Please Save these Dates if you are inter­ested in explor­ing and dis­cussing the lat­est on Opti­miz­ing Health Through Neuroplasticity-Driven Inno­va­tion; the theme for our third annual vir­tual Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (“vir­tual” means every­thing takes place online; no one has to travel):

• Pre-Summit work­shops: May 31st-June 1st, 2012
• Sum­mit: June 7-8th, 2012
• Expo Week: June 12-14th, 2012

17 Con­firmed Sum­mit Speak­ers include: Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to announce that full record­ings for all pre­sen­ta­tions deliv­ered dur­ing the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tury (March 30 — April 1, 2011) are now avail­able both to Sum­mit Par­tic­i­pants and to non-Participants.

You can Learn More Here and Access 40+ Talks and 20+ hours of up-to-date infor­ma­tion and analy­sis of brain sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy and inno­va­tion, deliv­ered by noth­ing short of a world-class faculty.

–> Reg­is­tered Sum­mit Par­tic­i­pants can access all Ses­sion Record­ings by click­ing on the ses­sion titles in the Agenda page and using the same User­name and Pass­word they used to par­tic­i­pate in the Summit.

–> Didn’t Reg­is­ter to Par­tic­i­pate in the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit but want to access all Ses­sion Record­ings (20+ hours, 40+ speak­ers) Now? You can secure your log-in here.

We hope the infor­ma­tion and analy­sis pro­vided by these 40+ world-class speak­ers address­ing this 3-day agenda pro­vide excel­lent value to you: 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.

Con­fer­ences have long been a sta­ple of the pro­fes­sional cal­en­dar. Now, after a reces­sion that has slashed travel expen­di­ture, the land­scape for events is chang­ing. Sophis­ti­cated dig­i­tal plat­forms are enabling vir­tual envi­ron­ments that sim­u­late the ben­e­fits of real events, and atten­dees are begin­ning to shift to access­ing sub­ject mat­ter experts and indus­try net­work­ing online.

But can the dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment really dis­place brick and mor­tar events, where eye to eye meet­ings and chance con­nec­tions can jus­tify the often costly reg­is­tra­tion fees and travel costs? Read the rest of this entry »

We have received a very thought­ful com­plaint about yesterday’s mes­sage, so let me take a few min­utes to address it and to answer other fre­quently asked ques­tions on the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit.

Com­plaint: “Why do peo­ple who pro­cras­ti­nate and sign up late war­rant a spe­cial “perk” (refer­ring to the “Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science and Per­son­al­ized Med­i­cine” ref­er­ence book we offered yes­ter­day)? If that is the kind of busi­ness ethic you pro­mote it almost makes me want to can­cel my ear­lier registration.”

That is an excel­lent point, which we did take into account but did not com­mu­ni­cate prop­erly. The rea­son we felt it was fine to offer such a “perk” was because dis­counted early-bird rates had just expired. Assum­ing Read the rest of this entry »

The 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tury (March 30 — April 1st) is just 5 weeks away. You can Learn More and Reg­is­ter Today HERE. Don’t miss the oppor­tu­nity to join an incred­i­ble line-up of 36+ con­firmed Speak­ers, 7 Sponsors/ Exhibitors, 13 Part­ners, and 150+ Par­tic­i­pants as of today, all avail­able to you with­out any travel involved.

Spon­sors

Spon­sor­ship Opportunities

Want to announce or pro­mote your ser­vice or prod­uct at the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit? Max­i­mize your mar­ket­ing and busi­ness devel­op­ment reach & make a big splash in front of our pres­ti­gious audi­ence! Only two Spon­sor­ship spots are still avail­able and going fast! Click here for infor­ma­tion about the var­i­ous ways to get involved.

Sum­mit Partners

Remem­ber…

Learn More and Reg­is­ter Today HERE

What may be the most time and cost-efficient way to attend a con­fer­ence, learn from world-class speak­ers and meet old and new colleagues?

Answer: A vir­tual con­fer­ence, such as the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tury (March 30th — April 1st).

Please watch this 3-minute clip to learn how the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit works, and why you should con­sider join­ing the good com­pany of over 35 lead­ing Speak­ers drawn from indus­try, research and the front lines.

Con­firmed Speak­ers include:

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To Learn More About Sum­mit Fac­ulty & Agenda, click HERE

We’d be delighted to count on your par­tic­i­pa­tion in this inno­v­a­tive endeavor,

- The Sharp­Brains Team

PS: Early-bird reg­is­tra­tion rates end on Feb­ru­ary 18th, with sub­stan­tial sav­ings avail­able both for com­pa­nies and non-profit orga­ni­za­tions.  To Learn More and Reg­is­ter: click Here

We are hon­ored to announce four new con­firmed Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Speak­ers: Nigel Smith at AARP, Peter Kissinger at the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety, Keith Wesnes at United BioSource, and Ken Kosik at UCSB Neu­ro­science Research Institute.

Nigel Smith, AARP Strat­egy and Inno­va­tion Direc­tor, is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing decen­tral­ized inno­va­tion mod­els for AARP and for con­sult­ing with busi­ness units in the exe­cu­tion of inno­va­tion processes. Prior to AARP, Nigel was the Direc­tor or Prod­uct Inno­va­tion for Visa USA. Other pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ences have been with McK­in­sey & Com­pany, Gold­man Sachs Group, and KPMG. Nigel holds a Mas­ters in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion degree from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity and a Bach­e­lors in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion degree from Howard Uni­ver­sity. Read the rest of this entry »

In this Jan­u­ary issue of our eNewslet­ter, we will first brief you on the enlight­en­ing demos that will take place on Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 20th, as part of the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, and then present the 15 most stim­u­lat­ing Sharp­Brains arti­cles of 2009.

Expo Day

If you want to see and dis­cuss the lat­est pro­grams and tech­nolo­gies for brain fit­ness, pre­sented by Sum­mit Spon­sors, Wednes­day Jan­u­ary 20th is your day. Each demo will last 30 min­utes, fol­lowed by 15 min­utes of Q&A.

9am. Baycrest/ Cog­nic­iti will intro­duce the new Memory@Work work­shop, designed to teach what mem­ory is, how lifestyle fac­tors such as dis­trac­tion and stress can affect mem­ory, and how to enhance mem­ory per­for­mance at work with the use of enabling strategies.

10am. Cog­niFit will demo Cog­niFit Per­sonal Coach and Cog­niFit Senior Dri­ver, two online pro­grams designed to assess and main cog­ni­tive func­tions for healthy liv­ing and safe dri­ving, respectively.

11am. Posit Sci­ence will demo InSight, a software-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pack­age designed to sharpen brain’s visual sys­tem. This is the pro­gram being tested by All­state for safer driving.

Noon. Happy Neu­ron will intro­duce HAP­PYneu­ron PRO, a new plat­form for pro­fes­sion­als for the effec­tive deliv­ery and man­age­ment of cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion and reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grams in a patient cen­tric manner.

1pm. Sharp­Brains will help nav­i­gate this grow­ing field by dis­cussing The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware 2009 report and The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness con­sumer guide, and sum­ma­riz­ing key Sum­mit take-aways.

Learn more and reg­is­ter HERE. Please remem­ber that reg­is­tra­tion closes on Jan­u­ary 17th.

We want to thank our most recent spon­sor, the Arrow­smith Pro­gram, a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties avail­able in pub­lic and pri­vate schools in Canada and the U.S. More infor­ma­tion here.

And now, let’s review the (in our view) 15 most stim­u­lat­ing arti­cles of 2009.

The Big Picture

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.

Learn­ing about Learn­ing: an Inter­view with Joshua Wait­zkin: Scott Barry Kauf­man inter­views “child prodigy” Joshua Wait­zkin on The Art of Learning.

Debunk­ing 10 Brain Health Myths: Does your brain have a “Brain Age”? Is a Magic Pill to pre­vent mem­ory prob­lems right around the corner?  Check out the facts to debunk 10 com­mon myths.

Why is work­ing mem­ory rel­e­vant to read­ing and math­e­mat­ics: A recent large UK study iden­ti­fied 1 in 10 stu­dents as hav­ing work­ing mem­ory dif­fi­cul­ties. Dr. Tracy Alloway elab­o­rates why this matters.

Change Your Envi­ron­ment, Change Your­self: Dr. Brett Steen­barger explains why new envi­ron­ments  “force us to exit our rou­tines and actively mas­ter unfa­mil­iar challenges.”

Tools

Retool­ing Use it or lose it: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez dis­cusses why rou­tine, doing things inside our com­fort zones, is the most com­mon enemy of the nov­elty, vari­ety and chal­lenge our brains need.

Does cog­ni­tive train­ing work? (For Whom? For What?): Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon, dis­sects a cou­ple of recent press releases and the under­ly­ing stud­ies to clar­i­fy­ing what they mean – and what they don’t mean.

New Study Sup­ports Neu­ro­feed­back Treat­ment for ADHD: Dr. David Rabiner reports the promis­ing find­ings from the first well-designed con­trolled trial on the effect of neu­ro­feed­back treat­ment for ADHD.

Do Art Classes Boost Test Scores? Is there a “Mozart Effect?”: Some researchers sug­gest so; oth­ers are not con­vinced. Karin Evans offers a  thought­ful review of the evi­dence and asks, “Now, is this the right question?”

Does cof­fee boost cog­ni­tive func­tions over time? Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon reports good news (long-term effects seem more pos­i­tive than neg­a­tive, so cof­fee leads to no clear harm) and bad ones (no clear ben­e­fi­cial effects on gen­eral brain functions).

Indus­try

Brain fit­ness heads towards its tip­ping point: How do you know when some­thing is mov­ing towards a Glad­wellian tip­ping point? When insur­ance com­pa­nies and pol­icy mak­ers pay atten­tion, Dr. Ger­ard Finnemore reports.

Visual Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the State of the Mar­ket 2009: Paul Van Slem­brouck beau­ti­fully presents the main find­ings of our 150-page mar­ket report, The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2009.

Michael Merzenich on brain fit­ness: neu­ro­sci­en­tist Michael Merzenich dis­cusses neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, tech­nol­ogy, safe dri­ving, men­tal health, and the need for stan­dards, auto­mated assess­ments and “per­sonal brain trainers”.

Brain Teaser

Stim­u­late your Con­cen­tra­tion Skills: when one really wants to mem­o­rize a fact, it is cru­cial to pay atten­tion. Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon chal­lenges you to count a few sim­ple letters.

Res­o­lu­tion

Finally, an arti­cle that may inspire some New Year Res­o­lu­tions. In Yes, You Can Build Willpower, Daniel Gole­man dis­cusses how the brain makes about 10,000 new cells every day, how they migrate to where they are needed, and how each cell can make around 10,000 con­nec­tions to other brain cells. Impli­ca­tion? Med­i­tate, mind­fully, and build pos­i­tive habits.

Wish­ing you a Happy and Pro­duc­tive 2010, and look­ing for­ward to meet­ing many of you (200 so far) at the inau­gural Sharp­Brains Sum­mit!