Envi­sion­ing The Future With Inven­tor Cori Lathan (NPR): “Com­put­ers were cre­ated to be use­ful tools, but all too often it’s still a chore to get tech­nol­ogy to do our bidding…For exam­ple, work­ing as an engi­neer with astro­nauts at NASA, Lathan real­ized that the phys­i­cal chal­lenges of liv­ing in space in some ways mir­ror the chal­lenges of liv­ing with a dis­abil­ity on Earth. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dig­i­tal Brain Health mar­ket can be bro­ken down into two main tech­nol­ogy seg­ments: Read the rest of this entry »

Penn Researchers Receive Major Grant to Explore Use of Brain Train­ing To Help Peo­ple Change Behav­iors that Increase Can­cer Risk (press release):

“Most peo­ple know that smok­ing, a bad diet, and phys­i­cal inac­tiv­ity can lead to cat­a­strophic per­sonal health con­se­quences, includ­ing can­cer. Yet mil­lions con­tinue to smoke, eat poorly, and fail to get enough exer­cise. A new project Read the rest of this entry »

Time for Sharp­Brains’ Sep­tem­ber 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing leading-edge research and insights to help con­nect the dots among tech­nol­ogy, healthy liv­ing, healthare, con­cus­sions, and–our protagonist–the brain.

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• Is the Inter­net mak­ing us dumber? (Nope, just different)
• Increas­ing cog­ni­tive loads on min­ers’ brains: good exam­ple of where soci­ety is heading
• Brain fit­ness meets HRV and EEG biometrics
• Employee Assis­tance Pro­grams enhance cor­po­rate well­ness with brain training
• The NIH Toolbox:First Com­pre­hen­sive & Stan­dard­ized Tests of Brain Function
• MMSE®/MMSE®-2™ Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment Screener, Now a Mobile App

Healthy Liv­ing & the Brain:

• Why do Super­Agers Main­tain Mem­ory and a Thick Cortex?
• Will Medicare’s Annual Well­ness Visit enhance phys­i­cal & cog­ni­tive health? Prob­a­bly — if peo­ple go
• Health value of Omega-3 sup­ple­ments is increas­ingly questioned
• Good Q&A on Mild Cog­ni­tive Impairment

Health­care & the Brain:

• Map­ping the Brain To Bet­ter Enhance and Treat the Mind
• Cog­ni­tive ther­apy or med­ica­tion? Brain scans may help per­son­al­ize treatments
• Mon­i­tor­ing EEG Brain Activ­ity to Per­son­al­ize Mem­ory Training
• Train­ing Atten­tion and Mem­ory after Bypass Surgery
• MRI scan tech­ni­cians can expe­ri­ence neg­a­tive neu­rocog­ni­tive effects

Con­cus­sions & the Brain:

• Retool­ing cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion for mil­i­tary patients with trau­matic brain injury
• NFL donates $30 mil­lion to improve con­cus­sion & brain injury care

Pic cour­tesy of Big­Stock­Photo

MRI work­ers expe­ri­ence tran­sient neu­rocog­ni­tive effects (News Medical):

“Indi­vid­u­als work­ing in the vicin­ity of mag­netic res­o­nance imag­ing (MRI) machines may expe­ri­ence tran­sient neu­rocog­ni­tive effects when mov­ing their heads, research demonstrates…Study par­tic­i­pants who com­pleted stan­dard­ized Read the rest of this entry »

You may have read a new wave of arti­cles claim­ing that “brain train­ing doesn’t work”, based on the recent research meta-analytic review Is Work­ing Mem­ory Train­ing Effec­tive? (Devel­op­men­tal Psy­chol­ogy, May 2012), whose abstract says:

“It has been sug­gested that work­ing mem­ory train­ing pro­grams are effec­tive both as treat­ments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity dis­or­der (ADHD) and other cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders in chil­dren and as a tool to improve cog­ni­tive abil­ity and scholas­tic attain­ment in typ­i­cally devel­op­ing chil­dren and adults… Read the rest of this entry »

Spon­sored Ad

Time for Sharp­Brains’ April 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing new  per­spec­tives and research on how, and why, we can think about shap­ing our brains for bet­ter life­long health and functioning.

Fea­tured Perspectives:

• Why I Wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, by Bar­bara Arrowsmith-Young
• Pro­tect Your Asset by Being Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach, by Alvaro Fernandez
• Promis­ing New Neu­rocog­ni­tive Inter­ven­tion for Preschool­ers with ADHD (TEAMS), by Dr. David Rabiner

New Research & Resources:

• Daniel Kah­ne­man on the Need to Think Slow (at times)
• Why our brains weigh 1.3 kilo­grams, have ~100 bil­lion neu­rons, con­sume 20% of the oxy­gen we breathe
• Can You Make Your­self Smarter? Yes. Real ques­tion is, How?
• Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­apy, deliv­ered as a Videogame, Can Help Lower Anx­i­ety and Depression
• Con­nect­ing the (Brain) Dots: Under­stand­ing Brain Func­tional Networks
• New WHO Report: Global demen­tia cases expected to exceed 115 mil­lion by 2050

Sharp­Brains News:

• We thank three new 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Spon­sors: About­My­Brain, Advanced Brain Tech­nolo­gies, Unit­ed­BioSource Corporation

Note: Please remem­ber that 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit early-bird reg­is­tra­tion rates end tomor­row, Tues­day May 1st. We hope you can join us! To Learn More and Reg­is­ter, please Click Here.

Have a great month of May!