Here are a few quick links for those of you inter­ested in track­ing our work and expand­ing the con­ver­sa­tion via social media. The four main plat­forms where we main­tain an active pres­ence are:

• LinkedIn: every­one can join our open group Friends of SharpBrains.com. Par­tic­i­pants in 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit can also dis­cuss and con­nect with other par­tic­i­pants via this members-only group.
• Twit­ter: please fol­low @alvarof
• Face­book: please Like Sharp­Brains page
• Google+: here

Look­ing for­ward to “see­ing you” there!

Pic source: Big­Stock­Photo

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

We are pleased to make eleven impor­tant announce­ments about the upcom­ing 2011 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit…eleven addi­tional rea­sons to con­sider reg­is­ter­ing and join­ing our event and com­mu­nity next week.

1. Intel Cor­po­ra­tion, the “Spon­sors of Tomor­row™”, and Lumos Labs have become Sum­mit Gold Sponsors.
2. Sharp­Brains will issue a Cer­tifi­cate of Atten­dance to par­tic­i­pants (20 hours of con­tin­u­ing education).
3. Jamie Wil­son shares 20 rea­sons why vir­tual con­fer­ences are the future.
4. NIH/ NIA Pro­gram Chief Molly Wag­ster will dis­cuss the new NIH Tool­box for Assess­ment of Neu­ro­log­i­cal and Behav­ioral Function.
5. Yaakov Stern (Colum­bia), David Darby (CogState), Keith Wesnes (United BioSource) and Jef­frey Kaye (Orcat­ech) will explore The Role of Cog­ni­tive Health Mon­i­tor­ing Systems.
6. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (Sharp­Brains) and Muki Hansteen-Izora (Intel Cor­po­ra­tion) will ana­lyze The State of Inno­va­tion and Emerg­ing Marketplace.
7. You can still Reg­is­ter and obtain a com­pli­men­tary copy of Sharp­Brains’ mar­ket report The State of the Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket 2010 (which includes mar­ket data, ven­dor analy­sis, inno­va­tion case stud­ies, research briefs, and more.)
8. Michael Merzenich (UCSF), Alvaro Pascual-Leone (Har­vard), Wal­ter Green­leaf (Vir­tu­ally­Bet­ter) and Kate Sul­li­van (Wal­ter Reed) will dis­cuss how Inno­va­tion gets From Lab to Marketplace.
9. Lumos Labs, Brain Resource, Cogmed, Bay­crest, Cog­niFit, and Posit Sci­ence will present their lat­est tools and solu­tions dur­ing Expo Day.
10. A total of 19 excel­lent Sum­mit Part­ners help us expand Summit’s reach and influence.
11. We are plan­ning April/ May social gath­er­ings for Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants in 5 cities: San Fran­cisco, Los Ange­les, Wash­ing­ton DC, NYC, and Toronto, and will help facil­i­tate gath­er­ings in any city/ region with at least 10 Sum­mit participants.

Please visit the 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit web­site to Learn More and Reg­is­ter.

Also, please fol­low us via Twit­ter and spread the word about the Sum­mit using hash­tag #svs11

We look for­ward to “meet­ing” many of you next week! Please remem­ber you can enter dis­count code sharp2011 in order to get 15% off reg­is­tra­tion fees.

Please Join us on Mon­day March 14th for the largest global and vir­tual book club dis­cus­sion ever focused on the brain.

An open dis­cus­sion on what new brain research means to each of us.

In honor of Brain Aware­ness Week.

.

Why March 14th?

Because we want to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week (BAW), the cam­paign founded by The Dana Alliance for Brain Ini­tia­tives to increase pub­lic aware­ness about the progress and ben­e­fits of brain research. BAW 2011 takes place March 14-20th, 2011.

Every March, Read the rest of this entry »

Wel­come to Grand Rounds, the weekly col­lec­tion of best health and med­ical blog posts. This week we invite you to enjoy a broad range of insights, tips, and first-hand sto­ries, pre­sented as a Q&A con­ver­sa­tion with blog­gers will­ing to answer, below, a total of 22 good questions.

On Health and Med­i­cine

1. What can one-word pre­scrip­tions deliver
2. How does food pro­cess­ing change food´s nutri­tional value
3. Can diet Increases Risk of ADHD
4. Is alco­holism an illness
5. What´s bet­ter: steady dete­ri­o­ra­tion over 10 years, or symp­tom-free life for 9 years fol­lowed by rapid dete­ri­o­ra­tion in year 10

On Patient Life

1. As we talk about wellness…what about devel­op­ing self-compassion
2. Can patients with chronic pain still live a full life
3. What is the patient-doctor eti­quette for using Face­book and Twitter
4. Should patients in an ideal world con­tract directly with their doctors
5. What are patient advo­cates focus­ing on these days

On Health Care pro­fes­sion­als Read the rest of this entry »

The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is ongo­ing, with 242 par­tic­i­pants in 15 coun­tries! thanks to the IT brains at the Insti­tute for The Future and col­lab­o­ra­tors such as Anett Gyu­rak, Pas­cale Mich­e­lon and Camille Fin­ley, event is going great.

If you Twit­ter, you can fol­low my updates here. The Sum­mit hashtag/ feed is #sharp2010. Par­tic­i­pants who were actively tweet­ing the first day:

@IFTFHealth @rodfalcon @positscience @billiamjames @drg @FitLifeClubs

@performbetter @YoungDrivers @AOborne

(Reg­is­tra­tion is closed now for new par­tic­i­pants, please sub­scribe to our eNewslet­ter if you want to learn about future events)

Given the fact I love Kin­dle, and some of our Twit­ter friends had been ask­ing for a Kin­dle ver­sion of our new book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness…well, here it is:
Amazon.com: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Kin­dle Edi­tion, $9.99)

The book has also received two excel­lent new endorsements:

“Kudos for an excel­lent resource! This Sharp­Brains Guide is full of top notch infor­ma­tion, pro­vides prac­ti­cal tips and helps sep­a­rate hype from hope in the brain health arena.“
— Eliz­a­beth Edgerly, Ph.D., Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer, Alzheimer’s Association

“The Sharp­Brains’ Guide to Brain Fit­ness helped answer many of my ques­tions on the impor­tance of both phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise to stay sharp as we age, as they act in syn­ergy on one another. The Guide also pro­vided guide­lines and spe­cific calls to action to expand what we tra­di­tion­ally do in our fit­ness clubs. This is an impor­tant book for any­one in the fit­ness indus­try, and, for that mat­ter, for any­one with a brain.“
— Robin Klaus, Chair­man, Club One Fit­ness Centers

More infor­ma­tion on the book: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness

Also: Book Club Dis­cus­sion Guide