Elec­tri­cal Brain Stim­u­la­tion Helps Peo­ple Learn Math Faster (Wired): “…sci­en­tists stim­u­lated vol­un­teers’ brains with mild elec­tric cur­rent while they learned new arith­metic oper­a­tions based on made-up sym­bols. Peo­ple who received brain stim­u­la­tion dur­ing train­ing ses­sions on five con­sec­u­tive days learned two to five times faster than those who received sham stim­u­la­tion, and they retained a 30 to 40 per­cent per­for­mance edge six months later… Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e-newsletter. This time we focus on how much the brain health and behav­ioral health fields are chang­ing, as they upgrade tra­di­tional toolk­its with dig­i­tal plat­forms to bet­ter mon­i­tor, assess and enhance cog­ni­tion. Often dri­ven by a grow­ing con­sumer demand for improved brain fit­ness, as you can see in this 3-minute clip (opens YouTube video).

We are proud to report that our lat­est mar­ket report is prov­ing to be valu­able to a range of exec­u­tives and inno­va­tors work­ing along those lines, as you can read here.

New Sci­ence

• Neu­ro­sci­en­tists: Develop dig­i­tal games to improve brain func­tion and well-being
• Mis­use & Abuse of ADHD Meds among col­lege stu­dents: Updated review of a grow­ing concern
• Beyond hel­mets: con­cus­sions require proac­tive, indi­vid­u­al­ized mon­i­tor­ing and rehab

New Tools

• Work­ing mem­ory train­ing can improve emo­tional reg­u­la­tion and behav­ioral health
• Cam­bridge Cog­ni­tion, devel­oper of com­put­erised neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests, to go pub­lic in the UK
• The future of biosen­sors and nanotechnology

New think­ing

• Debunk­ing 10 Brain Fit­ness and Brain Train­ing Myths
• Rais­ing aware­ness about the dis­tracted mind (PBS special)
• Drugs for Early-Stage Alzheimer’s?
• New guide­lines for neu­rol­o­gists pre­scrib­ing cog­ni­tive enhance­ment drugs

Have a great month of April!

Just a quick note: next Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 27th, we’ll host the sec­ond and last webi­nar  to dis­cuss key mar­ket and com­pet­i­tive analy­ses based on “The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020: Web-based, mobile and biometrics-based tech­nol­ogy to assess, mon­i­tor and enhance cog­ni­tion and brain func­tion­ing”, our new mar­ket report. Read the rest of this entry »

MIND Insti­tute researchers receive $1 mil­lion grant to study cog­ni­tive train­ing in chil­dren with frag­ile X (UC Davis Health Sys­tem News):

“Researchers at the UC Davis MIND Insti­tute will exam­ine whether chil­dren and youth with frag­ile X syn­drome can improve their work­ing mem­ory, cog­ni­tion and behav­ior by using an online computer-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram, through a new $1 mil­lion grant from The John Merck Fund.

To con­duct the inno­v­a­tive study, the researchers will travel to the homes of school-aged chil­dren around the coun­try to instruct their fam­i­lies on how to use the pro­gram and deliver the inter­ven­tion, called Cogmed, soft­ware designed to improve work­ing mem­ory that is mar­keted by Pear­son Edu­ca­tion.” Keep read­ing here.

–> We iden­ti­fied Cogmed/ Pear­son as one of the Top 10 Com­pa­nies to Watch in 2013–2014 based on the analy­sis in our lat­est mar­ket report.

Much of health­care deliv­ery has tra­di­tion­ally been set-up to deal with a ‘brain­less body’; yet we con­sis­tently com­plain that we can­not change patient and con­sumer behav­iours and main­tain adher­ence to treat­ment pro­grammes. Health­care sys­tems are now recog­nis­ing the lim­its of this model and that there are major ben­e­fits to bet­ter com­pre­hend­ing and engag­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick note: we’ll host a webi­nar this Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 6th, to dis­cuss key analy­ses and fore­casts based on “The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020: Web-based, mobile and biometrics-based tech­nol­ogy to assess, mon­i­tor and enhance cog­ni­tion and brain func­tion­ing”, our new mar­ket report. Read the rest of this entry »