Time for Sharp­Brains’ Jan­u­ary 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing in this occa­sion mul­ti­ple thought-provoking per­spec­tives on how emerg­ing neu­ro­science can and should make us rethink pre­vail­ing prac­tices in edu­ca­tion, healthy aging and pre­ven­tive medicine.

Fea­tured Perspectives:

• The Future of Pre­ven­tive Brain Med­i­cine: Break­ing Down the Cog­ni­tion & Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Alpha­bet Soup, by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa
• When 1 + 1 = 5: Dyscal­cu­lia and Work­ing Mem­ory, by Dr. Tracy Alloway
• New Review of Neu­ro­feed­back Treat­ment for ADHD — Cur­rent State of the Sci­ence, by Dr. David Rabiner
• The Busi­ness and Ethics of the Brain Fit­ness Boom, by Alvaro Fernandez
• (How to con­tribute arti­cles like these to SharpBrains.com)

New Research: 

• Brain func­tion can start declin­ing as early as age 45
• Edu­ca­tion for Men­tal Fit­ness: “A Sharper Mind, Mid­dle Age and Beyond”
• Life­long cog­ni­tive exer­cise may ward off Alzheimer’s pro­tein beta amyloid
• Cog­ni­tive Train­ing & Brain Teasers Can Increase Open­ness Among Older Adults
• Cog­ni­tive Train­ing in Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (MCI)
• Does Nin­tendo Brain Age work as a brain train­ing game?
• Brain Injury Care: Treat­ment and Reim­burse­ment Challenges

Resources:

• The Ten Habits of a Sharp Brain
• Brain Teasers and Games, for Kids and Adults
• Upcom­ing Talk & Book Sign­ing in Wash­ing­ton, DC

Have a great month of February.

We are pleased to report that the AARP’s Best Books Series: Brain Fit­ness List (link opens PDF doc­u­ment you can view, down­load and print at AARP web­site) is finally offi­cially avail­able, described as “a list­ing for pub­lic libraries of well-prepared books on main­tain­ing a sharp and fit mind through­out the aging process.” Read the rest of this entry »

A cou­ple of very inter­est­ing recent announce­ments show (in a mil­i­tary con­text) how well-targeted brain train­ing can com­ple­ment and aug­ment exist­ing approaches, both to help “nor­mal” and “clin­i­cal” pop­u­la­tions, in ways that silo-based, rear-mirror think­ing often misses: Read the rest of this entry »

I was really inter­ested in the recent cri­tique of the BBC brain train­ing exper­i­ment by Dr. Eliz­a­beth Zelin­ski. I think Owens et al (2010) was a crit­i­cal piece of research which was not con­ducted in the right way and was focus­ing on the wrong sam­ple pop­u­la­tion.  I totally agree with the com­ments by Dr. Zelin­ski regard­ing the poten­tial for sam­ple bias and the use of some ques­tion­able cog­ni­tive mea­sures. How­ever, I would like to take this cri­tique fur­ther and ques­tion whether the study was value for money when there are other stud­ies which can­not achieve fund­ing but would, in my opin­ion, show the criticism/scepticism of the use-it-or-lose-it theory.

I think there is not enough crit­i­cism about the age of the sam­ple pop­u­la­tion used in Owens et al. (2010). We have con­clu­sive cog­ni­tive and neu­ro­log­i­cal evi­dence that cognitive/neurological plas­tic­ity exists in young adults. There is also ade­quate evi­dence that neu­ro­plas­tic­ity is evi­dent in older adults. The crit­i­cal point which I want to make about the sam­ple pop­u­la­tion in Owens et al. study is that it did not tar­get the cor­rect sam­ple pop­u­la­tion, that is, older adults who are at risk of cognitive/neuronal atro­phy. It does not mat­ter if younger adults improve on brain train­ing tasks, or if skills picked up by younger adults from brain train­ing are not trans­ferred to other cog­ni­tive domains, sim­ply because younger adults are good at these skills/cognitive func­tions. There­fore there is a pos­si­bil­ity that ceil­ing or scal­ing effects mask the true find­ings in Owens et al. (2010), as indi­cated by Zelinski.

The recruit­ment of the sam­ple pop­u­la­tion is also very con­cern­ing and I do not feel that their con­trol group was appro­pri­ate. Read the rest of this entry »

The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to co-produce a pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment day for pro­fes­sion­als in the field of aging. The day is themed “New Tools, New Part­ner­ships”, and will take place on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2009, dur­ing ASA’s West Coast Con­fer­ence on Aging, in the Oak­land Mar­riot City Cen­ter, Oak­land, CA.

“Given aging pop­u­la­tion trends, it is clear that we need more and bet­ter trained aging pro­fes­sion­als, and that brain health needs to be a major com­po­nent in that train­ing. We are pleased to part­ner with Sharp­Brains to offer the lat­est think­ing, best prac­tices, and resources, to our mem­bers,” said Car­ole Ander­son, Vice Pres­i­dent of Education.

“The grow­ing inter­est in brain health and fit­ness among con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als alike needs to be accom­pa­nied by high-quality edu­ca­tional ini­tia­tives to help sep­a­rate real­ity from hope from hype. We are hon­ored to part­ner with the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging in this impor­tant endeavor,” said Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO & co-founder of Sharp­Brains and co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Descrip­tion and How to Reg­is­ter
Since 2006, healthy aging pio­neers have been actively eval­u­at­ing and imple­ment­ing an expand­ing menu of stim­u­lat­ing brain health pro­grams. The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to intro­duce aging pro­fes­sion­als to the best prac­tices in a vari­ety of community-based and res­i­den­tial set­tings, dis­cuss emerg­ing trends that will affect your work in years to come, and offer you resources to under­stand and nav­i­gate through the grow­ing array of options.

Par­tic­i­pants will receive a com­pli­men­tary and signed copy of the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (May 2009, $24.95).

Learn­ing objec­tives are:

- Under­stand the com­ple­men­tary value the four main lifestyle pil­lars for life­long brain health and why “men­tal exer­cise”, beyond sim­ple “men­tal activ­ity”, is one of them.
– Iden­tify the best mix of brain health prac­tices and tech­nolo­gies by dis­cussing real world case stud­ies in a vari­ety of set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, assisted liv­ing.
– Dis­cuss the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of build­ing inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships between a non-profit orga­ni­za­tions and a for-profit com­pa­nies.
– Explore emerg­ing trends in research, pub­lic health, life­long learn­ing, and tech­nol­ogy, to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

When and where: Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2009, at the Oak­land Mar­riott City Center.

Reg­is­tra­tion fees for Sharp­Brains clients and read­ers are $150 (offi­cial fees are $180) . Fee is for the full day ses­sion and includes up to six hours of CEU cred­its plus book and materials.

You can Reg­is­ter HERE, using Part­ner Orga­ni­za­tion Code: WCSB.

The Pro­gram
9:00 — 10:30 am Keynote– The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness

This ses­sion will pro­vide an overview of the most recent research, guide­lines and resources to “Use It and Improve It”, sum­ma­riz­ing the main find­ings and top­ics from the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. It will debunk 10 brain fit­ness myths; dis­cuss how the brain works and the 4 pil­lars of brain main­te­nance; explain the dif­fer­ence between men­tal exer­cise and men­tal activ­ity and iden­tify research-based ways to exer­cise our brains; and review what 21 brain fit­ness soft­ware pack­ages do and what they don’t do. Finally, the ses­sion will dis­cuss emerg­ing trends to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

- Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

11:00 to 12:00 noon Bring­ing Brain Fit­ness to the Com­mu­nity Center

Sci­ence con­tin­ues to high­light the impor­tance of stay­ing active men­tally as well as phys­i­cally; peo­ple of all ages and sit­u­a­tions face the chal­lenge of learn­ing what brain exer­cise is, how it can help them, and how to incor­po­rate it into their busy lives. The Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter (PJCC) has formed a unique part­ner­ship with vibrant­Brains, a pio­neer­ing gym for brain exer­cise, to explore new ways to bring brain fit­ness into the com­mu­nity on top of its exist­ing fit­ness and edu­ca­tional activities.

- Jane Post, Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter; Lisa Schooner­man, vibrantBrains

1:30 to 2:30 pm Lat­est Tech­nolo­gies and Brain Health: Value and Limitations

Four inno­v­a­tive prac­ti­tion­ers will share their first-hand expe­ri­ence imple­ment­ing com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams in dif­fer­ent set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion classes, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, and assisted liv­ing. They will dis­cuss the Pros and Cons of tech­nol­ogy pro­grams pro­vided by Dakim, Posit Sci­ence and Cog­niFit, help­ing the audi­ence explore how tech­nol­ogy can enhance exist­ing brain health and well­ness pro­grams and how this trend will affect their work in the future.

- James Arp, Bel­mont Vil­lage; Kari Olsen, Front Porch; Shel­lie Sul­li­van, Lake­view Vil­lage; Teri Barr, Oak­land Uni­fied School District

2:30 to 3:15 pm Engag­ing the Com­mu­nity to Inte­grate Brain Health Research into Life­long Learning

OLLI @Berkeley has devel­oped a mem­ber­ship team to inves­ti­gate how to inte­grate neu­ro­science dis­cov­er­ies into their life­long learn­ing cur­ricu­lum and ongo­ing com­mu­nity activ­i­ties. If older adults are told that, in addi­tion to exer­cise, nutri­tion, among other things, men­tal stim­u­la­tion is required that is novel, chal­leng­ing and varied—how can life­long learn­ing cen­ters and adults them­selves judge what that is and how to inte­grate those under­stand­ings our activ­i­ties and lives?. Susan Hoff­man will share the method­ol­ogy and insights of work­ing with the com­mu­nity as well as with a wide range of experts and sci­en­tists, and dis­cuss what might be pos­si­ble in a vari­ety of insti­tu­tional set­tings such as yours.

- Susah Hoff­man, OLLI@Berkeley

3:30 to 4.30 pm San Fran­cisco Alzheimer’s Edu­ca­tion & Pre­ven­tion Task­force: Get­ting Ready for the Future

The San Fran­cisco Mayor’s office, in part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Ser­vices recently con­vened an expert panel and com­mit­tees to cre­ate a strate­gic plan for address­ing the needs of San Fran­cis­cans with mem­ory loss and demen­tia through the year 2020. Learn about the process, find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions on how the city of San Fran­cisco plans to address edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion of demen­tia now and in the future.

- Eliz­a­beth Edgerly, Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion; Bill Haskells, Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Services

4:30 pm What We Have Learned, What is Next

What are some of the pri­or­i­ties and chal­lenges for the next 12 months for the field at large, and for every­one involved? This inter­ac­tive ses­sion will help us sum­ma­rize the key high­lights from the whole day, iden­tify emerg­ing assump­tions, themes, and pri­or­i­ties, and dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tive next steps.

- Car­ole Ander­son, Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging; Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

Speaker Bios
Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is co-founder and CEO of Sharp­Brains, a lead­ing mar­ket research firm that tracks the mar­ket and research for cog­ni­tive assess­ments, train­ing, and games. A mem­ber of the World Eco­nomic Forum’s Global Agenda Coun­cils, he has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, USA Today, and more, and recently co-authored the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp. Alvaro received mas­ters’ degrees in edu­ca­tion and busi­ness from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, and teaches at UC-Berkeley Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute.Jane Post is the Asso­ciate Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at the Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter. With a back­ground that started in sum­mer youth camp­ing and tran­si­tioned into Com­mu­nity Cen­ter group work, the Illi­nois native moved to the Bay Area in 1979 to begin her thriv­ing career with the Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter (PJCC) in Fos­ter City. Serv­ing in posi­tions rang­ing from Youth Direc­tor to Senior Adult Direc­tor, Ms. Post has enjoyed over 30 suc­cess­ful years with the PJCC and today is the Center’s Asso­ciate Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern California.

Lisa Schooner­man is a co-founder at vibrant­Brains. Lisa held a vari­ety of tech­ni­cal and edi­to­r­ial posi­tions with the Thom­son Cor­po­ra­tion in the Legal Pub­lish­ing divi­sion (now Thom­son­Reuters), begin­ning in Rochester, NY and then com­ing to San Fran­cisco to work for what was then Ban­croft Whit­ney. Lisa’s work for Thom­son included a 3-year assign­ment in the UK, where she was Edi­to­r­ial Direc­tor of the group pro­vid­ing con­tent for West­law UK, the first inter­na­tional appli­ca­tion of the West­law database.

James Arp works as the West Regional Direc­tor for Activ­ity and Mem­ory Pro­grams for Bel­mont Vil­lage, where he was involved in a pilot pro­gram using com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing. James has also worked as an Admin­is­tra­tor for sev­eral Inter­me­di­ate Care Facil­i­ties for the Devel­op­men­tally Dis­abled and in Guardian­ship, and has a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence Degree in Psy­chol­ogy and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Disorders.

Kari Olson, Chief Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer of Front Porch, leads all tech­nol­ogy ini­tia­tives for Front Porch and its part­ners. Kari is also the Pres­i­dent of the Front Porch Cen­ter for Tech­nol­ogy Inno­va­tion and Well­be­ing whose mis­sion is to explore inno­v­a­tive uses of tech­nol­ogy to empower indi­vid­u­als to live well, espe­cially in their later years. Kari is actively involved in the Cen­ter for Aging Ser­vices Tech­nolo­gies where she serves as a com­mis­sioner, steer­ing com­mit­tee mem­ber and task group chair for Boomer Tech­nol­ogy Needs Research and co-chair of the Provider Needs Research Work­group. Kari speaks reg­u­larly around the coun­try on tech­nol­ogy for aging ser­vices. Kari holds a BA in eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les and has com­pleted grad­u­ate course work in edu­ca­tion at Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Los Angeles.

Teri Barr admin­is­ters the brain fit­ness classes for older adults at Oak­land Uni­fied School Dis­trict. She has a BFA from the Art Insti­tute of Chicago and a MSPE from the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois. In Illi­nois, she designed and imple­mented well­ness classes in Com­mu­nity Col­lege, Uni­ver­sity and Hos­pi­tal set­tings. Since mov­ing to Cal­i­for­nia, she has worked for OACE (Oak­land Adult and Career Edu­ca­tion) in the Older Adult Pro­gram. She started research for brain health classes in 2006 and began the pro­gram at OACE in 2007.

Shel­lie Sul­li­van is the Vol­un­teer Coor­di­na­tor at Lake­view Vil­lage, a faith-based, non­profit retire­ment com­mu­nity in Lenexa for 800 seniors offer­ing active liv­ing and sup­ported options. Ms. Sul­li­van coor­di­nated and sup­ported the cog­ni­tive train­ing por­tion of the Phys­i­cal & Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Study in which Lake­view par­tic­i­pated under the super­vi­sion of Dr. Art Kramer, from the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois. She admin­is­tered all of the cog­ni­tive pre– and post-assessments to Lake­view Vil­lage res­i­dents and com­mu­nity vol­un­teers and guided par­tic­i­pants using cog­ni­tive train­ing soft­ware through­out the entire study. Ms. Sul­li­van is a grad­u­ate from The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity with a degree in Communications.

Susan E. Hoff­man is the direc­tor of the Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute within the Vice Provost’s Office for Teach­ing and Learn­ing at UC Berke­ley. For the past fif­teen years she has worked at UC and CSU cam­puses launch­ing new inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­na­tional pro­grams. Before then, she served as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cal­i­for­nia Con­fed­er­a­tion of the Arts, rep­re­sent­ing Cal­i­for­nia artists, art edu­ca­tors and arts orga­ni­za­tions in Sacra­mento and Wash­ing­ton for a decade. Her cre­ative work includes being a writer and film­maker. Her fac­ulty appoint­ments have been in cre­ative writ­ing, the­atre and polit­i­cal philosophy.

Eliz­a­beth Edgerly, Ph.D., is the Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion and national spokesper­son for the Association’s Main­tain Your Brain pro­gram. She over­sees the many pro­grams of the Asso­ci­a­tion for patients, fam­i­lies and health care pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion, she staffs the Med­ical Sci­en­tific Advi­sory Coun­cil of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion — North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She received her Ph.D. in clin­i­cal psy­chol­ogy at the State Uni­ver­sity of New York and spe­cial­ized in geropsy­chol­ogy and neu­ropsy­chol­ogy. Dr. Edgerly joined the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion after com­plet­ing a fel­low­ship in clin­i­cal geropsy­chol­ogy at the Palo Alto VA Hospital.

How to Register

Reg­is­tra­tion fees for Sharp­Brains clients and read­ers are $150 (offi­cial fees are $180) . Fee is for the full day ses­sion and includes up to six hours of CEU cred­its plus book and materials.

You can Reg­is­ter HERE, using Part­ner Orga­ni­za­tion Code: WCSB. 

About the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging

Founded in 1954, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging is an asso­ci­a­tion of diverse indi­vid­u­als bound by a com­mon goal: to sup­port the com­mit­ment and enhance the knowl­edge and skills of those who seek to improve the qual­ity of life of older adults and their fam­i­lies. The mem­ber­ship of ASA is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary array of pro­fes­sion­als who are con­cerned with the phys­i­cal, emo­tional, social, eco­nomic and spir­i­tual aspects of aging. They range from prac­ti­tion­ers, edu­ca­tors, admin­is­tra­tors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, busi­ness peo­ple, researchers, stu­dents, and more. For more infor­ma­tion, visit http://www.asaging.org/

About Sharp­Brains

Sharp­Brains is a mar­ket research & pub­lish­ing firm devoted to help­ing orga­ni­za­tions, pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers nav­i­gate the brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health field. The com­pany was co-founded by exec­u­tive Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, mem­ber of the Global Agenda Coun­cils ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nomic Forum, and neu­ro­sci­en­tist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, inter­na­tion­ally renowned for his clin­i­cal work, research, and writ­ing. Sharp­Brains recently released the The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp (May 2009; $24.95). For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.sharpbrains.com/

I  am very excited to pre-announce a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging (ASA) to co-produce a Brain Health event, themed “New Tools, New Part­ner­ships”, to take place in Oak­land, CA, on Sep­tem­ber 11th. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a press release that went through the wire ear­lier today. If you are inter­ested, in attend­ing the con­fer­ence, you can learn more and reg­is­ter Here

Note that below you can find 5 out of the 12 ses­sions — we will announce the full track tomor­row. To get a 15% off reg­is­tra­tion fees, you can use dis­count code: sharp09, when you register.

—
The Games for Health Project, orga­niz­ers of the 5th Annual Games for Health Con­fer­ence, today announced its first Cog­ni­tive Health Track pow­ered by Sharp­Brains, a lead­ing mar­ket research com­pany focused on the brain fit­ness and the cog­ni­tive health market.

The Cog­ni­tive Health track builds upon pre­vi­ous year’s sam­pling of ses­sions look­ing at cog­ni­tive health and fit­ness, expand­ing to a full two-day track at The Games for Health Con­fer­ence, June 11–12, Boston, MA. The Con­fer­ence fea­tures the largest gath­er­ing of orga­ni­za­tions inter­ested in the inter­sec­tion between videogames, health and healthcare.

“There is already a very active cog­ni­tive health videogames indus­try and field of research,” said Ben Sawyer, co-founder of the Games for Health Con­fer­ence. “We part­nered with Sharp­Brains to bring their exper­tise in this field our con­fer­ence plan­ning. Together we have for the first time cre­ated a pow­er­ful set of ses­sions and a much needed con­ver­sa­tion with researchers, thought-leaders and indus­try pio­neers who will attend the event in June.”

The track fea­tures a dozen ses­sions cov­er­ing research find­ings and part­ner­ships, imple­men­ta­tion in insur­ance, con­sumer and clin­i­cal set­tings, and spe­cial ses­sions look­ing at inno­v­a­tive areas such as dri­ver safety, healthy aging, atten­tion deficits, stroke/traumatic brain injury, schiz­o­phre­nia and mul­ti­ple sclerosis.

“The con­ver­gence of inter­ac­tive media such as videogames with cog­ni­tive sci­ence opens the door to inno­v­a­tive and scal­able approaches to Read the rest of this entry »

Increased longevity has gen­er­ated many ques­tions and much inter­est in healthy aging and retire­ment lifestyles over the recent decades. As Amer­i­cans become edu­cated regard­ing lifestyle choices that con­tribute to both phys­i­cal and men­tal health, the def­i­n­i­tion of healthy aging has expanded to include brain health.

The notion of retire­ment as a time of with­drawal from soci­ety, to be spent on rest and repose reflected the think­ing of a pre­vi­ous era when peo­ple expected shorter life spans. It is now known that the human brain ben­e­fits from envi­ron­ments rich in novel and com­plex stim­uli, and that by actively par­tic­i­pat­ing in soci­ety and tak­ing on per­son­ally rel­e­vant roles, peo­ple find mean­ing and pur­pose, which gives them a rea­son to get up in the morn­ing and pur­sue new challenges.

This year, the MetLife Mature Mar­ket Insti­tute pub­lished a research study titled Dis­cov­er­ing What Mat­ters: Bal­anc­ing Money, Med­i­cine and Mean­ing. The study explored how peo­ple rebal­ance their pri­or­i­ties over time and jug­gle var­i­ous com­pet­ing aspects of life includ­ing money, med­i­cine (a metaphor for health) and mean­ing, in order to live the Good Life.  Hav­ing pur­pose was found to Read the rest of this entry »

In April 2008, Bay­crest, a lead­ing research insti­tute focused on aging and brain func­tion, received $10-million from the Ontario Gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a ground­break­ing Cen­tre for Brain Fit­ness. Its stated goal was to “develop and com­mer­cial­ize a range of prod­ucts designed to improve the brain health of aging Ontar­i­ans and oth­ers around the world”.

“Our gov­ern­ment is proud to sup­port Bay­crest and its invalu­able work, which is already lead­ing to the dis­cov­ery of impor­tant new tools and approaches to treat­ing brain dis­eases asso­ci­ated with aging,” said Min­is­ter of Research and Inno­va­tion, John Wilkinson.

We have Baycrest’s CEO with us today, to explore why Ontario and Bay­crest chose to become pio­neers in this area, and dis­cuss some of the main oppor­tu­ni­ties, and chal­lenges. Dr. William E. Reich­man is Pres­i­dent and CEO of Bay­crest. Dr. Reich­man, an internationally-known expert in geri­atric men­tal health and demen­tia, is also Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try on the Fac­ulty of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Bill, thank you for your time. Let me start by ask­ing, given that you just spoke at the recent Con­sumer Elec­tronic Show, what do you make of the grow­ing brain fit­ness field?

Bill Reich­man: it looks like a clas­sic exam­ple of a very promis­ing but still early stage field – a lot of oppor­tu­nity and enthu­si­asm, but also a lot of prod­uct claims that are not backed by solid research. Think about the phys­i­cal fit­ness anal­ogy: even today, after decades of progress, you still see peo­ple buy­ing research-based prod­ucts such as tread­mills but also all types of ran­dom machines they see on TV and have not been sub­ject to any val­i­da­tion. Sim­i­larly, con­sumers today do not know what to make of grow­ing brain fit­ness claims. As another speaker pointed out, for the indus­try to ful­fill its promise, it will need to be care­ful with research and claims, not to end up like the nutraceu­ti­cals category.

By the way, let me rec­og­nize that the work you are doing with Sharp­Brains reports and your web­site is very impor­tant to offer qual­ity information.

Thank you. Let’s step back for a moment. Tak­ing a, say, 10 years view, what is the main oppor­tu­nity that technology-based brain fit­ness can offer to society?

First of all, let me say that I think we have an oppor­tu­nity to make major progress in Brain Health in the XXI cen­tury, sim­i­lar to what hap­pened with Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Health in the XX, and tech­nol­ogy will play a cru­cial role.

Given the rapid advances we are wit­ness­ing today in the research and tech­nol­ogy are­nas, I feel con­fi­dent in say­ing that in less than 10 years we will have both valid and reli­able assess­ments of cog­ni­tive func­tions, that will be used both by Read the rest of this entry »

My apolo­gies for not hav­ing blogged in a few days. I landed back in San Fran­cisco today after speak­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a very stim­u­lat­ing event put together by the Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity’s Adap­tive Neural Sys­tems Cen­ter with fund­ing from the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion.

The 2-day sym­po­sium was titled Co-Adaptive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­ogy for the Aging (link opens a PDF with the agenda), fea­tured impres­sive speak­ers and a highly qual­i­fied audi­ence, and cov­ered a wide array of cur­rent and future health­care and aging appli­ca­tions of neu­ro­science. The one aspect that was very mean­ing­ful for me to observe how often we dis­cussed cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, cog­ni­tive deficits, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment tools (both inva­sive and non-invasive) in a vari­ety of healthy aging and clin­i­cal contexts.

I will share more about the event in the next few days, includ­ing links to the fas­ci­nat­ing work pre­sented by speak­ers, but let me know sim­ply thank the two gra­cious orga­niz­ers and hosts of the event by quot­ing the goal of their cen­ter and work:

- Jimmy Abbas, PhD: “One of the hall­marks of bio­log­i­cal sys­tems is the abil­ity to adapt. In our work, we mimic neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal sys­tems in order to endow tech­nol­ogy with the abil­ity to adapt, and we use tech­nol­ogy to max­i­mize adap­ta­tions in neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal sys­tems. With these approaches, we aim to pro­mote func­tional adap­ta­tion after disability.”

- Ranu Jung, PhD: “Our goal is to improve the qual­ity of life of indi­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties by design­ing tech­niques to inves­ti­gate, replace and repair dam­aged neural sys­tems to enhance mobil­ity and func­tion­al­ity. Whether a per­son has spinal cord injury, limb loss or Parkinson’s dis­ease, mobil­ity and func­tion­al­ity mean independence.”

Links:

Cen­ter: Adap­tive Neural Sys­tems Center.

Agenda (PDF): Co-Adaptive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­ogy for the Aging