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 »

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 »

Let’s explore some  high-quality new resources, announce­ments and stud­ies in this June edi­tion of the monthly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter. The field is clearly on the move!

Por­traits of the Mind: Sev­eral sharp brains (Rick, Karen, John, thanks!) strongly rec­om­mend the recent book  “Por­traits of the Mind: Visu­al­iz­ing the Brain from Antiq­uity to the 21st Cen­tury” (which includes the image on the left) as great read­ing and as a beau­ti­ful cof­fee table book.

Pro­mot­ing Healthy, Mean­ing­ful Aging Through Social Involve­ment: The cur­rent issue of Cere­brum includes the excel­lent in-depth arti­cle on the value of vol­un­teer­ing pro­gram Expe­ri­ence Corps to pro­mote healthy and mean­ing­ful aging through social involvement.

Work­ing mem­ory train­ing can improve fluid intel­li­gence: Finally, a pow­er­ful voice of com­mon sense. A new sci­en­tific study con­cludes that “cog­ni­tive train­ing can be effec­tive and long-lasting, but there are lim­it­ing fac­tors that must be con­sid­ered to eval­u­ate the effects of this train­ing, one of which is indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in train­ing per­for­mance. We pro­pose that future research should not inves­ti­gate whether cog­ni­tive train­ing works, but rather should deter­mine what train­ing reg­i­mens and what train­ing con­di­tions result in the best trans­fer effects, inves­ti­gate the under­ly­ing neural and cog­ni­tive mech­a­nisms, and finally, inves­ti­gate for whom cog­ni­tive train­ing is most useful.”

Lumos Labs raises $32.5m: Lumos Labs, the com­pany behind lumosity.com, has just raised the sin­gle largest amount of fund­ing in the space.

Devel­op­ing a Research Agenda for Seri­ous Games: The recent trade book Com­puter Games and Instruc­tion brings together the lead­ing edge per­spec­tives of over a dozen sci­en­tists in the area of videogames and learn­ing, includ­ing this very insight­ful analy­sis by Harvard’s Chris Dede.

In the News: Brief arti­cles in the New York Times and a very pow­er­ful analy­sis in The New York Review of Books pro­vide use­ful clues about Brain Cal­is­then­ics, Bilin­gual Brains, and Debunk­ing Myths on Men­tal Illness.

Emerg­ing Mil­i­tary Appli­ca­tions: 2 recent announce­ments show, in a mil­i­tary con­text, inno­v­a­tive ways to enhance brain func­tion­ing and per­for­mance both to help “nor­mal” and “clin­i­cal” (post-TBI) populations.

We hope you enjoyed this newslet­ter. Please do feel free to share this with friends and col­leagues via Face­book, Twit­ter and LinkedIn, and have a great week­end and month of July!

Lumos Labs, the com­pany behind lumosity.com, has raised $32.5 mil­lion dol­lars in a Series C round from Menlo Ven­tures, First­Mark Cap­i­tal, Har­ri­son Metal and Nor­west Ven­ture Partners.

In our 2010 mar­ket report Lumos Labs came up as one of the cat­e­gory Lead­ers given its mar­ket and research momen­tum (not easy for a startup to get clear momen­tum in either of those dimen­sions, much less in both of them), so our con­grat­u­la­tions to them for now adding such invest­ment trac­tion. Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to make eleven impor­tant announce­ments about the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit…eleven addi­tional rea­sons to con­sider reg­is­ter­ing and join­ing our event and com­mu­nity next week.

1. Intel Cor­po­ra­tion, the “Spon­sors of Tomor­row™”, and Lumos Labs have become Sum­mit Gold Sponsors.
2. Sharp­Brains will issue a Cer­tifi­cate of Atten­dance to par­tic­i­pants (20 hours of con­tin­u­ing education).
3. Jamie Wil­son shares 20 rea­sons why vir­tual con­fer­ences are the future.
4. NIH/ NIA Pro­gram Chief Molly Wag­ster will dis­cuss the new NIH Tool­box for Assess­ment of Neu­ro­log­i­cal and Behav­ioral Function.
5. Yaakov Stern (Colum­bia), David Darby (CogState), Keith Wesnes (United BioSource) and Jef­frey Kaye (Orcat­ech) will explore The Role of Cog­ni­tive Health Mon­i­tor­ing Systems.
6. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (Sharp­Brains) and Muki Hansteen-Izora (Intel Cor­po­ra­tion) will ana­lyze The State of Inno­va­tion and Emerg­ing Marketplace.
7. You can still Reg­is­ter and obtain a com­pli­men­tary copy of Sharp­Brains’ mar­ket report The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2010 (which includes mar­ket data, ven­dor analy­sis, inno­va­tion case stud­ies, research briefs, and more.)
8. Michael Merzenich (UCSF), Alvaro Pascual-Leone (Har­vard), Wal­ter Green­leaf (Vir­tu­ally­Bet­ter) and Kate Sul­li­van (Wal­ter Reed) will dis­cuss how Inno­va­tion gets From Lab to Marketplace.
9. Lumos Labs, Brain Resource, Cogmed, Bay­crest, Cog­niFit, and Posit Sci­ence will present their lat­est tools and solu­tions dur­ing Expo Day.
10. A total of 19 excel­lent Sum­mit Part­ners help us expand Summit’s reach and influence.
11. We are plan­ning April/ May social gath­er­ings for Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants in 5 cities: San Fran­cisco, Los Ange­les, Wash­ing­ton DC, NYC, and Toronto, and will help facil­i­tate gath­er­ings in any city/ region with at least 10 Sum­mit participants.

Please visit the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit web­site to Learn More and Reg­is­ter.

Also, please fol­low us via Twit­ter and spread the word about the Sum­mit using hash­tag #svs11

We look for­ward to “meet­ing” many of you next week! Please remem­ber you can enter dis­count code sharp2011 in order to get 15% off reg­is­tra­tion fees.

In honor of Brain Aware­ness Week (March 14-20th), any­one who reg­is­ters to par­tic­i­pate in the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit BEFORE MARCH 20TH will obtain a com­pli­men­tary 207-page PDF copy of the full mar­ket report Trans­form­ing Brain Health with Dig­i­tal Tools to Assess, Enhance and Treat Cog­ni­tion Across the Lifes­pan — The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2010. Please note that the nor­mal price of this report is $1,295. This report includes pro­pri­etary sur­veys, mar­ket data and in-depth analy­sis of 32 com­pa­nies, 10 Inno­va­tion Case Stud­ies pre­pared by 2010 Inno­va­tion Awards Win­ners and Final­ists, and 23 Research Exec­u­tive Briefs pre­pared by lead­ing scientists.

Report Sum­mary

This 207-page report tracks devel­op­ments at over thirty pub­lic and pri­vate com­pa­nies offer­ing dig­i­tal tools to assess, enhance and repair brain-based cog­ni­tive and self-regulation func­tions and pro­vides impor­tant indus­try data, insights and analy­sis to help investors, exec­u­tives, entre­pre­neurs, and pol­icy mak­ers nav­i­gate the oppor­tu­ni­ties and risks of this rapidly grow­ing field. The report dis­cusses the impli­ca­tions of Read the rest of this entry »

Let me pro­vide an overview of the great things going on with the Sharp­Brains Coun­cil for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion — start­ing this week, we will share a brief update like this every Fri­day to main­tain Sharp­Brains col­leagues and read­ers informed. Please note that all links below require access to the Council’s online platform.

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 »

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!

We are excited to invite you to the first vir­tual, global Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (Jan­u­ary 18-20th, 2010). The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit will fea­ture a dream team of over 25 speak­ers who are lead­ers in indus­try and research from 7 coun­tries, to dis­cuss emerg­ing research, tools and best prac­tices for cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance. This inau­gural event will expose health and insur­ance providers, devel­op­ers, inno­va­tors at For­tune 500 com­pa­nies, investors and researchers, to the oppor­tu­ni­ties, part­ner­ships, trends, and stan­dards of the rapidly evolv­ing cog­ni­tive fit­ness field.

Reg­is­ter Today

Learn more and reg­is­ter Here today, at dis­counted early-bird rates, to receive these benefits:

• Learn: Full access to all Con­fer­ence live ses­sions, and Down­load­able Record­ings and Handouts
• See: lat­est tech­nolo­gies and prod­ucts dur­ing Expo Day
• Con­nect and Dis­cuss: become a mem­ber of the Sharp­Brains Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion (members-only LinkedIn Group) through the end of 2010, access online chats dur­ing the sum­mit, meet other reg­is­trants in your city
• Under­stand the Big Pic­ture: access 10 Research Exec­u­tive Briefs pre­pared by lead­ing scientists

On top of those early-bird dis­counts, we offer an addi­tional 15% dis­count for Sharp­Brains read­ers who want Reg­u­lar Admis­sion. Dis­count code: sharp2010. You can reg­is­ter Here.

Agenda/ Speak­ers

Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 18th, 2010:

(Pre­lim­i­nary sched­ule, US Pacific Time)

8–9.15am. Cog­ni­tion & Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity: The New Health­care Frontier

• Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains
• David White­house, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solutions
• William Reich­man, Baycrest
• P Murali Doraiswamy, Duke University

9.30-11am. Tools for Safer Dri­ving: The Oppor­tu­nity with Teenagers and Adults

• Steven Aldrich, Posit Science
• Shlomo Breznitz, CogniFit
• Jerri Edwards, Uni­ver­sity of South Florida
• Peter Chris­tian­son, Young Dri­vers of Canada

Noon-1.30pm. Baby Boomers and Beyond: Main­tain­ing Cog­ni­tive Vitality

• Kunal Sarkar, Lumos Labs
• Eliz­a­beth Zelin­ski, USC Davis School of Geron­tol­ogy Read the rest of this entry »