Top 40 Brain Fitness & Training Questions/ Course Registration Ends this Sunday

Let us share below a list of 40 com­mon brain fit­ness, brain health, brain train­ing ques­tions that we will make sure to address dur­ing the upcom­ing online course, How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach in 2012 (starts March 7th). The ques­tions are sequenced by their approx­i­mate order of appear­ance in the syl­labus. We look for­ward to an engag­ing, inter­ac­tive and valu­able expe­ri­ence! ***Please remem­ber that course reg­is­tra­tion ends on Sun­day, March 4th.***

Top 40 Brain Fit­ness & Train­ing Questions

1. How can one define brain fitness
2. What is link between stress, focus and memory
3. Does “brain age” even exist
4. How to enhance over­all men­tal pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, vs just IQ
5. Is there some “ceil­ing” to my improve­ment or can I always try more things
6. How brain func­tions evolve with age. What improves, what declines, what should I be pay­ing atten­tion to
7. Can life­long learn­ing delay dementia
8. What are spe­cif­ic guide­lines to lead a lifestyle that max­i­mizes brain fitness
9. How to increase my chances to avoid Alzheimer’s Disease
10. How do I know what is part of the nor­mal aging process and what isn’t
11. What are the main pil­lars to enhance  cog­ni­tion, and how do they work
12. What are the “active ingre­di­ents” for expe­ri­ences to build new neur­al pathways
13. Are dietary sup­ple­ments ben­e­fi­cial? How does nutri­tion and exer­cise improve cog­ni­tive skills?
14. What is the state of the sci­ence of cog­ni­tive fit­ness? What types of claims make sense?
15. Can videogames  pro­tect from dementia
16. Does stress kill neurons?
17. Can we increase the capacity/ plas­tic­i­ty of the brain?
18. What are the best pre­ven­tive steps that can be tak­en today to main­tain brain health over many years?
19. What are the types of activ­i­ties shown to build cog­ni­tive reserve
20. How can brain  train­ing prin­ci­ples can be APPLIED to every­day work and life and learn­ing, not just while doing programs
21. Can I improve mem­o­ry and focus capabilities
22. What’s the best evi­dence for what helps in brain training
23. How can I train my brain to focus/concentrate more when I need to focus/concentrate and shut down when I need to or want to sleep
24. How to effec­tive­ly use new prod­ucts to improve brain func­tion. How do I choose between prod­uct A or B?
25. How brain train­ing works and the ben­e­fits we can expect to receive from it
26. How can I eval­u­ate whether the claims are evidence-based
27. Is med­i­ta­tion bet­ter than yoga for the brain?
28. How does brain train­ing gen­er­al­ize to every day life? Is there research to sup­port claims?
29. How I can pre­vent age-relat­ed cog­ni­tive dete­ri­o­ra­tion / loss / dementia
30. How to enhance men­tal flexibility?
31. How do I mea­sure progress and results? How can I track that what I try real­ly works?
32. How I go about being my own Brain Fit­ness Coach
33. How do I get started?
34. How to eval­u­ate whether real change has occurred?
35. How to set up a con­sis­tent prac­tise with say 20 min­utes everyday
36. Will any of this help me at work? How?
37. How can the aver­age per­son devel­op and self-man­age a struc­tured coach­ing plan in all phas­es of life that is valid and a good time investment
38. What are the three or four things one can do on a dai­ly basis to improve health and pre­vent impair­ment with age?
39. What can I do in my every­day expe­ri­ences to keep my brain in great con­di­tion, as I have/had sev­er­al cas­es of demen­tia and Alzheimer’s in my family?
40. How do I know what’s my base­line and how do I track/maintain pos­i­tive progress over time?

Instruc­tor and Guest Lecturers

Instruc­tor: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is the cofounder of Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm help­ing orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als nav­i­gate the emerg­ing brain fit­ness field, and the  coau­thor of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp, recent­ly named a Best Book by AARP. He is a nation­al­ly-known speak­er and expert, quot­ed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, New Sci­en­tist, CNN, and oth­er media out­lets. Alvaro is also pro­duces the largest annu­al glob­al and vir­tu­al con­fer­ence where sci­en­tists, tech­nol­o­gists and pro­fes­sion­als dis­cuss lat­est devel­op­ments in the field. Alvaro holds an MBA and an MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford University.

Guest Lec­tur­er: Alvaro Pas­cual-Leone, MD, PhD, is the Direc­tor of the Beren­son-Allen Cen­ter for Non-Inva­sive Brain Stim­u­la­tion and a Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy at Har­vard Med­ical School. Dr. Pas­cual-Leone research­es the phys­i­ol­ogy of high­er cog­ni­tive func­tions with empha­sis on the study of brain plas­tic­ity in skill acqui­si­tion and recov­ery from injury across the lifes­pan. Dr. Pas­cual-Leone obtained an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Neu­ro­phys­i­ol­ogy from the Fac­ulty of Med­i­cine of Albert Lud­wigs Uni­ver­sity in Ger­many, and trained at the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota and the US Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health. He great­ly enjoys teach­ing and is the recip­i­ent of numer­ous awards.

Guest Lec­tur­er: Robert M. Bilder, PhD, ABPP-CN is the Michael E. Ten­nen­baum Fam­i­ly Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try and Biobe­hav­ioral Sci­ences at the UCLA David Gef­fen School of Med­i­cine. Dr. Bilder is also the Chief of Med­ical Psy­chol­o­gy-Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy at the Semel Insti­tute for Neu­ro­science and Human Behav­ior, directs the Ten­nen­baum Cen­ter for the Biol­o­gy of Cre­ativ­i­ty; is Co-Direc­tor of an NIMH-spon­sored Cen­ter for Inter­ven­tion Devel­op­ment and Applied Research focus­ing on trans­la­tion­al research to enhance cog­ni­tive control.