Daniel Ferguson: Big Data opens a world of opportunity in health, psychology, neuroscience

Daniel Fer­gu­son

Please tell us about your inter­est in applied brain sci­ence. What areas are you most inter­est­ed in? 
I am most­ly intrigued by brain train­ing and behav­ioral response using neuro/biofeedback and augmented/virtual reality.

What is one impor­tant thing you are work­ing on now, and where can peo­ple learn more about it? 
We are work­ing on ways to lever­age aug­ment­ed real­i­ty for ful­ly immer­sive expe­ri­ences that can impact mood. This will allow us to work with patients even if they are on the oth­er side of the world.

What excites you the most about your cur­rent line of work?
As the Founder of the New Dawn Advanced Mind and Body Research and Devel­op­ment, I am pas­sion­ate about help­ing peo­ple that suf­fer with depres­sion, bipo­lar, pain and child­hood issues that the cur­rent health sys­tem often wipes off as ““too hard.”

What are 1–2 key things you’d like every per­son to under­stand regard­ing his/ her own brain and mind, that you think is com­mon­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed or not addressed in the pop­u­lar media? 
I believe few peo­ple under­stand that any­one can refine mind state eas­i­ly, either via med­i­ta­tion, EEG tech­nol­o­gy or even a sin­gle breath.

Where do you see clear “low-hang­ing fruit” to enhance behav­ioral and brain health based on neu­ro­science and innovation? 
Using cut­ting edge tech­nol­o­gy, we can envi­sion pro­duc­ing an inter­ac­tive vir­tu­al real­i­ty that responds to the user’s mind state using neuro/biofeedback. We are look­ing at a whole new world of brain train­ing and human machine interaction.

What sur­prised you the most at the 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Summit? 
The big data ele­ments of the tech­nol­o­gy that is already avail­able, which can open a world of oppor­tu­ni­ty in health, psy­chol­o­gy and neuroscience.

Final­ly, what do YOU do to stay sharp? 
Biofeed­back for mind state training.

—This con­ver­sa­tion is part of the inter­view series with Speak­ers and Par­tic­i­pants in the 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (Sep­tem­ber 19–20th). Pre­vi­ous inter­views include:

• San­dra Chap­man: Using inno­v­a­tive think­ing, and brain train­ing, we can rewire the brain at every level
• Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa: Why are yoga and med­i­ta­tion often over­looked for healthy brain aging?
• Sheri Osborn: We should all live a cre­ative life
• Cori Lath­an: It’s time for an annu­al brain check-up, a “brain thermometer”
• Tere­sa Kennedy: Total health includes phys­i­cal AND men­tal fitness