Update: Emerging Tools, Not Magic Pills

Here you are have the twice-a-month newslet­ter with our 10 most pop­u­lar blog posts. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, sim­ply by sub­mit­ting your email at the top of this page.

Our first Brain Training/ Fit­ness Webi­nar Series was a suc­cess with sev­er­al hun­dred par­tic­i­pants and great feed­back. If you could not par­tic­i­pate, you can still review the pre­sen­ta­tion slides by click­ing Here. A key mes­sage from the series: it is excit­ing that our brains remain more flex­i­ble, at all ages, than was once thought pos­si­ble. The impli­ca­tions? Every sin­gle own­er of a brain can ben­e­fit from learn­ing more about how to main­tain the “It” in “Use It or Lose It.” And which tools, if any, can be help­ful. But, remember,there are no mag­ic pills for cog­ni­tive health and performance.

Mar­ket News

Nation­al Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Ini­tia­tive: Neu­rotech lead­ers ask for help to sup­port a pend­ing bill on fund­ing for appli­ca­tions of brain research.

Lumos Labs rais­es $3 m in ven­ture cap­i­tal:  This web­site pro­vides a stim­u­lat­ing user expe­ri­ence at a rea­son­able cost. How­ev­er, there is no clin­i­cal val­i­da­tion show­ing the effi­ca­cy of their spe­cif­ic brain train­ing pro­gram. If you are in the mar­ket for pro­grams than make brain-relat­ed claims, please check out our 10-Ques­tion Eval­u­a­tion Check­list. Click Here.

Report for Brain Fit­ness Cen­ters: We are hap­py to see more orga­ni­za­tions, from retire­ment com­mu­ni­ties to health sys­tems, ben­e­fit from our mar­ket report to nav­i­gate the brain fit­ness field and make bet­ter informed decisions.

Research

Exec­u­tive Func­tions, Edu­ca­tion and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease: What we find excit­ing is the grow­ing amount of research show­ing how spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive skills (atten­tion, mem­o­ry, etc.…) can be improved. An impor­tant rea­son why the search for a “mag­ic pill” will prove elu­sive is because there is a vari­ety of brain struc­tures and func­tions to care care of, not just one. An area that deserves more atten­tion: our frontal lobes and so-called exec­u­tive functions.

Promis­ing Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Stud­ies for ADHD: Dr. David Rabin­er reports the results from two recent sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies high­light­ing that “cog­ni­tive train­ing inter­ven­tions may pro­vide an impor­tant com­ple­ment to tra­di­tion­al med­ica­tion treat­ment and behav­ior ther­a­py” to help chil­dren with atten­tion deficits.

Edu­ca­tion

Cog­ni­tive and Emo­tion­al Devel­op­ment Through Play: Enough about “exer­cise” and “train­ing”. Dr. David Elkind, author of The Pow­er of Play: Learn­ing That Comes Nat­u­ral­ly, dis­cuss­es the need to build a more “play­ful culture.”

Health & Wellness

Phys­i­cal or Men­tal Exer­cise for Brain Health?: Both are impor­tant.  Advice for a couch pota­to: Be Active. For a teenag­er: Don’t Drop Out of School, Go To Col­lege. For a mid­dle age per­son: Make Sure you Have a Stim­u­lat­ing Job. For a retired per­son: Find and Try to Mas­ter  New Hob­by Every Few Years.

Pro­fes­sion­al Development

Your Trad­ing Brain: Expert or Novice: Infor­ma­tion is pow­er, yet, how often do we ask our­selves, “how does my brain work?”. Trad­er and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Dr. Jan­ice Dorn pro­vides an in-depth dis­cus­sion to help traders make bet­ter deci­sions and be more successful.

Brain Teasers

Brain Games: Spot the Dif­fer­ence. You can exer­cise your brain with­out spend­ing a dime. In fact, you may well already be.

We hope you enjoy this newslet­ter. Please stay tuned for the next one at the end of June. It will include a fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view with Dr. Arthur Kramer on the cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal exer­cise and his cut­ting-edge cog­ni­tive train­ing work with the Navy and air controllers.