Brain Health/ Brain Training News

Roundup of inter­est­ing news in this emerg­ing field:

1) Brain Health Lead­ers Team Up to Pre­vent Crashes.

2) Adults Improve Crit­i­cal Pro­fes­sion­al and Per­son­al Skills Through New Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Program.

3) Nature Neu­ro­science Pod­cast and Lon­don Taxi Drivers.

4) What Have You Changed Your Mind About, lately?.

5) The 2008 Mind & Life Sum­mer Research Insti­tute starts accept­ing applications.

6) The Mind & Life Insti­tute has announced the 2007 Fran­cis­co J. Varela Research Award Recipients. 

1) Brain Health Lead­ers Team Up to Pre­vent Crash­es. Quotes:

- Posit Sci­ence “has acquired Visu­al Aware­ness, Inc., devel­op­er of the UFOV® assess­ment and cog­ni­tive speed of pro­cess­ing pro­grams.” (Note: Visu­al Aware­ness’ pro­gram was one of the cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions used in the ACTIVE trial.)

- “UFOV® speed of pro­cess­ing train­ing will become a key com­po­nent of Posit Sci­ence’s visu­al train­ing pro­gram that will be released in ear­ly 2008.”

Com­ment: Giv­en that Posit Sci­ence has spent over a year devel­op­ing a visu­al pro­cess­ing speed pro­gram to com­ple­ment its exist­ing audi­to­ry one, it will be inter­est­ing to see how they will inte­grate 2 sep­a­rate visu­al train­ing pro­grams. Please keep tuned: we will soon be pub­lish­ing an inter­view with Dr. Kar­lene Ball, co-Founder of Visu­al Aware­ness, and Dr. Jer­ri Edwards, a col­lab­o­ra­tor in sev­er­al pub­lished studies.

2) Adults Improve Crit­i­cal Pro­fes­sion­al and Per­son­al Skills Through New Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Program

- Cogmed “has launched Cogmed QM, a new work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing pro­gram designed espe­cial­ly for adults strug­gling with inat­ten­tion due to impaired work­ing memory.”

- “Cogmed’s pro­grams are based on peer reviewed research con­duct­ed at Swe­den’s renowned Karolin­s­ka Insti­tute, which proved that work­ing memory–the abil­i­ty to keep infor­ma­tion in mind for brief peri­ods of time–could be improved through intense, focused training.”

Com­ment: The pro­gram will only be offered through a net­work of clin­i­cal providers, not direct­ly to the con­sumer, which prob­a­bly means the cost will be a major obsta­cle to wider adoption.

3) Nature Neu­ro­science Pod­cast and Lon­don Taxi Drivers

- “The study found that the size of the hip­pocam­pus cor­re­lat­ed with the length of time being a taxi dri­ver, sug­gest­ing that the exten­sive train­ing and nav­i­ga­tion­al expe­ri­ence may change and devel­op the hippocampus.”

Com­ment: great post and pod­cast out­lin­ing the famous research done on Lon­don cab drivers.

4) What Have You Changed Your Mind About, lately?

- “Online chin-scratch­ing club Edge have asked their annu­al ques­tion. This year’s it’s “What have you changed your mind about?” and the respon­dents include a num­ber of cog­ni­tive sci­en­tists or peo­ple think­ing about mind and brain issues.”

- “We’ve list­ed the psy­chol­o­gy and neu­ro­science-relat­ed answers below if you want to cut to the chase (and fixed a few bro­ken links from the orig­i­nal web­site along the way).”

Com­ment: enjoy Mind Hacks’ selec­tion and, more impor­tant­ly, ask your­self: “What Have You Changed Your Mind About, lately?”

5) The 2008 Mind & Life Sum­mer Research Insti­tute starts accept­ing applications.

- “The pur­pose of the Mind and Life Sum­mer Research Insti­tute is to advance col­lab­o­ra­tive research among behav­ioral sci­en­tists, neu­ro­sci­en­tists, and bio­med­ical researchers based on a process of inquiry, dia­logue, and in some cas­es, col­lab­o­ra­tion, with Bud­dhist con­tem­pla­tive prac­ti­tion­ers and schol­ars and those in oth­er con­tem­pla­tive traditions.”

- “The 2008 Sum­mer Research Insti­tute will be devot­ed to the theme of atten­tion and emo­tion reg­u­la­tion. It will bring togeth­er researchers in basic sci­ence, clin­i­cal sci­ence, con­tem­pla­tive schol­ar­ship and phi­los­o­phy, and con­tem­pla­tive prac­tice to inves­ti­gate the rela­tion between atten­tion­al process­es and emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion.” — “In recent years, emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion and atten­tion have emerged as cen­tral themes in psy­chol­o­gy (clin­i­cal and devel­op­men­tal) and neu­ro­science (affec­tive and cog­ni­tive), yet lit­tle work has been done to link find­ings about atten­tion in cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gy and neu­ro­science to find­ings about emo­tion­al self-reg­u­la­tion in clin­i­cal and devel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy and affec­tive neu­ro­science. This gap reflects a long­stand­ing sep­a­ra­tion of cog­ni­tion and emo­tion in the brain and cog­ni­tive sci­ences — one that has become increas­ing­ly untenable.”

Com­ment: the more research-based tools for brain health and train­ing, the bet­ter. The Mind & Life Insti­tute is doing a great job at build­ing bridges between neu­ro­sci­en­tists and med­i­ta­tors, and we are hap­py to see the focus on 2 crit­i­cal areas: the train­ing of atten­tion and emo­tion­al self-regulation.

6) Final­ly, The Mind & Life Insti­tute has announced the 2007 Fran­cis­co J. Varela Research Award Recip­i­ents (list below, could­n’t find any place online to link to).

- Joan­na Arch, M.A., C.Phil., Dif­fer­ent Approach­es to Emo­tion Reg­u­la­tion: MBSR and CBT in the Treat­ment of Anx­i­ety Dis­or­ders; Lab of Michelle Craske, Ph.D., UCLA Anx­i­ety Dis­or­ders Behav­ioral Research Pro­gram, Dept. of Psy­chol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Los Angeles

- Jen­nifer Dauben­mi­er, Ph.D., Effects of Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion on Cell Aging Process­es; Lab of Elis­sa Epel, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Francisco

- Eric Gar­land, MSW, LCSW, Biopsy­choso­cial Assess­ment of a Mind­ful­ness-Ori­ent­ed Treat­ment of Alco­hol Depen­dence, Lab of Susan Gay­lord, Ph.D., Direc­tor, Pro­gram on Inte­gra­tive Med­i­cine, Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na — Chapel Hill

- Joshua Grant, B.Sc. (Ph.D. in progress), Med­i­ta­tion and Real-time fMRI Train­ing for the Cul­ti­va­tion of Com­pas­sion; Lab of Pierre Rainville, Ph.D., Phys­i­ol­o­gy Dept., Uni­ver­si­ty of Mon­tre­al and the Insti­tute of Geri­atric  Func­tion­al Neu­roimag­ing Unit

- Tere­sa Hawkes, B.F.A., A Ran­dom­ized Con­trolled Sin­gle-Blind­ed Pilot Tri­al to Com­pare Effects of Con­cen­tra­tive Sit­ting Med­i­ta­tion to Mov­ing Med­i­ta­tion (Tai Chi) Train­ing on Atten­tion­al Net­work Effi­cien­cy; Lab of  Mar­jorie Wool­la­cott, Ph.D., Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon Depart­ment of Human Physiology

- Brit­ta Hoelzel, Ph.D., Does Mind­ful­ness Train­ing Change the Pro­cess­ing of Social Threat?; Lab of Sara Lazar, Ph.D., Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hospital

- Eliz­a­beth Hoge, M.D., Neu­ropep­tide Lev­els in Med­i­ta­tion, Lab of Mark Pol­lack, MD, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try, Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Gen­er­al Clin­i­cal Research Cen­ter, Cen­ter for Anx­i­ety and Trau­mat­ic Stress Disorder

- Michael Hove, M.A., The Dis­so­lu­tion of Self Dur­ing Rhyth­mic Motor Behav­ior, Labs of Prof. Michael Spivey, Ph.D., Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty and Prof. Ed Large, Ph.D., Flori­da Atlantic Universtiy

- Kris­ten Jas­trows­ki Mano, Ph.D., Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion for the Treat­ment of Pedi­atric Chron­ic Pain, Lab of Dr. Steven Weis­man, MD and W. Hobart Davies, PhD, Jane B. Pet­tit Pain and Pal­lia­tive Care Cen­ter, Chil­drens Hos­pi­tal of Wisconsin

- Antho­ny King, Ph.D., Effi­ca­cy of a 16 week Mind­ful­ness-based Group for Com­bat PTSD in Recruit­ing Vet­er­ans, and Pilot Effects on Threat Detec­tion and Emo­tion Reg­u­la­tion Neu­ro­cir­cuit­ry, Lab of Israel Liber­zon, MD (Chief of Psy­chi­a­try, Ann Arbor VA), PTSD Clin­ic direc­tor: Nicholas Gia­rdi­no, Ph.D., Ann Arbor VA Psy­chi­a­try Ser­vice Clin­i­cal research Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Ann Arbor VA PTSD Clin­ic, Israel Liber­zon, MD biopsy­chol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan fMRI Center

- Zev Rosen, B.A., Neur­al Effects of Mind­ful­ness Train­ing on Adults with Atten­tion Deficit Dis­or­der, Lab of Pro­fes­sor Amishi Jha, Ph.D., Atten­tion and Mem­o­ry Lab at the Cen­ter for Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science, Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania

- Baljin­der Sah­dra, Ph.D., Mea­sure­ment and Cor­re­lates of Non-attach­ment, Lab of Dr. Phillip R. Shaver, Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy, Cen­ter for Mind and Brain, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis

- Lau­ra Van Wielin­gen, M.Sc., How does Mind­ful­ness-based Stress Reduc­tion Improve Psy­cho­log­i­cal Func­tion­ing for Can­cer Patients?, Lab of  Lin­da E. Carl­son, Ph.D., C.Psych., Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Depart­ment of Psy­choso­cial Resources, Tom Bak­er Can­cer Cen­tre Holy Cross Site, Cal­gary, Alber­ta, Canada

- Anna-leila Williams, PA‑C, MPH, Devel­op­ment and Test­ing of Deter­mi­nants of Med­i­ta­tion Prac­tice, Lab of Ruth McCorkle, PhD, FAAN, F.S. Wald Pro­fes­sor, Direc­tor, Cen­ter for Excel­lence in Chron­ic Ill­ness Care, Yale Uni­ver­si­ty School of Nursing

- Fadel Zei­dan, M.A., The Influ­ence of Med­i­ta­tive Expe­ri­ence on Pain Per­cep­tion, Lab of Dr. Nakia Gor­don, Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na-Char­lotte Brain Imag­ing and Analy­sis Cen­ter at Duke University