2012 SharpBrains Summit Agenda

8.30–10am. How will Health incor­po­rate Brain? What will it take for the brain to receive as much atten­tion and proac­tive care as the heart does, both as a key organ on its own and as a key enabler of health.

• Dr. Evian Gor­don, Exec­u­tive Chair­man, Brain Resource
• Dr. Michael Pos­ner, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oregon
• Dr. Yaakov Stern, Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion Leader, Colum­bia University
• Dr. Peter White­house, Pro­fes­sor, Case West­ern Reserve University
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Sharon Beg­ley, Senior Health & Sci­ence Cor­re­spon­dent, Reuters

10.15–11.30am. How can empow­ered con­sumers mon­i­tor their own brain health? A miss­ing piece in today’s health toolk­it is the abil­i­ty for end-users to quan­ti­fy and mon­i­tor their cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al self. Giv­en grow­ing self-track­ing and self-care activ­i­ty, often with ques­tion­able val­ue, and sig­nif­i­cant inter­est in an “annu­al men­tal check­up”, the ques­tion aris­es: What method­olo­gies and instru­ments may help healthy users mean­ing­ful­ly mon­i­tor their own brain health and performance?

• Dr. Hol­ly Jimi­son, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Ore­gon Health & Science
• Tan Le, CEO, Emo­tiv Lifesciences
• Dr. Kei­th Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader, Bracket/ Unit­ed BioSource Corporation
• Mod­er­at­ed by: David Coleiro, Part­ner, Strate­gic North

12.30–1.45pm. Edu­ca­tion­al work­shop: How Nation­wide Insur­ance rolled-out a Brain-based Cor­po­rate Well­ness Ini­tia­tive. An in-depth case study out­lin­ing busi­ness ratio­nale, ven­dor selec­tion, pilot test and roll-out, and return-on-invest­ment.  

• Kath­leen Herath, Asso­ciate Vice Pres­i­dent Health & Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, Nation­wide Insurance
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains

1.45–3pm. Water­cool­er Chats. We’ll spend some time con­nect­ing with oth­er par­tic­i­pants, dis­cussing high­lights, exchang­ing ideas and con­tact information.

3–4pm. Where will neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty-based inter­ven­tions be accessed, and how will they be reg­u­lat­ed and paid for? Inter­ven­tions such as med­i­ta­tion, cog­ni­tive train­ing and videogames, biofeed­back and cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py are being used by con­sumers and insti­tu­tions alike, for a vari­ety of pur­pos­es. This diver­si­ty has impor­tant impli­ca­tions since it involves dif­fer­ent pay­ers and users, as well as dif­fer­ent reg­u­la­to­ry frameworks.

• Dr. Gre­go­ry Bay­er, CEO, Brain Resource
• Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent, AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Kei­th Epstein, Senior Strate­gic Advi­sor, AARP

• Nolan Bush­nell, Founder, Atari
• Stan­ley Yang, CEO, NeuroSky
• Lind­say Gask­ins, CEO, Mar­bles: the Brain Store
• Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Mary Lou Hely & Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

10.15–11.30am. Cog­ni­tive train­ing vs. videogames vs. biofeed­back: what “con­di­tions” seem to influ­ence trans­fer from train­ing to real life ben­e­fit? As a num­ber of non-inva­sive tech­nolo­gies get increased main­stream use, it is impor­tant to exam­ine which “con­di­tions” seem to medi­ate trans­fer from train­ing to real life benefit.

• Dr. C. Shawn Green, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wisconsin-Madison
• Dr. Adam Gaz­za­ley, Direc­tor of the Neu­ro­science Imag­ing Cen­ter, UCSF
• Dr. Hen­ry Mah­ncke, CEO, Posit Science
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Bri­an Mossop, Com­mu­ni­ty Edi­tor, Wired

12.30–1.45pm. How will the era of Big Data and Glob­al Vir­tu­al Access trans­form brain health? What are the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges to improve stan­dards of brain and men­tal health care in light of emerg­ing dig­i­tal tools and glob­al access to exper­tise and inte­grat­ed data­bas­es that enable detec­tion and long-term mon­i­tor­ing through analy­sis of vari­a­tions in genet­ics, brain struc­ture, brain func­tion, and behavior?

• Dr. San­dra Bond Chap­man, Direc­tor, Cen­ter for Brain­Health at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Dallas
• Dr. Robert Bilder, Chief of Med­ical Psy­chol­o­gy-Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy, UCLA Semel Insti­tute for Neuroscience
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Kristi Dura­zo, Senior Advi­sor, Amer­i­can Heart Association

2–3.15pm. Which pro­fes­sional groups are best posi­tioned to become main­stream “brain fit­ness coach­es”? While the demand for “brain fit­ness” is explod­ing, the ques­tion of who will guide end-users in mak­ing per­son­ally rel­e­vant deci­sions and the tools they will use is still up in the air. Today, it is often occu­pa­tional and speech ther­a­pists, psy­chol­o­gists and well­ness pro­fes­sion­als, phys­i­cal ther­a­pists and nutri­tion­ists who are all offer­ing brain fit­ness ser­vices.  Is there a path­way for those who want to enter this field? What are the spe­cific advan­tages of both direct human over­sight and tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven guid­ance, and how can these each be maximized?

• Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, author, sci­en­tist, neuropsychologist
• Dr. Ken­neth Kosik, Co-Direc­tor, UC San­ta Bar­bara Neu­ro­science Research Institute
• Jonas Jen­di, CEO, Cogmed
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains

3.30–4.30pm. What paths to mar­ket and busi­ness mod­els will enable the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of research-based inno­va­tion? Three inno­va­tors with com­bined research + busi­ness “hats” will dis­cuss their respec­tive paths to mar­ket, includ­ing technology/ con­tent licens­ing, strate­gic con­tracts and grants, and ven­ture capital.

• Dr. Sheryl Fly­nn, CEO, Blue Mar­ble Game Co
• Eric Gor­don, CEO, Atentiv
• Dr. Tra­cy Pack­i­am Alloway, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Uni­ver­si­ty of North Florida
• Mod­er­at­ed by: Corin­na E. Lath­an, Founder and CEO, AnthroTronix

• Web­Neu­ro
• MyBrain­So­lu­tions
• MyCalm­Beat

9..45–10.30am. Advanced Brain Tech­nolo­gies (Alex Doman, CEO; Kel­lie Huff, Pres­i­dent Auro­ra Strategies)

• The Lis­ten­ing Program
• TLP Spec­trum

11–11.45am. Brack­et (Dr. Kei­th Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader; Jen Burst­edt, Communications)

• The CDR System

12.45–1.45pm. Water­cool­er Chats. We’ll spend some time con­nect­ing with oth­er par­tic­i­pants, dis­cussing high­lights, exchang­ing ideas and con­tact information.

1.45–2.30pm. Alzheimer’s Research & Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (Dhar­ma Singh Khal­sa, President)

• Kir­tan Kriya meditation
• Self-guid­ed Kir­tan Kriya med­i­ta­tion (CD, MP3)

2.45–3.30pm. About­My­Brain (Rel­mi Dami­ano, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor; Robin Wig­sten, Dig­i­tal Producer)

• BrainArt Awards & Exhibition
• “What did your par­ents teach you about emo­tions?” and “Leonar­do’s Quest” iPhone Apps

• Mark Wat­son, Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty Out­reach, Eaton Edu­ca­tion­al Group
• Annette Good­man, Chief Edu­ca­tion Offi­cer, Arrow­smith Program

10–11.15am. How to Set Up a Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter to Enhance Cog­ni­tive Retrain­ing and Reha­bil­i­ta­tion. Learn the nuts and bolts of open­ing a rehab-ori­ent­ed “brain fit­ness cen­ter”, includ­ing staffing, mea­sure­ment of behavioral/ cog­ni­tive out­comes, selec­tion and roll­out of inter­ven­tions, and inte­gra­tion of cen­ter-based with home-based use. Learn the obsta­cles and tips for repli­cat­ing such a cen­ter in a satel­lite location.

• Kate Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter, Wal­ter Reed Nation­al Mil­i­tary Med­ical Center

12.15–1.30pm. How to Improve Cog­ni­tive Care and Pro­long Inde­pen­dence in Senior Liv­ing. Learn why and how the admin­is­tra­tor of an assist­ed liv­ing facil­i­ty decid­ed to revamp cog­ni­tive and Alzheimer’s care, inte­grat­ing new com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, cog­ni­tive aids and cog­ni­tive train­ing. Results, bud­get, staff ratios, tips for res­i­dent par­tic­i­pa­tion, all will be covered.

• Rod­ney Stoops, Admin­is­tra­tor, Prov­i­dence Place Retire­ment Community

1.45–3pm. How to Edu­cate Con­sumers to be their own “Brain Fit­ness Coach­es.” Learn how to empow­er every­one with a brain to make informed brain fit­ness deci­sions: help debunk myths, address the lifestyle basics, nav­i­gate how to cross-train the brain, self-mon­i­tor and plan.

• Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains