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Prac­tice Imper­fect: Repeat­ed Cog­ni­tive Test­ing Can Obscure Ear­ly Signs of Demen­tia (UC San Diego Health press release):

“Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) is a pro­gres­sive, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tion that often begins with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or MCI, mak­ing ear­ly and repeat­ed assess­ments of cog­ni­tive change cru­cial to diag­no­sis and treat­ment.

But in a paper pub­lished online in the jour­nal Alzheimer’s & Demen­tia: Diag­no­sis, Assess­ment & Dis­ease Mon­i­tor­ing, a team of researchers led by sci­en­tists at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego School of Med­i­cine found that repeat­ed test­ing of mid­dle-age men pro­duced a “prac­tice effect” which obscured true cog­ni­tive decline and Read the rest of this entry »

Heads-up: the 2018 Hora­sis Glob­al Meet­ing will host a ses­sion on How Inno­va­tion Leads to New Health­care Real­i­ties, and our very own Alvaro Fer­nan­dez will dis­cuss the lat­est in neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, brain & men­tal health and also set the stage for the upcom­ing launch of the Por­tuguese edi­tionof The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age (also avail­able in Span­ish, Japan­ese and Pol­ish).

Descrip­tion: Inno­va­tion in health-care is advanc­ing glob­al­ly, offer­ing trans­for­ma­tive change. In an aging soci­ety we might con­sid­er bet­ter pal­lia­tive care most impor­tant – but are there oth­er areas that offer bet­ter prospects?  How may our plan­et and we become more resilient?

When: May 8th, 08.00–09.30

Read the rest of this entry »

—– In the study, both (A) Total medi­al tem­po­ral lobe (MTL) and (B) parahip­pocam­pal thick­ness cor­re­lat­ed inverse­ly with hours of sitting/day, con­trol­ling for age. Ref­er­ence: Sid­darth P et al (2018), Seden­tary behav­ior asso­ci­at­ed with reduced medi­al tem­po­ral lobe thick­ness in mid­dle-aged and old­er adults. PLOS ONE 13(4): e0195549.

Sit­ting is bad for your brain — not just your metab­o­lism or heart (UCLA release):

“UCLA researchers recruit­ed 35 peo­ple ages 45 to 75 and asked about their phys­i­cal activ­i­ty lev­els and the aver­age num­ber of hours per day they spent sit­ting over the pre­vi­ous week. Each per­son had a high-res­o­lu­tion MRI scan, which pro­vides a detailed look at the medi­al tem­po­ral lobe, or MTL, a brain region involved in the for­ma­tion of new mem­o­ries.

The researchers found that seden­tary behav­ior is a sig­nif­i­cant pre­dic­tor of thin­ning of the MTL and Read the rest of this entry »

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Albert, what sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test?

It was a pleas­ant sur­prise to receive so many votes and such great feed­back, which solid­i­fied my con­vic­tion that there is a great need to cre­ate new ther­a­py options for stroke patients and oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal injuries, espe­cial­ly giv­en our aging pop­u­la­tion.  Med­ical sys­tems world­wide will strug­gle to han­dle the grow­ing bur­den of chron­ic ill­ness­es unless we start act­ing soon.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind AUG­MEN­Tx?

The core idea is to lever­age visu­al-cog­ni­tive and visu­al-motor/sen­so­ry con­nec­tions of the brain to enhance per­for­mance in dis­ease states.  For exam­ple, mir­ror ther­a­py takes advan­tage of the mir­ror neu­ron path­way to improve post-stroke motor recov­ery and to alle­vi­ate phan­tom limb pain in limb amputees.  And we believe that these ther­a­pies can be deliv­ered on dig­i­tized AR plat­forms, instead of being always con­fined to few spe­cial­ized phys­i­cal reha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­ters.  Why not have them be acces­si­ble from the patient’s home Read the rest of this entry »

Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants @ 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017)

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Whew.

What a rich and diverse 3-day con­ver­sa­tion on the future of brain health and brain enhance­ment among 50+ Speak­ers and 200+ par­tic­i­pants in 24 coun­tries.

From the dozens of fas­ci­nat­ing insights and moments, here are some our favorites:

(Note: slid­edecks are now freely avail­able; ses­sion record­ings require reg­is­tra­tion and login cre­den­tials)

1. That mas­ter­ful 40-minute overview by Dr. Tom Insel on the past, present and future of men­tal health (view slid­edeck Here)

2. Dis­cussing with Akili’s Eddie Mar­tuc­ci the FDA impli­ca­tions from the sig­nif­i­cant research find­ings released just the day before (view slid­edeck Here)

3. Explor­ing the rev­o­lu­tion in brain health assess­ments (view slid­edeck Here), as cov­ered in the arti­cle Firms Race to Find New Ways to Scan Brain Health at Web­MD

4. Dis­cov­er­ing the lat­est in EEG, vir­tu­al reality/ aug­ment­ed real­i­ty, and pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion with experts at UCSF, Emo­tiv, Stan­ford, AUG­MEN­Tx ad VieLight ((view main slid­edeck Here)

5. Pre­view­ing why Lumos­i­ty is get­ting into Mind­ful­ness (view slid­edeck Here; final pre­sen­ta­tion)

6. Con­sid­er­ing the ethics of dif­fer­ent meth­ods of cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, includ­ing the grow­ing use of con­sumer-dri­ven brain stim­u­la­tion (view slid­edeck Here)

7. Learn­ing about the largest new Ran­dom­ized Con­trolled Tri­al on the impact of lifestyle fac­tors such as exer­cise and nutri­tion on healthy brain aging (view slid­edeck Here)

8. Dis­cussing the upbeat find­ings about edu­ca­tion and cog­ni­tive train­ing from a just-pub­lished study involv­ing 200,000+ peo­ple! (view slid­edeck Here)

– Judg­ing Pan­el for the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test

9. Explor­ing the next 80 years of brain enhance­ment and Human Com­put­er Inter­faces with neu­ro­engi­neer Ran­dal Koene (view slid­edeck for all pm ses­sions Here)

10. Hear­ing the great ques­tions and feed­back by Judges dur­ing the Brainnova­tions pitch con­tests to mea­sure brain health and to improve it, to har­ness Big Data, to boost work­place pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and resilience (view slid­edecks Here, Here, Here and Here)

In sum­ma­ry, Brain Health and Men­tal Health will look very dif­fer­ent in 2020 than they do today. And not a minute too soon, since the needs and the gaps are so large.

Hap­py Hol­i­days, Hap­py Hanukkah, Mer­ry Christ­mas, and Hap­py and Pros­per­ous 2018  to you and to your fam­i­ly at home and at work,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on behalf of the Sharp­Brains Team

PS1: Sum­mit Par­tic­i­pants already have full access to all record­ings click­ing above or HERE (one-year access to 50+ Speak­ers, 15+ Hours), using same log-in cre­den­tials pro­vid­ed dur­ing the Sum­mit.

PS2: If you didn’t par­tic­i­pate in the Sum­mit but want access all record­ings, they are avail­able for pur­chase HERE ($150; 10%-off dis­count-code: sharp2018)