion at The Mouse Trap. Enjoy!

Here you have the Novem­ber edi­tion of our monthly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page.

Liv­ing Well to 100

100 is the new 65: Why do some peo­ple live, and well, to 100? Researchers are try­ing to find out, reports Meera Lee Sethi at Greater Good Mag­a­zine. They are dis­cov­er­ing that genetic fac­tors may account for only 20 to 30 per­cent of a person’s lifes­pan, while envi­ron­men­tal and behav­ioral fac­tors can dic­tate the other 70 to 80 percent.

Does cof­fee boost cog­ni­tive func­tions over time? Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon weighs the evi­dence and reports good and bad news. The good news: long-term effects seem more pos­i­tive than neg­a­tive, so cof­fee leads to no clear harm. The bad news: there are no clear ben­e­fi­cial effects on gen­eral brain func­tions (impli­ca­tion for pro­po­nents of “smart pills”: don’t use cof­fee as the analogy).

10 Inno­va­tions for the Aging Soci­ety: In the Thanksgiving’s spirit, we want to thank 10 pio­neers for emerg­ing inno­va­tions that may help mil­lions of peo­ple alive today to keep our brains in top shape per­haps till we are 100 or more. Many of those pio­neers will par­tic­i­pate in the inau­gural Sharp­Brains Sum­mit.

In Autopi­lot?

Train your autopilot.…and how to turn it off: Madeleine Van Hecke, Ph.D shares an excerpt from The Brain Advan­tage, in which she encour­ages main­tain­ing men­tal “autopi­lot” when it’s work­ing well, yet shift­ing to more con­scious delib­er­a­tions when needed.

Sci­en­tia Pro Pub­lica:  A good way to turn off autopi­lot is to enjoy some great sci­ence and nature blog­ging, cour­tesy of Sci­en­tia Pro Pub­lica blog car­ni­val. Addi­tion­ally, you can enjoy read­ing some of the best neu­ro­science, psy­chol­ogy and med­ical blog­ging at the first ever com­bined Grand Rounds/ Encephalon edi­tion.

Games for Health

Games for Health Research: The Robert Wood John­son Foun­da­tion announced more than $1.85 mil­lion in grants for research teams to study how dig­i­tal games can improve play­ers health. One of the grantees is UCSF’s Adam Gaz­za­ley (who will be speak­ing at the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit) to develop a dri­ving game for cog­ni­tive fit­ness among younger and older adults.

Smart industry-research col­lab­o­ra­tion: Lumos Labs and researchers Susanne Jaeggi and Mar­tin Buschkuehl announce a col­lab­o­ra­tion to make the orig­i­nal Dual N-Back work­ing mem­ory train­ing pro­gram avail­able online and use it for ongo­ing research.

News

Mar­ian C. Dia­mond to open Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Kick­ing off our Jan­u­ary 2010 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is Mar­ian C. Dia­mond, one of the pio­neers of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity research since the 1960s. She will intro­duce us to the human brain, its anatomy and func­tion, and impli­ca­tions of  neu­ro­plas­tic­ity for brain health and per­for­mance at any age.

The Sharp­Brains Guide’s reviews and inter­views: a col­lec­tion of links to inter­views and reviews of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion (members-only): Dis­cus­sion on the future of com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­apy; United BioSource acquires Cog­ni­tive Drug Research; inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ship between Nav­i­gen­ics and Posit Sci­ence; new research on brain impact of Tetris; how a drop in visual skills may pre­cede Alzheimer’s Dis­ease;  excel­lent report by the National Acad­e­mies for the US Army avail­able for free now.

Brain Teaser

Who will you believe, me or your own eyes? dis­cover the 3 Win­ners of the 2009 Best Visual Illu­sion of the Year Con­test. Neu­ro­sci­en­tists Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Mack­nik, who help orga­nize the con­test, will give a fun demo on Magic and the Brain at Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, to dis­cuss the lim­its of human per­cep­tion and cognition.

Enjoy the final month of 2009!

Encephalon (brain & mind blog car­ni­val, edi­tion ) finally meets Grand Rounds (health & med­i­cine blog carnival).

What a nice sur­prise. Hello. Nice to meet you!

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Note: Chronic Babe wins a com­pli­men­tary copy of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness for basi­cally invent­ing cog­ni­tive sleep ther­apy. Con­grats!

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Life and Death

Mind­Hacks dis­cusses an unex­pected surge in brain activ­ity when blood pres­sure drops to zero.

In Sick­ness & In Health suf­fers a death in the fam­ily. Adam shem tov. A man of good name.

Brain­Blog­ger won­ders, is reli­gion a “nat­ural” phe­nom­e­non?

Mind and Empathy

Behav­ior­ism & Men­tal Health finds that every­one can have a men­tal ill­ness — take a look at “Adjust­ment Dis­or­der”.

ACP Internist rein­forces the impor­tance of empa­thy. Novel Patient encour­ages patients to dream big, Flo­re­cen­dot­com high­lights how patients them­selves con­tribute to patient safety. The Hip­po­cratic Oaf dis­cusses the feel­ings of a med­ical stu­dent. Clin­i­cal Cases won­ders what doc­tors  in train­ing carry in their white coats.

Advances in the His­tory of Psy­chol­ogy exam­ines an impor­tant early step in the jour­ney to con­cep­tu­al­ize cog­ni­tion and emo­tion from a neural point of view.

The Fit­ness Fixer empathizes with her feet.

Brain

How to Cope With Pain dis­cusses a con­tro­ver­sial treat­ment for severe pain.

Neu­rophiloso­pher shows how vision (view­ing one’s body) can mod­u­late the senses of touch and pain. Fun exper­i­ments  included. Neu­r­o­critic takes things one step fur­ther, and takes us to the poten­tial future of tat­too removal.

Prov­i­den­tia announces a new NFL Con­cus­sion Com­mit­tee. 300,000 sports-related trau­matic brain injuries occur in the United States alone each year.

Sharp­Brains answers 15 com­mon ques­tions related to neu­ro­plas­tic­ity.

Med­ical Smart­phones Read the rest of this entry »

Quick heads up: the lat­est edi­tion of Encephalon brain & mind blog car­ni­val is Here, nicely hosted by Neuroskeptic.

New edi­tion of Encephalon, the selec­tion of recent blog posts on brain & mind top­ics, this time hosted by Mike at Ion­ian Enchant­ment. Enjoy Encephalon’s #75 edi­tion!

A new edi­tion is out, this time hosted by David at Neu­ronar­ra­tive. Visit Encephalon #74 edi­tion if you have an appetite for great brain & mind blog­ging, and some time to relax and enjoy!

Dave hosts a fun iCephalon 2009 Keynote address (AKA Encephalon 72), a col­lec­tion of the best brain and mind blog posts of the last cou­ple weeks. Enjoy!

The Neu­roan­thro­pol­ogy blog team has just pub­lished one of the most com­plete and high-quality edi­tions of Encephalon brain & mind blog car­ni­val in months. Enjoy!:
Encephalon #71: Big Night

Wel­come to the 70th edi­tion of Encephalon, the blog car­ni­val that offers some of the best neu­ro­science and psy­chol­ogy blog posts every other week.

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Mys­ter­ies of Brain and Mind

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On Neu­rons, Jour­neys, and Chem­i­cal Friends

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On Brain Functions

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Fron­tiers in Perception

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Next edi­tion will be hosted by Neu­roan­thro­pol­ogy on Mon­day, May 25th. If you can’t wait until to read more, you may be inter­ested in the new in-depth fea­ture, Cog­ni­tive Monthly, offered by Cog­ni­tive Daily blog for $2/ month. This month’s issue, “The Illu­sion of The­ater,” dis­cusses the “remark­able sci­ence behind what the­atri­cal pro­fes­sion­als seem, to laypeo­ple, to do intu­itively: cre­ate an envi­ron­ment that encour­ages us to believe that what we see on stage is a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of reality.”

Round-up of recent arti­cles on neu­ro­science, brain devel­op­ment and cog­ni­tive health:

Encephalon 68: A car­ni­val of neu­ro­science:

Chris hosts a great col­lec­tion of neu­ro­science and psy­chol­ogy posts in his sig­na­ture Q&A style.

Bilin­gual Babies Get Head Start — Before They Can Talk:

- Unlike the mono­lin­gual group, the bilin­gual group was able to suc­cess­fully learn a new sound type and use it to pre­dict where each char­ac­ter would pop up.

- The bilin­gual babies’ skill applies to more than just switch­ing between lan­guages. Mehler likened this appar­ently enhanced cog­ni­tive abil­ity to a brain select­ing “the right tool for the right oper­a­tion” also called exec­u­tive function.

- In this basic process, the brain, ever flex­i­ble, nim­bly switches from one learned response to another as sit­u­a­tions change.

- Mono­lin­gual babies hone this abil­ity later in their young lives, Mehler suggests.”

Study shows how kids’ stress hurts mem­ory:

“Now, research is pro­vid­ing what could be cru­cial clues to explain how child­hood poverty trans­lates into dim­mer chances of suc­cess: Chronic stress from grow­ing up poor appears to have a direct impact on the brain, leav­ing chil­dren with impair­ment in at least one key area — work­ing memory.”

Return­ing troops get­ting tested for brain injuries:

- “More than 150,000 ser­vice mem­bers from the Marines, Air Force, Army and Navy have under­gone the test­ing that became manda­tory last year. Those who suf­fer a con­cus­sion or sim­i­lar head injury will get a follow-up test.”

Dia­betes ‘impact on brain power’:

- “Fail­ure to con­trol type 2 dia­betes may have a long-term impact on the brain, research has suggested.

- Lead researcher Dr Jackie Price said: “Either hypos lead to cog­ni­tive decline, or cog­ni­tive decline makes it more dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to man­age their dia­betes, which in turn causes more hypos.

- “A third expla­na­tion could be that a third uniden­ti­fied fac­tor is caus­ing both the hypos and the cog­ni­tive decline.”