Who said, “So for me the most excit­ing take­away from this year’s CES (Con­sumer Elec­tron­ics Show)  isn’t the smart car or the smart home, it’s the smart per­son…” You can find the answer, and many insights on brain health inno­va­tion, by read­ing Sharp­Brains’ Jan­u­ary 2013 eNewslet­ter. Enjoy!

• Dig­i­tal health meets con­sumer elec­tron­ics and brain train­ing, by Dr. Evian Gor­don and Dr. Gre­gory Bayer
• Retool­ing Brain Care With Low-Cost, Data-Driven Tech­nolo­gies, by Alvaro Fernandez
• A con­ver­sa­tion on ‘The Opti­mism Bias’ with neu­ro­sci­en­tist Tali Sharot, by David Coleiro
• Why sci­en­tific lit­er­acy and learn­ing enhance brain func­tion and neural health, by Hemal Pathak, PhD
• Best brain health fit­ness tip? “Never let sta­tus quo be an option”, with Dr. San­dra Chapman
• 10 pre­dic­tions on how dig­i­tal plat­forms will trans­form brain health in 2013, by Alvaro Fernandez
• Why, to improve mem­ory, we need to think of the brain as a sys­tem, with Alvaro Fernandez
• Quick poll: 71% would take an “annual men­tal check-up”

Note: We’ll host a 90– minute webi­nar on Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 6th, to dis­cuss the main analy­sis and fore­casts from Sharp­Brains’ new mar­ket report “The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020: Web-based, mobile and biometrics-based tech­nol­ogy to assess, mon­i­tor and enhance cog­ni­tion and brain func­tion­ing,” and to con­nect them with main take aways from CES 2013 and the just fin­ished World Eco­nomic Forum.

–> To learn how to access the webi­nar and the report,  click HERE

(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)

2:02
OK, ready to go! Happy 2013 again. You can start writ­ing your ques­tions and com­ments in the box at the bot­tom, and hit Send.

2:04
Ques­tion 
Which activ­i­ties or games or web­sites do you rec­om­mend to improve mem­ory? Read the rest of this entry »

Great­Call® and Posit Sci­ence® Part­ner to Offer Mobile Brain Exer­cises on the Jit­ter­bug Cell Phone (press release):

“The two games, named “Quick Match” and “Make a Pair,” aim to improve mem­ory and cog­ni­tive think­ing for Great­Call cus­tomers, and come pre­loaded on all Jit­ter­bug Plus cell phones at no extra cost or monthly ser­vice fee. Posit Science’s brain exer­cises are built on Read the rest of this entry »

How Exer­cise Ben­e­fits the Brain (NewYork Times):

“To learn more about how exer­cise affects the brain, sci­en­tists in Ire­land recently asked a group of seden­tary male col­lege stu­dents to take part in a mem­ory test fol­lowed by stren­u­ous exercise.

First, the young men watched a rapid-fire lineup of pho­tos with the faces and names of strangers. After a break, they tried to recall the names they had just seen as the pho­tos again zipped across a com­puter screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Here you have the Octo­ber edi­tion of our monthly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness topics.

We recently run an online sur­vey among sub­scribers of our monthly eNewslet­ter, and over 500 peo­ple said we have helped them make bet­ter per­sonal or pro­fes­sional deci­sions on how to main­tain and improve brain fit­ness. Respon­dents also had many good ques­tions to ask, so I have selected 15 com­mon ones, paraphrased/ syn­the­sized them below, and answered them by link­ing to our most rel­e­vant posts and resources. I hope you enjoy the FAQ session.

Q: I teach a brain fit­ness class at my library/ senior center/ school, using much of your info. Can you share some of your pre­sen­ta­tions?
A: Yes, we have just decided to share, using a Cre­ative Com­mons Attri­bu­tion No Deriv­a­tives License, the full pre­sen­ta­tion of my recent book talk at New York Pub­lic Library (opens video in YouTube). As long as you give credit to Sharp­Brains and don’t mod­ify it, you are free to use the pre­sen­ta­tion you can view and down­load HERE.

Q: What exactly does neu­ro­plas­tic­ity mean, and why is it so impor­tant for edu­ca­tion and health?
A: Start by read­ing how learn­ing changes your brain.

Q. Is this only rel­e­vant for older adults? Can I also apply it in the work­place (I am 47)
A. I strongly sus­pect you do have a human brain, so you may ben­e­fit from these Ten Habits of Highly Effec­tive Brains. Fur­ther, HR depart­ments would do well to start pay­ing more atten­tion to Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness and the Mature Work­force trends.

Q. I read so many con­flict­ing things I don’t know where to start.
A. You are not alone. We should all be aware that It is Not Only Cars That Deserve Good Main­te­nance: Brain Care 101.

Q. How can my orga­ni­za­tion deliver brain fit­ness activ­i­ties as a com­mu­nity ser­vice?
A. These arti­cles will pro­vide good guide­lines and ideas: Retool­ing Use It or Lose It , and Pub­lic Libraries: Community-Based Health Clubs for the Brain.

Q. Every­one seems obsessed with brain games. What about med­i­ta­tion?
A. Check out Yes, You Can Build Willpower, and Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion in Schools.

Q. Are software-based cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions effec­tive?
A. As a cat­e­gory, it cer­tainly seems so, as long as we ask the right ques­tions, For Whom, For What?. For exam­ple, did you see this Sci­ence paper on how Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Can Influ­ence Dopamine Sys­tem?.

Q. What about the trade-off between time invested vs ben­e­fits real­ized.
A. Effi­ciency and replic­a­bil­ity of cog­ni­tive and brain-based out­comes seem to be, in fact, the strongest points of struc­tured cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions. They seem to max­i­mize the Cog­ni­tive Value of your Men­tal Work­out.

Q. It some­times looks like the whole field came out of nowhere, due to Nin­tendo Brain Age’s suc­cess, so we can’t be talk­ing about some­thing seri­ous.
A: Nin­tendo did indeed cre­ate con­sumer aware­ness (for a prod­uct with lit­tle evi­dence) but “brain train­ing” has solid roots in neu­ropsy­chol­ogy and cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science, as you can read in our inter­view with Elkhonon Gold­berg.

Q. What about neu­ro­feed­back?
A. After years of much clin­i­cal use and lit­tle solid evi­dence, sev­eral impor­tant tri­als have been pub­lished since 2009, show­ing how neu­ro­feed­back can help diag­nose and treat ADHD patients, for exam­ple.

Q. How can one improve mem­ory?
A. Well, the answer deserves a whole book, but we can offer some Tips to Improve Mem­ory includ­ing Sleep, Prac­tice and Test­ing.

Q. How can I choose one among the num­ber of prod­ucts mak­ing mem­ory and brain claims?
A. We sug­gest you use this Eval­u­a­tion check­list, and con­sider read­ing our con­sumer guide/ book.

Q. Any gen­eral tips for edu­ca­tors and life­long learn­ers?
A. Indeed, here you have these 10 Brain Tips to Teach and Learn.

Q. How can I keep track of all the new trends, com­pa­nies and prod­ucts? Our health system/ insurer/ senior community/ ven­ture firm/ com­pany needs to make good deci­sions.
A. Well, that’s why we pub­lish mar­ket research, such as the one sum­ma­rized in this Info­graphic: State of the Mar­ket 2009 and also recently launched a pro­fes­sional Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion.

Q: Thank you for all the infor­ma­tion you provide…but what I want more of is… brain teasers!
A. Under­stood. We will make sure to offer more, but you can try, right now, these Top 50 Brain Teasers and con­tinue with more recent puz­zles and brain games.

Excel­lent Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can cover story:

Tur­bocharg­ing the Brain–Pills to Make You Smarter?

“Will a pill at break­fast improve con­cen­tra­tion and memory—and will it do so with­out long-term detri­ment to your health?”

Their answer, in short: not really, not any­time soon.

I couldn’t agree more. Let’s pay real atten­tion to non-invasive options to aug­ment cog­ni­tion, from exer­cise to cog­ni­tive train­ing and meditation.

For more con­text, you may enjoy my recent arti­cle Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age, pub­lished in Fron­tiers in Neuroscience.

Have you already read The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness?

Let’s see…

1. Pick the only part of your body that does not con­tain fat:

a. Arm
b. Thigh
c. Brain
d. None

Answer: d) Fats are also present in the brain: in neu­rons’ mem­branes to keep them flex­i­ble. These fats are the omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids mol­e­cules. (Page 32 of the book)

2. Pick the only food prod­uct that doesn’t con­tain Omega-3 fatty acids

a. Tuna
b. Wal­nut
c. Kiwi
d. Jelly Beans

Answer: d) Fatty acids can be found in cold-water fish (such as mack­erel, her­ring, salmon, and tuna), kiwi, and wal­nuts. (Page 33)

3. Pick the only food prod­uct that doesn’t con­tain antioxidants

a. Olive oil
b. Milk
c. Nuts
d. Berries

Answer: b) Antiox­i­dants can be found in veg­etable oils, nuts, green leafy veg­eta­bles (e.g., spinach), cit­rus fruit, and berries. (Page 33)

4. Chronic Stress cannot:

a. Pre­vent you from being cre­ative
b. Kill brain cells
c. Pre­vent you from sleep­ing
d. Kill liver cells

Answer: d) Pro­longed expo­sure to adrenal steroid hor­mones like cor­ti­sol, which is released into the blood stream when we are stressed, can lead to cell death and block the for­ma­tion of new neu­rons. (Page 35)

5. What type of phys­i­cal exer­cise is the best for your brain health?

a. Weight lift­ing
b. Aer­o­bic exer­cises
c. Flex­i­bil­ity exer­cises Read the rest of this entry »