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Does Reg­u­lar Brain Train­ing Keep Sele­na Gomez at the Peak of Her Career? (YCB):

“Sele­na Gomez hit the head­lines this week when she revealed to ELLE Mag­a­zine that, despite being one of the world’s most influ­en­tial celebri­ties online with 142 mil­lion fol­low­ers on Insta­gram alone, she actu­al­ly has no social media or pho­to edit­ing apps on her smart­phone.

In fact, the only app she does have is Peak, a pop­u­lar brain-train­ing app.

The Peak app has already reached 40 mil­lion down­loads world­wide, and Sele­na Gomez is just part of a grow­ing trend of 20-some­things who are now using apps and games like this for fun, self-improve­ment and relax­ation, rather than just pas­sive­ly brows­ing online con­tent.”

News in Context:

• Can brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 con­di­tions
• What are cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and how to boost them?
• Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright

John Kemp, Pres­i­dent & CEO at The Vis­car­di Cen­ter and The Hen­ry Vis­car­di School in New York

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The impor­tance of being seen, heard and under­stood for neu­rotech­nol­o­gy end-users (Cen­ter for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton):

“Today, when real­is­tic-look­ing pros­thet­ic hands with artic­u­lat­ing fin­gers are becom­ing more wide­ly avail­able, one of the first things many peo­ple notice about John Kemp is that he choos­es to use pros­thet­ic met­al clamps instead of hands.

“These don’t look func­tion­al,” Kemp said, hold­ing up his clamps. “They’re high­ly func­tion­al. I wear these all day. Read the rest of this entry »

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BrainsWay’s Brain Stim­u­la­tion Device Receives FDA Approval to Treat Obses­sive-Com­pul­sive Dis­or­der (IEEE Spec­trum):

“In 2013, Jerusalem-based Brain­sWay began mar­ket­ing a new type of brain stim­u­la­tion device that uses mag­net­ic puls­es to treat major depres­sive dis­or­der.

Now, thanks to pos­i­tive results in a study of 100 patients, the com­pa­ny has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) to mar­ket the device for a sec­ond psy­chi­atric condition—obsessive-compulsive dis­or­der (OCD) Read the rest of this entry »

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DARPA Wants Brain Inter­faces for Able-Bod­ied Warfight­ers (IEEE Spec­trum):

“Until now, the neu­ro­science pro­grams at DARPA, the mad sci­ence wing of the Depart­ment of Defense, have focused on tech­nolo­gies for warfight­ers who have returned home with dis­abil­i­ties of the body or brain. For exam­ple, pro­grams have fund­ed research on pros­thet­ic limbs that are wired into the ner­vous sys­tem and brain implants that could treat post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der.

But the way the mil­i­tary fights wars is chang­ing, and so must DARPA’s pri­or­i­ties Read the rest of this entry »

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Mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion can help us lead hap­pi­er, health­i­er lives … at least accord­ing to sci­ence. Yet many of us still balk at the idea of prac­tic­ing it our­selves. Per­haps we fear that med­i­ta­tion is too new agey, or it might slow us down or lead to com­pla­cen­cy. Some might fear mind­ful­ness could come at the expense of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, Read the rest of this entry »