Kick­start­ed with a keynote by scientist/ pol­i­cy-mak­er/ entre­pre­neur Dr. Tom Insel,  the Sum­mit host­ed a Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test (details HERE) to dis­cuss the lat­est tech­nolo­gies for Brain Health & Enhance­ment. 12 select­ed star­tups pitched their inno­v­a­tive approach and solu­tions to our dis­tin­guished Judges –our very own “Sharp Tank”– and to all Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants.

8.30–9.15am. Dig­i­tal Men­tal Health: the Hurt, the Hype, the Hope (record­ing requires reg­is­tra­tion; view slid­edeck above or Here)

• Dr. Tom Insel, Pres­i­dent and Co-Founder of Mind­strong Health

Slid­edeck above sup­port­ed ses­sion held dur­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th). To learn more about the upcom­ing 2018 vir­tu­al sum­mit, click HERE.

Imag­ine a free “annu­al brain check-up” — what may it look like, and how can it lead into per­son­al­ized inter­ven­tions to improve func­tion and prevent/ delay/ treat cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease?

Imag­ine a videogame cleared by the FDA to treat ADHD, depres­sion, or sub­stance abuse — how will doc­tors pre­scribe it, patients access it, and insur­ers pay for it?

Imag­ine being respon­si­ble for the health & well­ness of a mil­lion peo­ple — how will you edu­cate them to nav­i­gate most-like­ly-to-help inter­ven­tions, such as breathing/ exercise/ meditation/ apps/ biofeedback/ tDCS to reg­u­late stress?

The 2018 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 4–6th, 2018)  will fea­ture over forty of the world’s top experts, inno­va­tors and investors aim­ing to improve brain health and per­for­mance for all in light of grow­ing neu­ro­science and dig­i­tal tech.

Learn More and Reserve your Spot HERE

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Mem­o­ry Con­test Comes To MIT, Where Brain Sci­en­tists Explain Why Train­ing Works (WBUR):

“For the last few months, 13-year-old Claire Wang of Los Ange­les has been train­ing her mem­o­ry with play­ing cards, phone num­bers, soft­ware — “what­ev­er I can get my hands on,” she says.

She’s been buff­ing up her skills to com­pete in an annu­al sport­ing tour­na­ment where the ath­letes are not phys­i­cal but men­tal. Read the rest of this entry »

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As cit­i­zens of the 21st cen­tu­ry, we face many prob­lems that come with an indus­tri­al­ized and glob­al­ized world. I’m not a lawyer or a politi­cian, but a psy­chol­o­gist and neu­ro­sci­en­tist. So research on how to train help­ful men­tal and social capac­i­ties is my way to con­tribute to a more healthy, com­mu­nal, and coop­er­a­tive civ­i­liza­tion.

For the past five years, that research has tak­en the form of the ReSource Project, one of the longest and most com­pre­hen­sive stud­ies on the effects of med­i­ta­tion-based men­tal train­ing to date. Lots of research treats the con­cept of med­i­ta­tion as a sin­gle prac­tice, when in fact med­i­ta­tion encom­pass­es a diver­si­ty of men­tal prac­tices that train dif­fer­ent skills and dif­fer­ent parts of the brain. Our goal was to study the spe­cif­ic effects of Read the rest of this entry »

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“Our lives on this plan­et have improved in so many amaz­ing ways over the last cen­tu­ry. On aver­age, we are now health­i­er, more afflu­ent and lit­er­ate, less vio­lent and longer liv­ing. Despite these unprece­dent­ed pos­i­tive changes, clear signs exist that we are in the midst of an emerg­ing crisis–one that has not yet been rec­og­nized in its full breadth, even though it lurks just beneath the sur­face of our casu­al con­ver­sa­tions and swims in the under­cur­rents of our news feeds. This is not the well-known cri­sis that we’ve induced upon the earth’s cli­mate, but one that is just as threat­en­ing to our future. This is a cri­sis of our minds. A cog­ni­tion cri­sis Read the rest of this entry »