I just had the chance to dis­cuss lat­est neu­ro­sci­en­tific research and think­ing with Dr. Yaakov Stern, one of the lead­ing sci­en­tists study­ing how to build a neu­ro­pro­tec­tive cog­ni­tive reserve across the lifes­pan. Dr. Stern leads the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion at the Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity Sergievsky Cen­ter. What fol­lows is a Q&A ses­sion con­ducted via email over the last week.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: What do you make of the recent study “Asso­ci­a­tion of Life­time Cog­ni­tive Engage­ment and Low β-Amyloid Depo­si­tion”? 

Yaakov Stern: I find these results very intrigu­ing. The con­cept of cog­ni­tive reserve posits that Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to announce a new online course designed to equip par­tic­i­pants with the under­stand­ing and infor­ma­tion required to apply emerg­ing sci­ence and tools to enhance brain health and func­tion­al­ity across the lifespan.

Course descrip­tion: Infor­ma­tion over­load and longer lives expose our brains to more demands than even before. This fast-paced and inter­ac­tive online course will exam­ine the emerg­ing sci­ence of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive reserve and sur­vey lat­est tools and best prac­tices to equip you to become your own ‘brain fit­ness coach’ and address per­sonal and pro­fes­sional pri­or­i­ties. Avail­able online from any­where with an Inter­net con­nec­tion, this course will help you pin­point ways to opti­mize brain health and func­tion­al­ity and delay decline, nav­i­gat­ing the maze of frag­mented research, super­fi­cial media cov­er­age and exag­ger­ated mar­ket­ing claims. The course is based on The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness –recently named a Best Book by AARP– and Sharp­Brains’ new ABBC frame­work (Address Basics, Build Capac­i­ties), and includes weekly read­ings and activities.

Mechan­ics: The course con­sists of four two-hour-long live online ses­sions to be held in March 2012 (detailed syl­labus avail­able), and an online pri­vate forum for Fac­ulty and Par­tic­i­pants to inter­act dur­ing March and April 2012.

Who this is for: This course is for any­one who wants to under­stand how emerg­ing cog­ni­tive and affec­tive neu­ro­science can be applied to enhance brain health and per­for­mance, and who is will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in a fast-paced course that lever­ages e-learning to facil­i­tate a global learn­ing experience.

Note: In order to ensure a valu­able and inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence, par­tic­i­pa­tion will be lim­ited to the first 200 indi­vid­u­als who register.

Fac­ulty:

• Instruc­tor: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (SharpBrains)
• Guest Lec­tur­ers: Alvaro Pascual-Leone (Har­vard Med­ical School), Robert M. Bilder (UCLA Semel Insti­tute for Neu­ro­science and Human Behavior)

To Learn More and Reg­is­ter, please visit the course page: How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach in 2012.

Below you can find the full tran­script of our engag­ing Q&A ses­sion yes­ter­day on life­long cog­ni­tive fit­ness, “men­tal cap­i­tal­ism”, and more,  with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, mod­er­ated by Harry Moody, Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­mic Affairs at AARP.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pre­dict­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease More Accu­rate Through Cog­ni­tive Changes Than Bio­mark­ers (Med­ical News):

• “Mea­sur­ing people’s changes in cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties is a bet­ter pre­dic­tor of Alzheimer’s dis­ease than changes in bio­mark­ers, researchers from the Ben­ito Menni Com­plex Assis­ten­cial en Salut Men­tal, Barcelona, Spain, reported in Archives of Gen­eral Psy­chi­a­try, a JAMA journal.”
• “The inves­ti­ga­tors used a range of tests to assess Read the rest of this entry »

(Editor’s Note: this timely new report illus­trates the need for inno­v­a­tive brain fit­ness inter­ven­tions focused on main­tain­ing if not enhanc­ing tar­geted cog­ni­tive func­tion­al­ity, such as dri­ving safety or finan­cial decision-making, lever­ag­ing life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and cog­ni­tive reserve. What the report presents as inex­orable, some­what genet­i­cally pre-programmed decline, it is not.)

BMO Retire­ment Insti­tute Report: Boomers’ Abil­ity to Make Finan­cial Deci­sions Often Declines With Age (Mar­ket Watch):

- “The BMO Retire­ment Insti­tute released a report today which raises aware­ness of the poten­tial impact on aging Cana­di­ans of declin­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties — often caused by Alzheimer’s dis­ease and other forms of demen­tia — and describes how this decline can affect their abil­ity to make finan­cial deci­sions.” Read the rest of this entry »

Reg­is­tra­tion to par­tic­i­pate in 2011 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit closes tomor­row Tues­day, March 29th, at 1pm US Pacific Time/ 4pm US East­ern Time. If you are plan­ning to attend, please Reg­is­ter Now.

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We are hon­ored to announce that Dr. Brenda Dann-Messier, US Depart­ment of Education’s Assis­tant Sec­re­tary for Voca­tional and Adult Edu­ca­tion, will open 2011 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit on Wednes­day, March 30th, shar­ing her Wel­come Remarks with 220+ reg­is­tered participants.

Brenda Dann-Messier was nom­i­nated by Pres­i­dent Obama as assis­tant sec­re­tary for voca­tional and adult edu­ca­tion on July 14, 2009. On Oct. 5, 2009 she was con­firmed by the U.S. Sen­ate and began her offi­cial duties on Oct. 13, 2009. More infor­ma­tion on Dr. Dann-Messier’s bio Here.

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Sum­mit Agenda: 80% of the 38,000 adults over 50 sur­veyed in the 2010 AARP Mem­ber Opin­ion Sur­vey indi­cated “Stay­ing Men­tally Sharp” as their top ranked inter­est and con­cern. This consumer-fueled inter­est, com­bined with grow­ing research on life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and the cog­ni­tive reserve and with a grow­ing mar­ket­place of “brain fit­ness” prod­ucts and ser­vices, con­sti­tutes a call to action to expand the brain health toolkit to meet grow­ing needs across the lifes­pan. Intel CEO Paul Otellini is quoted as say­ing, “You have to start by think­ing about what peo­ple want to do…and work back­ward,” and the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Retool­ing Brain Health for the 21st Cen­tury will do so by show­cas­ing the lat­est trends tak­ing place among con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als, in indus­try, research, tech­nol­ogy, and care, to iden­tify crit­i­cal oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges to develop a valu­able inno­va­tion ecosys­tem which may exceed $2B world­wide in 2015.

To Learn More About Final Agenda and Speaker Ros­ter, click HERE. Please note all times in the agenda indi­cate US Pacific Time.

You can Learn More and Reg­is­ter HERE, and get a 15% dis­count by enter­ing dis­count code: sharp2011

Let us first announce an upcom­ing Vir­tual Book Club Dis­cus­sion focused on Brain Fit­ness, to take place on Mon­day March 14th in honor of Brain Aware­ness Week 2011 (March 14-20th). Let’s dis­cuss burn­ing issues together: Why care about neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and the pos­si­bil­i­ties it offers to enrich our qual­ity of life? What does cog­ni­tive reserve research mean to the way we learn, work, play, live? What is Brain Train­ing — and what is not? All the con­ver­sa­tion be vir­tual, via social media tools. You can learn more here.

This edi­tion of Sharp­Brains monthly eNewslet­ter brings many arti­cles on those top­ics. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »