In a mod­ern soci­ety we are con­fronted with a wide range of increas­ingly abstract and inter­con­nected prob­lems. Suc­cess­fully deal­ing with such an envi­ron­ment requires a highly fit brain, capa­ble of adapt­ing to new sit­u­a­tions and chal­lenges through­out life. Con­se­quently, we expect cross-training the brain to soon become as main­stream as cross-training the body is today, going beyond unstruc­tured men­tal activ­ity and Read the rest of this entry »

(Editor’s Note: every month we host an online Q&A with par­tic­i­pants in the e-course How To Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach. This is the lightly edited and anonymized tran­script from the Jan­u­ary Q&A ses­sion; the Feb­ru­ary Q&A will take place on Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 12th)

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OK, ready to go! Happy 2013 again. You can start writ­ing your ques­tions and com­ments in the box at the bot­tom, and hit Send.

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Ques­tion 
Which activ­i­ties or games or web­sites do you rec­om­mend to improve mem­ory? Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to offer the first self-paced course designed to equip life­long learn­ers with the under­stand­ing and infor­ma­tion required to apply neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive reserve find­ings and tools to enhance their own brain health and functionality.

Detailed infor­ma­tion is avail­able at How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach. Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants can imme­di­ately log into the course and gain access to four recorded lectures–each last­ing two hours– and to online mate­ri­als and dis­cus­sions. Reg­is­tra­tion fees are $95, and stu­dents have six months to com­plete course.

TOP 40 QUESTIONS ON BRAIN HEALTH, BRAIN FITNESS AND BRAIN TRAINING TO BE ADDRESSED BY THE COURSE: Read the rest of this entry »

Cop­ing With Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (NYT blog):

“About 10 to 15 per­cent of adults age 65 and older are believed to have mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment — a con­di­tion com­monly char­ac­ter­ized by mem­ory prob­lems, well beyond those asso­ci­ated with nor­mal aging.… The Uni­ver­sity of Toronto researchers set out to rec­tify Read the rest of this entry »

In an increas­ingly knowledge-based and innovation-driven econ­omy, human brains—not finan­cial capital—are becom­ing the pri­mary dri­vers of busi­ness suc­cess. Engaged, cre­ative cit­i­zens and work­ers mean the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure at the orga­ni­za­tional and soci­etal levels.

Look­ing at the prob­lem from the per­spec­tive of brain health, there are Read the rest of this entry »

-– Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit brings together global lead­ers and inno­va­tors to advance the emerg­ing fields of applied neu­ro­science and brain fitness

The third annual vir­tual Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit: Opti­miz­ing Health through Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, Inno­va­tion and Data, held June 7–14^th, con­cluded with a call to enhance brain health by har­ness­ing neuroplasticity-based appli­ca­tions, big data plat­forms and con­sumer inter­est to aug­ment the tra­di­tional reliance on disease-based phar­ma­co­log­i­cal inter­ven­tions and frag­mented clin­i­cal trials.

The Sum­mit brought together 190 researchers, decision-makers and prac­ti­tion­ers across the tech­nol­ogy, men­tal health, gam­ing and other sec­tors to dis­cuss health opti­miza­tion and applied neu­ro­plas­tic­ity research and trends.

“We are glad to see a grow­ing research-based toolkit to empower con­sumers, patients and pro­fes­sion­als  to main­tain and enhance cog­ni­tion and brain health across the lifes­pan,” said Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Stern will dis­cuss the lat­est evi­dence and impli­ca­tions on What the Cog­ni­tive Reserve Means for Brain Health, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012).

Dr. Yaakov Stern directs the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Sergievsky Cen­ter and is Direc­tor of Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy for the Mem­ory Dis­or­ders Clinic at the New York State Psy­chi­atric Insti­tute. He also directs the post-doctoral train­ing pro­gram Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy Read the rest of this entry »