As part of our ongo­ing mar­ket research we’d like to ask past and cur­rent users of Viv­ity Labs prod­ucts to share their expe­ri­ence with us via this 3-question anony­mous sur­vey. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongo­ing mar­ket research we’d like to ask past and cur­rent users of Learn­ing Enhance­ment Cor­po­ra­tion prod­ucts to share their expe­ri­ence with us via this 3-question anony­mous sur­vey.  Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongo­ing mar­ket research we’d like to ask past and cur­rent users of Dakim prod­ucts to share their expe­ri­ence with us via this 3-question anony­mous sur­vey. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongo­ing mar­ket research we’d like to ask past and cur­rent users of Lumos Labs prod­ucts to share their expe­ri­ence with us via this 3-question anony­mous sur­vey. Please take this sur­vey if you have used a Lumos Labs prod­uct your­self or have seen some­one else use it. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongo­ing mar­ket research we’d like to ask past and cur­rent users of Cog­niFit prod­ucts to share their expe­ri­ence with us via this 3-question anony­mous sur­vey. Please take this sur­vey if you have used a Cog­niFit prod­uct your­self or have seen some­one else use it. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of our ongo­ing mar­ket research we’d like to ask past and cur­rent users of Cogmed prod­ucts to share their expe­ri­ence with us via this 3-question anony­mous sur­vey. Read the rest of this entry »

A new study tries to, but unfor­tu­nately doesn’t, answer that ques­tion. Study: Brain Train­ing Game Improves Exec­u­tive Func­tions and Pro­cess­ing Speed in the Elderly: A Ran­dom­ized Con­trolled Trial (PLoS ONE).

“Con­clu­sions: Our results showed that play­ing Brain Age for 4 weeks could lead to improve cog­ni­tive func­tions (exec­u­tive func­tions and pro­cess­ing speed) in the elderly. This result indi­cated that there is a pos­si­bil­ity which the elderly could improve exec­u­tive func­tions and pro­cess­ing speed in short term train­ing. The results need repli­ca­tion in large sam­ples. Long-term effects and rel­e­vance for every-day func­tion­ing remain uncer­tain as yet.” Read the rest of this entry »

We just came across a new sci­en­tific study on the value and lim­i­ta­tions of cog­ni­tive train­ing in Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (MCI), based on a pro­gram of cog­ni­tive exer­cises pro­vided by Lumos Labs (devel­op­ers of lumosity.com).

Study: Com­put­erised Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Older Per­sons With Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment: A Pilot Study Using a Ran­domised Con­trolled Trial Design (Brain Impair­ment): Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, an announce­ment. We are start­ing a Vir­tual Intern­ship Pro­gram @ Sharp­Brains, allow­ing full-time under­grad and grad stu­dents and post­docs to lead 100-hour projects jointly defined by them­selves and by Sharp­Brains. Inter­ested can­di­dates should Con­tact Us indi­cat­ing a) a pre­lim­i­nary project pro­posal (200 words or less), and b) brief bio and qual­i­fi­ca­tions (200 words or less). Intern­ships don’t require travel and will be paid in-kind, with access to Sharp­Brains reports and con­fer­ence record­ings. Sharp­Brains will select a lim­ited num­ber of Interns based on fit between can­di­dates’ pro­posal and bio and Sharp­Brains mis­sion and activities.

Let’s now explore the lat­est edi­tion of the monthly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, start­ing with a com­pre­hen­sive per­spec­tive on the edu­ca­tional value and lim­i­ta­tions of videogames, writ­ten by Mar­shall Wein­stein, a senior at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity who will be a Sharp­Brains Intern dur­ing the Fall.

Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion and Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing To Enhance Exec­u­tive Func­tions: Two very inter­est­ing new research studies…but please don’t miss the thought-provoking com­ments by reader Jay Kay.

Unlock­ing Dyslexia in Japan­ese: New clues emerge based on the obser­va­tion that some dyslex­ics have an eas­ier time with visual lan­guages like Japan­ese and Chinese.

Does ADHD med­ica­tion treat­ment in child­hood increase adult employ­ment?: A very insight­ful com­men­tary by Dr. David Rabiner.

Boomers’ Abil­ity to Make Finan­cial Deci­sions Often Declines With Age: A new report by Cana­dian bank BMO illus­trates the need for inno­v­a­tive brain fit­ness inter­ven­tions focused on main­tain­ing tar­geted cog­ni­tive func­tion­al­ity. What the report presents as inex­orable decline, it is not.

Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Aware­ness, Test­ing and Pre­ven­tion:  New data rein­forc­e the need to pay­ seri­ous atten­tion to lifestyle-based and non-invasive cog­ni­tive and emo­tional health inter­ven­tions, and the need to per­son­al­ize interventions.

Think­ing glob­ally to improve men­tal health: The National Insti­tutes of Health and the Global Alliance for Chronic Dis­eases announce a Grand Chal­lenges in Global Men­tal Health Ini­tia­tive. We will keep you posted on this.

Have a great month of August and, as always, feel free to share this enewslet­ter with friends and col­leagues… and with poten­tial can­di­dates for the new Vir­tual Intern­ship Pro­gram @ SharpBrains!

Chil­dren who exer­cise vig­or­ously tend to have bet­ter grades. In con­trast, over­weight chil­dren tend to under­achieve. With this in mind, Davis and her col­leagues from Med­ical Col­lege of Geor­gia tested whether par­tic­i­pat­ing in an exer­cise pro­gram would help over­weight chil­dren, not only phys­i­cally but also men­tally. Specif­i­cally, they hypoth­e­sized that the chil­dren exec­u­tive func­tions would ben­e­fit from exer­cis­ing. These func­tions are sup­ported by the frontal lobes of the brain and include plan­ning, goal set­ting, self-control, and inhibition.

171 chil­dren, aged 7 to 11, who were over­weight and inac­tive par­tic­i­pated in the study. They were ran­domly assigned to three groups: a low-dose group doing aer­o­bic exer­cise 20 min/day, a high-dose group (40 min/day) and a no exer­cise con­trol group. The exer­cise pro­gram lasted 13 weeks on aver­age. Read the rest of this entry »