I love read­ing the New Yorker. I have writ­ten before about bogus brain games, and about bogus brain train­ing claims. We have pub­lished a 10-question check­list to help con­sumers make informed decisions.

All this is to say I was sur­prised to read a recent New Yorker blog arti­cle titled “Brain games are bogus.” If you are going to make such strong claims, you need to back them up with seri­ous due dili­gence and analy­sis, and explain to read­ers what 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 »

Ad by 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Spon­sor Brain Resource

Time for Sharp­Brains’ May 2012 eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing in this occa­sion an OpEd by Dr. Peter White­house and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on the urgency to shift atten­tion and resources From Anti-Alzheimer’s “Magic Bul­lets” to True Brain Health. Please read, add your two cents, and share!

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More Fea­tured Perspectives

• Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Ratio­nal and Intu­itive Problem-Solving, by Judith Tin­gley, PhD
• Aer­o­bic Exer­cise or Weight Train­ing to Boost Brain Func­tion?, by Pas­cale Mich­e­lon, PhD
• Is There a For­mula for Smart Think­ing?, by Art Mark­man, PhD
• Music as Ther­apy: Music, Move­ment, Cog­ni­tion! and On Music, Dopamine, and Mak­ing Sense of Sound, by Lau­rie Bartels

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In the News

• Mind-Controlled Videogames Become Reality
• Brain Spa Trend: Travel for Men­tal Fitness

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Upcom­ing event next week

• 10 Fre­quently Asked Ques­tions about the 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012)

Please remem­ber that you are still in time to join the 150+ par­tic­i­pants next week @ 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit: Opti­miz­ing Health through Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity, Inno­va­tion and Data! You can Reg­is­ter Here and get 15% off by using pro­mo­tional code sharp2012

Dr. Green will dis­cuss the Train­ing Con­di­tions For Video Games to Result in Real Brain-based Ben­e­fits, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012).

Dr. C. Shawn Green is the Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Green’s Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Flynn will dis­cuss her entre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney to get Evidence-Based Rehab Video Games Into the Hands of Users, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012).

Dr. Sheryl Flynn is the founder and CEO of Blue Mar­ble Game Co, a seri­ous games com­pany that focuses design and devel­op­ment of video games to enhance Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to announce three new Speak­ers @ 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (June 7-14th, 2012):

1. Dr. Sheryl Flynn, CEO, Blue Mar­ble Game Co
2. Tan Le, CEO, Emo­tiv Lifesciences
3. Corinna E. Lathan, Founder and CEO, AnthroTronix

Read the rest of this entry »

Cog­ni­tive per­for­mance can be improved but peo­ple vary in their abil­ity to do so. It is not clear yet how to assess who will ben­e­fit the most from train­ing and the cog­ni­tive tests used in the past were not very good at pre­dict­ing this.

Dr. Kramer and his col­leagues recently showed that the brain activ­ity in a spe­cific part of the brain (the dor­sal stria­tum) at the start of train­ing in a com­plex video-game could accu­rately pre­dict how well peo­ple will ben­e­fit from the train­ing. Thirty-four young adults with lit­tle expe­ri­ence in play­ing video games were trained to play a com­plex video game Read the rest of this entry »