Heads up: these are some of my upcom­ing talks, start­ing tomor­row with a brief insight blast on Upgrad­ing edu­ca­tion and health with the brain in mind at the World Eco­nomic Forum on Latin Amer­ica. If you’re a Sharp­Brains friend and speak­ing at/ attend­ing any, please let me know so we can connect.

• April 23–25, Lima, Peru: Upgrad­ing edu­ca­tion and health with the brain in mind, at the World Eco­nomic Forum on Latin Amer­ica 2013
• May 1–2, San Fran­cisco: Think, Think, Think: Cog­ni­tive Gam­ing Plat­forms, at Neu­rogam­ing
• May 15–16, Toronto:  The Web as a Gym for the Brain, at mesh13
• May 20, Wash­ing­ton, DC: Inno­vat­ing for the 50+, at Aging 2.0
• June 12, Vic­to­ria, BC, Canada: How Can We Invest In Our Brains To Boost Inno­va­tion and Resilience, at the Con­fer­ence Board of Canada’s Annual Coun­cil of Human Resource Executives

Phys­i­cal exer­cise and men­tal exer­cise are both ben­e­fi­cial for the brain. Each can improve brain func­tions and decrease risks of cog­ni­tive decline over time. This raises the ques­tion of their com­par­a­tive and com­bined effects: Is one bet­ter than the other? Are their ben­e­fits addi­tive (1 + 1 =2) or per­haps even syn­er­gis­tic (1 + 1 =3)? Read the rest of this entry »

Men­tal exer­cises may pre­vent men­tal decline in seniors (CBC News):  “A review released by the Cana­dian Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion Jour­nal on the pre­ven­tion of cog­ni­tive decline said that med­i­c­i­nal and non-medicinal prod­ucts, and phys­i­cal exer­cise did noth­ing to pre­vent the decline in healthy seniors, but men­tal exer­cises Read the rest of this entry »

I love read­ing the New Yorker. I have writ­ten before about bogus brain games, and about bogus brain train­ing claims. We have pub­lished a 10-question check­list to help con­sumers make informed decisions.

All this is to say I was sur­prised to read a recent New Yorker blog arti­cle titled “Brain games are bogus.” If you are going to make such strong claims, you need to back them up with seri­ous due dili­gence and analy­sis, and explain to read­ers what Read the rest of this entry »

The 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit will fea­ture nearly 40 of the world’s top sci­en­tists, inno­va­tors and decision-makers address­ing the cen­tral theme of “How Can Neuroscience-based Inno­va­tion Enhance Behav­ioral and Brain Health?”

The two-day vir­tual sum­mit will include eight to ten panel dis­cus­sions chaired by some of the world’s most accom­plished and inspir­ing young trail­blaz­ers, rec­og­nized as Young Global Lead­ers (YGLs) by the World Eco­nomic Forum. The seven YGLs who have joined the Summit’s Steer­ing Group are:

• Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO of Sharp­Brains (YGL Class of 2012);
• Andrew Lee, VP of Emerg­ing Busi­ness at Aetna (YGL Class of 2011);
• Corinna Lathan, CEO of Anthro­Tronix (YGL Class of 2006);
• Hilal Lashuel, Vis­it­ing Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity (YGL Class of 2012);
• Jayne Plun­kett, Head of Casu­alty Rein­sur­ance at Swiss Re (YGL Class of 2010);
• Olivier Oul­lier, Pro­fes­sor of Behav­ioral and Brain Sci­ences at France’s Aix-Marseille Uni­ver­sity (YGL Class of 2011); and
• Tan Le, CEO of Emo­tiv Life­sciences (YGL Class of 2009).

To Learn More and Reg­is­ter, visit 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit: How Can Neuroscience-based Inno­va­tion Enhance Behav­ioral and Brain Health?

War on Drugs (OpEd at the NYT):

“LAST year, more active-duty sol­diers com­mit­ted sui­cide than died in bat­tle… Worse, accord­ing to data not reported on until now, the mil­i­tary evi­dently responded to stress that afflicts sol­diers in Iraq and Afghanistan pri­mar­ily by drug­ging sol­diers on the front lines…The trou­ble is that we have no idea whether it’s effec­tive — or safe — to use antipsy­chotic drugs on a con­tin­u­ing basis to treat war-related stress or to numb or sedate those affected by it…The med­ical, mil­i­tary and civil­ian pop­u­la­tion share an inter­est in know­ing about patient-level pre­scrip­tion trends, med­ical indi­ca­tions for use, effec­tive­ness of con­ven­tional as well as off-label treat­ments, and lon­gi­tu­di­nal follow-up of those sol­diers receiv­ing psy­chotropic drugs.”

Related arti­cle: Mis­use & Abuse of ADHD Meds among col­lege students

Brain Health And Well­ness Inno­va­tion Dri­ves New Dig­i­tal Health Mar­ket, Social Change (Young Upstarts):

“Tech­nol­ogy has com­pletely changed the prac­tice of med­i­cine, pro­vid­ing incred­i­ble imag­ing tech­niques and data that now play a key role in treat­ing injuries and ill­nesses. Sophis­ti­cated tools give researchers amaz­ing new insights that advance our under­stand­ing of human anatomy, includ­ing the brain. Stan­dard treat­ments for vir­tu­ally every seri­ous injury and ill­ness have been utterly trans­formed over the past 50 years due to tech­ni­cal advances. How­ever, these advances have added greatly to the cost of research and treat­ment, and that’s par­tic­u­larly true when it comes to the brain… One solu­tion to this chal­lenge lies in tech­nol­ogy that is already glob­ally per­va­sive and rel­a­tively inex­pen­sive to deploy: the Inter­net. Read arti­cle »