(Editor’s Note: this is Part 2 of the con­ver­sa­tion between David Coleiro and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on the future of brain health. You can read Part 1 Here)

Non-invasive tech­nolo­gies
There is now a grow­ing toolkit of non-invasive tech­nolo­gies which can be used in brain train­ing. Exam­ples of these include: Read the rest of this entry »

‘Chemo Brain’ After Breast Can­cer Backed by Study (US News):

“Breast can­cer patients treated with chemother­apy are at risk for mild men­tal deficits known col­lec­tively as “chemo brain,” a new study finds. Researchers at the Mof­fitt Can­cer Cen­ter in Tampa, Fla., reviewed exist­ing research on brain func­tion (“cog­ni­tive” func­tion­ing) in Read the rest of this entry »

As an active par­tic­i­pant in the Open­ViBE project (a soft­ware plat­form to design, test and use Brain-Computer Inter­faces), in sci­en­tific as well as tech­ni­cal capac­i­ties, I have long been focused on ways to process, ana­lyze and put brain sig­nals to prac­ti­cal use. When I started read­ing on the sub­ject of brain fit­ness a few years ago, I rec­og­nized the poten­tial to enhance a vari­ety of brain train­ing approaches, from med­i­ta­tion to cog­ni­tive train­ing, by deploy­ing Read the rest of this entry »

“Within 20 years, older adults will account for almost 25% of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion. From a health­care per­spec­tive, a major con­cern with an aging pop­u­la­tion is a higher preva­lence of age-related impair­ment in cog­ni­tive func­tion. This expand­ing aging pop­u­la­tion high­lights the need to iden­tify quick, effec­tive, low-cost solu­tions to delay patho­log­i­cal cog­ni­tive decline asso­ci­ated with aging. Devel­op­ing inter­ven­tions that can pre­serve cog­ni­tive func­tion can also help to main­tain qual­ity of life and inde­pen­dence well into old age. With the help of new tech­nol­ogy, Read the rest of this entry »

Psych test­ing may pre­dict soc­cer suc­cess (UPI):
– “Psy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing could pre­dict the suc­cess of soc­cer play­ers by mea­sur­ing a cog­ni­tive phe­nom­e­non called “exec­u­tive func­tions,” Euro­pean researchers say.”

- “Sci­en­tists at Sweden’s Karolin­ska Insti­tute say they may have found the psy­cho­log­i­cal key to what has pre­vi­ously been described as “game intel­li­gence” in suc­cess­ful soc­cer players.”

Study: Exec­u­tive Func­tions Pre­dict the Suc­cess of Top-Soccer Play­ers. (PLoS ONE) Read the rest of this entry »

We just came across a new sci­en­tific study on the value and lim­i­ta­tions of cog­ni­tive train­ing in Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (MCI), based on a pro­gram of cog­ni­tive exer­cises pro­vided by Lumos Labs (devel­op­ers of lumosity.com).

Study: Com­put­erised Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Older Per­sons With Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment: A Pilot Study Using a Ran­domised Con­trolled Trial Design (Brain Impair­ment): Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note:
Ken­neth S. Kosik, MD, and Ellen Clegg, authors of a recent book on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease pre­ven­tion and treat­ment, force­fully pro­pose a new frame­work and model for brain care: What about set­ting up “cog­ni­tive shops” as “a sort of one-stop shop­ping for every­thing from Alzheimer’s dis­ease pre­ven­tion to guided care for mild or mod­er­ate dis­ease”. What fol­lows is the thought-provoking con­clu­sion sec­tion from their book “The Alzheimer’s Solu­tion. How Today’s Care Is Fail­ing Mil­lions and How We Can Do Bet­ter” (repro­duced with per­mis­sion), not very dif­fer­ent from the “brain fit­ness cen­ter” model we have talked about in the past.

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Chap­ter 10. CONCLUSIONS

Just as the idea of hos­pice care rev­o­lu­tion­ized death and dying in Amer­ica, the idea of bundling many aspects of Alzheimer’s care under one roof in a cog­ni­tive shop could change the way we approach this dire disease—one that has no cure and leaves no sur­vivors. Cer­tainly, the scope of the prob­lem poses med­ical and eco­nomic risks for the coun­try. These risks, and poten­tial steps for a solu­tion, were charted by the bipar­ti­san Alzheimer Study Group in the spring of 2009. The report, issued by the Alzheimer Study Group co-chaired by for­mer con­gress­man Newt Gin­grich and for­mer sen­a­tor Bob Ker­rey, minces few words. Read the rest of this entry »