Israeli med­ical device offers new Alzheimer’s treat­ment (Reuters):

“Accord­ing to Alvaro Pascual-Leone, direc­tor of the hospital’s Berenson-Allen Cen­tre for Non-invasive Brain Stim­u­la­tion, brain stim­u­la­tion — or tran­scra­nial mag­netic stim­u­la­tion — involves a very low cur­rent applied to a spe­cific part of the brain and Read the rest of this entry »

NFL donates $30 mil­lion to National Insti­tutes of Health (press release):

“The National Foot­ball League will pro­vide $30 mil­lion in fund­ing for med­ical research to the Foun­da­tion for the National Insti­tutes of Health (FNIH), NFL Com­mis­sioner Roger Good­ell announced today Read the rest of this entry »

Foot­prints to Cog­ni­tive Decline and Alzheimer’s Are Seen in Gait (The New York Times):
“The way peo­ple walk appears to speak vol­umes about the way they think, so much so that changes in an older person’s gait appear to be an early indi­ca­tor of cog­ni­tive impair­ment, includ­ing Alzheimer’s disease…Five stud­ies pre­sented at the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence in Van­cou­ver this month pro­vide strik­ing evi­dence that when a person’s walk gets slower or becomes more vari­able or less con­trolled, his cog­ni­tive func­tion is also suffering…Asking peo­ple to simul­ta­ne­ously Read the rest of this entry »

Ad by 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Spon­sor Brain Resource

Time for Sharp­Brains’ May 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing in this occa­sion an OpEd by Dr. Peter White­house and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on the urgency to shift atten­tion and resources From Anti-Alzheimer’s “Magic Bul­lets” to True Brain Health. Please read, add your two cents, and share!

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More Fea­tured Perspectives

• Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Ratio­nal and Intu­itive Problem-Solving, by Judith Tin­gley, PhD
• Aer­o­bic Exer­cise or Weight Train­ing to Boost Brain Func­tion?, by Pas­cale Mich­e­lon, PhD
• Is There a For­mula for Smart Think­ing?, by Art Mark­man, PhD
• Music as Ther­apy: Music, Move­ment, Cog­ni­tion! and On Music, Dopamine, and Mak­ing Sense of Sound, by Lau­rie Bartels

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In the News

• Mind-Controlled Videogames Become Reality
• Brain Spa Trend: Travel for Men­tal Fitness

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Upcom­ing event next week

• 10 Fre­quently Asked Ques­tions about the 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012)

Please remem­ber that you are still in time to join the 150+ par­tic­i­pants next week @ 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit: Opti­miz­ing Health through Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, Inno­va­tion and Data! You can Reg­is­ter Here and get 15% off by using pro­mo­tional code sharp2012

If you fol­lowed lat­est head­lines sur­round­ing the release of the National Alzheimer’s Plan, you’d prob­a­bly con­clude that the likely solu­tion to main­tain life­long brain health is sim­ple: sim­ply wait until 2025 for a “magic bul­let” to be dis­cov­ered, to cure (or end or pre­vent) Alzheimer’s dis­ease and aging asso­ci­ated cog­ni­tive decline. These kinds of beliefs, often rein­forced by doc­tors and adver­tis­ing, may explain the bil­lions spent today by pharma com­pa­nies on dis­cov­er­ing new com­pounds, and by con­sumers on sup­ple­ments like ginkgo biloba. But Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. White­house will dis­cuss why and how we need to revamp Alzheimer’s Diag­no­sis, Pre­ven­tion and Care, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012), build­ing on this quote he gave to an ABC News story 2 days ago:

“The field of Alzheimer’s research is get­ting a lit­tle dis­torted. There’s a con­stant need to focus on magic bul­lets and sin­gle mol­e­cules,” White­house told ABC News. “It really requires a pub­lic health focus. The most effec­tive inter­ven­tions are not going to be drugs.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Let us share below a list of 40 com­mon brain fit­ness, brain health, brain train­ing ques­tions that we will make sure to address dur­ing the upcom­ing online course, How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach in 2012 (starts March 7th). The ques­tions are sequenced by their approx­i­mate order of appear­ance in the syl­labus. We look for­ward to an engag­ing, inter­ac­tive and valu­able expe­ri­ence! ***Please remem­ber that course reg­is­tra­tion ends on Sun­day, March 4th.***

Top 40 Brain Fit­ness & Train­ing Questions

1. How can one define brain fitness
2. What is link between stress, focus and memory
3. Does “brain age” even exist
4. How to enhance over­all men­tal pro­duc­tiv­ity, vs just IQ
5. Is there some “ceil­ing” to my improve­ment or can I always try more things
6. How brain func­tions evolve with age. What improves, what declines, what should I be pay­ing atten­tion to Read the rest of this entry »