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Dr. Michael Merzenich: To harness Neuroplasticity for cognitive enhancement, we need to think “Fitness” more than “Games”

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KavliPrize-Neuro(Edi­tor’s Note: In order to help read­ers famil­iar­ize them­selves with the work and think­ing of Dr. Michael Merzenich, one of the win­ners of the 2016 Kavli Prize in Neu­ro­science for ground­break­ing work on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, we are con­dens­ing and repub­lish­ing the com­pre­hen­sive con­ver­sa­tion that Dr. Merzenich and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez had in 2009, in prepa­ra­tion for the inau­gur­al Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit.)

Dr. Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor at UCSF, is a lead­ing pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invent­ed the cochlear implant. In 1996, he was the found­ing CEO of Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, and in 2004 became co-founder and [Read more…] about Dr. Michael Merzenich: To har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, we need to think “Fit­ness” more than “Games”

The Federal Trade Commission vs Lumosity: What does it mean for the brain training market?

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Despite all the noise around brain train­ing, we must be care­ful not to con­fuse com­merce with sci­ence. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC), which reg­u­lates mar­ket­ing claims and com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the Unit­ed States, issues legal rul­ings against spe­cif­ic com­mer­cial behav­iors.  [Read more…] about The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion vs Lumos­i­ty: What does it mean for the brain train­ing market?

Brain Health in the Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­ogy Era

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How to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­ity and dig­i­tal tools to enhance work and life? [Read more…] about Brain Health in the Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­ogy Era

Top 30 Highlights from the 2013 SharpBrains Virtual Summit: The latest on Brain Research, Health and Innovation

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2013 SharpBrains SummitOver 30 speak­ers and 170 reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants dis­cussed the lat­est on brain research, health and inno­va­tion at the fourth annu­al Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit, held in Sep­tem­ber 2013. Here are some of the fas­ci­nat­ing high­lights* that can help iden­ti­fy emerg­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and pre­pare for sig­nif­i­cant changes like­ly to occur in the next 3–5 years.

What surprised/ impressed us the most (in brack­ets, the Speak­er who prompt­ed the high­light):

  1. How the Human Brain Project is build­ing a com­pre­hen­sive brain sim­u­la­tion web por­tal for hun­dreds of neu­ro­sci­en­tists to find prin­ci­ples that can not only opti­mize brain health but also com­put­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing and IT net­works. (Sean Hill)
  2. How dif­fer­ent Brain Health will look in 2020. i.e. we may well see a “self-admin­is­tered annu­al brain health check-up” (Alvaro Fer­nan­dez) build­ing on cur­rent tablet-based cog­ni­tive base­line tests. (Joan Sev­er­son)
  3. Two bil­lion peo­ple world­wide suf­fer from brain based health and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty chal­lenges, and many could ben­e­fit from evi­dence-based inter­ven­tions deliv­ered over the web via computers/ mobile. (Alvaro Fer­nan­dez)
  4. The increas­ing role pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy is play­ing in lead­er­ship and well­ness ini­tia­tives of large orga­ni­za­tions. Many com­pa­nies are using med­i­ta­tion pro­grams at work, help­ing place the human brain at the cen­ter of the human resources equa­tion. (Hyong Un)
  5. How health providers can expand focus to include emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive health. Kaiser Permanente’s sim­ple and pow­er­ful posters are beau­ti­ful and inspir­ing. (Alexan­dra More­house) [Read more…] about Top 30 High­lights from the 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The lat­est on Brain Research, Health and Innovation

10 Predictions on How Digital Platforms will Transform Brain Health in 2013

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Just a quick note: we’ll host a webi­nar on Jan­u­ary 30th to dis­cuss key mar­ket pre­dic­tions based on “The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020: Web-based, mobile and bio­met­rics-based tech­nol­ogy to assess, mon­i­tor and enhance cog­ni­tion and brain func­tion­ing”, our new mar­ket report.

Here are 10 pre­dic­tions, many of which will like­ly be real­ized before the end of 2013: [Read more…] about 10 Pre­dic­tions on How Dig­i­tal Plat­forms will Trans­form Brain Health in 2013

Peter Kissinger on Brain Retraining for U.S. Drivers

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The Pres­i­dent of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty will pro­vide an update on Brain Retrain­ing for U.S. Dri­vers, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (June 7–14th, 2012), dis­cussing the progress of this  ini­tia­tive since 2009.

J. Peter Kissinger is the Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty, a posi­tion he assumed in May of 2002. The Foun­da­tion is a pub­licly sup­ported, char­i­ta­ble research and edu­ca­tional orga­ni­za­tion [Read more…] about Peter Kissinger on Brain Retrain­ing for U.S. Drivers