Sharp Brains: Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

Neuroplasticity, Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

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The Summit Agenda (View All Slidedecks & Session Recordings Below)

The human brain is at the core of every­thing we do, from the every-day deci­sions we make while work­ing or dri­ving to the lifestyles that con­tribute (or not) to depres­sion and demen­tia. And a grow­ing range of neu­rotech­nolo­gies are poised to become ubiq­ui­tous, per­va­sive: espe­cial­ly those that, being dig­i­tal, are scal­able and rel­a­tive­ly inex­pen­sive, and that, being non-inva­sive, pose few if any neg­a­tive side-effects. This is why indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions world­wide are spend­ing over $1.5 bil­lion a year in web-based, mobile and bio­met­rics-based brain health solu­tions, and why non-inva­sive neu­rotech patent fil­ings have been soar­ing since 2010.

How can con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als har­ness this opportunity–mobile and web-based cog­ni­tive assess­ment and train­ing meth­ods, wear­ables, brain stim­u­la­tion, car-based sen­sors, and more–to bet­ter mon­i­tor and enhance brain health, and to improve work and life?

Tuesday, November 17th, 2015

Day 1

Wednesday, November 18th, 2015

Day 2

8.15–8.20am. Brain Health in the Pervasive Neurotechnology Era (slidedeck Here)

  • Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO & Co-Founder of SharpBrains

8.20–9.45am. How to harness neuroplasticity and digital tools to enhance work and life

Led by deci­sion-mak­ers at the fron­tier of inno­va­tion, we will dis­cuss how to guide inter­ven­tions and mea­sure progress using real-life out­comes such as safe dri­ving and workplace/ sports performance.

  • Chair: J. Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent and CEO of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety
  • Dr. Peter Delahunt, Research Sci­en­tist at Posit Science
  • Dr. Ruth Wolever, Chief Sci­ence Offi­cer at eMindful
  • Dan­ny Dankn­er, CEO of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing (ACE)
  • Brig. Gen­er­al Pete Palmer (Retired), Direc­tor of the EDGE Inno­va­tion Network

10–11.30am. How to measure and improve brain-based outcomes that matter in health care (slidedeck Here)

Pio­neers advanc­ing health research, pre­ven­tion and treat­ment will help us under­stand emerg­ing best prac­tices where tar­get­ed assess­ments, mon­i­tor­ing and inter­ven­tions can trans­fer into sig­nif­i­cant health­care and qual­i­ty of life outcomes.

  • Chair: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO & Co-Founder of SharpBrains
  • Dr. Madeleine S Good­kind, staff psy­chol­o­gist at New Mex­ico VA Health Care System
  • Dr. Randy McIn­tosh, Vice-pres­i­dent of Research and Direc­tor of Baycrest’s Rot­man Research Institute
  • Chris Berka, CEO and Co-Founder of Advanced Brain Mon­i­tor­ing (ABM)

12.30–1.30pm. Workshop: Best practices to navigate and implement the emerging brain health toolkit (slidedeck Here)

Two well-rec­og­nized prac­ti­tion­ers, at UMass and Wal­ter Reed, will describe their respec­tive well­ness and rehab ini­tia­tives, focus­ing on the prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions to nav­i­gate, select, and imple­ment the grow­ing array of tech­nol­o­gy-enabled brain health and behav­ioral health assess­ments and interventions.

  • Chair: Dr. Majid Fotuhi, Chair­man of the Mem­o­syn Neu­rol­o­gy Institute
  • Dr. Dou­glas Ziedo­nis, Pro­fes­sor and Chair of the Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Med­ical School
  • Kate Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed Nation­al Mil­i­tary Med­ical Center

1:30–2:30pm. Watercooler Chats

We’ll spend some time con­nect­ing with oth­er par­tic­i­pants, dis­cussing high­lights, exchang­ing ideas and con­tact information.

2.30–4pm. At the frontier of Big Data and Brain Health (slidedeck Here)

Dur­ing this ses­sion we will explore cut­ting-edge ini­tia­tives to accel­er­ate research & devel­op­ment via Big Data, crowd­sourc­ing, tech­nolo­gies for the extend­ed mind, and a range of data-rich per­va­sive neu­rotech­nolo­gies such as vir­tu­al reality.

  • Chair: Ali­son Fen­ney, Direc­tor of Indus­try Alliances at the Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Orga­ni­za­tion (NIO)
  • Dr. Wal­ter Green­leaf, Dis­tin­guished Vis­it­ing Schol­ar at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty’s Vir­tu­al Human Inter­ac­tion Lab
  • Michael Meagher, Pres­i­dent of Cogniciti
  • José Bar­rios, Co-Founder & CEO of Cognilab
  • Dr. Peter Rein­er, Co-Founder, Nation­al Core for Neu­roethics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Columbia

8.15–9.45am. Beyond the US college student’s brain: A survey of priorities across geography and age (slidedeck Here)

Researchers and inno­va­tors in North Amer­i­ca, Europe and India will explore the fron­tiers in applied research across the lifes­pan, from chil­dren to younger and old­er adults, help­ing make the case for tru­ly per­son­al­ized (or at least cus­tomized) brain devel­op­ment and brain health.

  • Chair: Dr. Olivi­er Oul­li­er, Pro­fes­sor of Behav­ioral and Brain Sci­ences at Aix-Mar­seille University
  • Eduar­do Briceño, CEO of Mind­set Works
  • Dr. Graeme Mof­fat, Direc­tor of Sci­en­tif­ic & Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs at InteraXon
  • Tara Thi­a­gara­jan, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Madu­ra Microfinance

10–11.30am. Lessons learned in bringing innovative solutions to market (slidedeck Here)

Suc­cess­ful inno­va­tors will dis­sect key mar­ket & tech­nol­o­gy trends and suc­cess­ful mod­els to val­i­date and com­mer­cial­ize inno­va­tion, with a par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on how to cre­ate a loy­al user base and gain main­stream dis­tri­b­u­tion via a diver­si­ty of channels.

  • Chair: Dr. Jen­nifer Buss, Assis­tant Vice Pres­i­dent of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy at the Potomac Insti­tute for Pol­i­cy Studies
  • Char­lie Hartwell, Oper­at­ing Part­ner at the Bridge Builders Collaborative
  • Mark Bax­ter, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Fit Brains (a Roset­ta Stone company)
  • Ita­mar Lesu­isse, CEO & Co-Founder of Peak
  • Con­nor Rus­so­man­no, CEO & Co-Founder of OpenBCI

12.30–1.45pm. Under what conditions does brain training work? (slidedeck Here)

Despite ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sies, the evi­dence is clear: Some brain train­ing inter­ven­tions (in a broad def­i­n­i­tion, includ­ing cog­ni­tive train­ing, vir­tu­al real­i­ty and brain stim­u­la­tion) work, and some don’t. What explains the dif­fer­ence? What con­di­tions max­i­mize the prob­a­bil­i­ty of trans­fer into real-life ben­e­fits? Under­stand­ing these con­di­tions, as out­lined in The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, is cru­cial to sep­a­rate wheat from chaff.

  • Chair: Dr. Peter White­house, Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy at Case West­ern Reserve University
  • Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO & Co-Founder of SharpBrains
  • Dr. Bruce E. Wexler, Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try at Yale University
  • Dr. Roy Hamil­ton, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in Neu­rol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania

1:45–2:30pm. Watercooler Chats

We’ll spend some time con­nect­ing with oth­er par­tic­i­pants, dis­cussing high­lights, exchang­ing ideas and con­tact information.

2.30–4pm. Innovative partnerships to improve health and life at scale (slidedeck Here)

In this grow­ing and rapid­ly evolv­ing cat­e­go­ry, there are mul­ti­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties for devel­op­ers to part­ner with large-scale orga­ni­za­tions look­ing for ways to improve health, per­for­mance and busi­ness out­comes. Dur­ing this ses­sion we will dis­cuss sig­nif­i­cant neu­rotech-relat­ed ini­tia­tives tak­ing place at large IT, phar­ma and auto­mo­tive firms, as well as universities.

  • Chair: Richard Varn, Dis­tin­guished Pres­i­den­tial Appointee at Edu­ca­tion­al Test­ing Ser­vice (ETS)
  • Tom­my Sagroun, CEO of CogniFit
  • Peter Freer, Inven­tor and CEO of Freer Logic
  • Glenn Mor­ri­son, Direc­tor of Clin­i­cal Tri­als at Lumosity
  • Nikhil Sri­ra­man, IP Ana­lyst at SharpBrains

Thursday, November 19th, 2015

Expo Day

Dur­ing Expo Day select­ed Sum­mit Spon­sors will show­case their lat­est ini­tia­tives and solutions:

8.15–8.45am. Pre­view the Future of Brain Health with Anu Acharya, Founder and CEO of Map My Genome

9–9.30am. The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF): Dis­cuss new sci­ence and pre­ven­tion ini­tia­tives with Pres­i­dent Dr. Dhar­ma Singh Khalsa.

9.45–10.15am. Fit­Brains (a Roset­ta Stone com­pa­ny): Explore ongo­ing big data research with Con­ny Lin, Data Research Sci­en­tist & Pol­i­cy Analyst.

(slid­edecks Here)

10.30–11am. Bay­crest: Meet the new $100m+ Cana­dian Cen­tre for Aging and Brain Health Inno­va­tion, with Dr. Randy McIn­tosh, Vice-pres­i­dent of Research and Direc­tor of Baycrest’s Rot­man Research Institute.

11.15am-11.45am. Lumos­i­ty: Dis­cuss emerg­ing stan­dards for cog­ni­tive research with Dr. Glenn Mor­ri­son, Direc­tor of Clin­i­cal Trials.

12–12.30pm. Brain­Base­line: Explore the lat­est in mobile cog­ni­tive assess­ments with Joan Sev­er­son, Pres­i­dent of Dig­i­tal Artefacts.

12.45–1.15am. Help improve and expand The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness with co-author Alvaro Fernandez.

(slid­edecks Here)

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