American-Society-on-Aging

Brain Health Promotion by the American Society on Aging

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LectureYou may be inter­est­ed in the excel­lent agen­da the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging has put togeth­er for health pro­fes­sion­als on a vari­ety of aging top­ics, includ­ing a full day devot­ed to dis­cussing Brain Health Pro­mo­tion: The Next Steps.

When are where: Sep­tem­ber 2nd-5th, in San Fran­cis­co, CA. Brain Health Pro­mo­tion day is Sep­tem­ber 5th.

To check the full agen­da: Click here.

To reg­is­ter: Reg­is­ter Now (ear­ly reg­is­tra­tion until August 25th).

I will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in three ses­sions. Please let me know if you are attend­ing, we may be able to orga­nize a Sharp­Brains lunch on Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 5th.

1) How Change Mak­ers Like You Can Con­tribute to the Future of Brain Health

Sep­tem­ber 5th, 9.00–10.30 am

Neu­ro­science, and cog­ni­tive sci­ence in gen­er­al, are com­ing to a fun­da­men­tal­ly new under­stand­ing of the life­long plas­tic­i­ty of the brain and what aging means. This presents tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties, and chal­lenges, to any­one car­ing for oth­er peo­ple’s brains (on top of their own). In this ses­sion, we will pro­vide an overview of the research and mar­ket trends that may affect brain health in the next five to ten years, will explore new roles to serve our com­mu­ni­ties cou­pled with the need to rein­vent exist­ing ones, and will help nav­i­gate the increased num­ber of brain heath options today. [Read more…] about Brain Health Pro­mo­tion by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging

Brain Health Business Grows With Research and Demand

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I wrote this arti­cle for the March/ April edi­tion of the pub­li­ca­tion Aging Today, pub­lished by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, and received per­mis­sion to repro­duce it here.

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In recent years, most pro­fes­sion­als in aging have become aware of the grow­ing sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence show­ing that human brains retain the abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate neu­rons and change over a life­time, dis­cov­er­ies that have bro­ken the sci­en­tif­ic par­a­digm preva­lent dur­ing the 20th cen­tu­ry. Fur­ther­more, neu­roimag­ing and cog­ni­tive train­ing stud­ies are show­ing how well-direct­ed exer­cise presents peo­ple major oppor­tu­ni­ties for healthy brain aging.

How can peo­ple use emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies to keep their brains healthy and pro­duc­tive as long as pos­si­ble? An emerg­ing mar­ket for brain health– $225 mil­lion mar­ket in 2007, in the Unit­ed States alone, of which con­sumers account for $80 million–is try­ing to address that ques­tion in a way that com­ple­ments oth­er impor­tant more tra­di­tion­al pil­lars (and mul­ti-bil­lion indus­tries) of brain health, such as phys­i­cal exer­cise, bal­anced diet, stress man­age­ment (stress has been shown to actu­al­ly kill neu­rons and reduce the rate of cre­ation of new ones) and over­all men­tal stim­u­la­tion and life­long learning.

2007 AN ACTIVE YEAR

A series of impor­tant events took place in 2007, a sem­i­nal year for the brain health field, begin­ning in Jan­u­ary when many main­stream media pub­li­ca­tions, such as Time Mag­a­zine and CBS News, start­ed to pub­lish major sto­ries on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and brain exer­cise. This media cov­er­age fol­lowed the pub­li­ca­tion of the long-await­ed results from nation­al clin­i­cal tri­als show­ing that sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­ages of the par­tic­i­pants age 65 and old­er who trained for five weeks improved their mem­o­ry, rea­son­ing and infor­ma­tion-pro­cess­ing speed. Find­ings from the Advanced Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Inde­pen­dent and Vital Elder­ly (ACTIVE) Study appeared in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion (Dec. 20, 2006) and revealed that even after five years, par­tic­i­pants in the ACTIVE com­put­er-based pro­gram showed less of a decline in infor­ma­tion-pro­cess­ing skills than those in a con­trol group that received no cog­ni­tive training.

[Read more…] about Brain Health Busi­ness Grows With Research and Demand

Brain Training Games: Context, Trends, Questions

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A spate of recent news cov­er­age on brain fit­ness and “brain train­ing” reflects a grow­ing inter­est in nat­ur­al, non-drug-based inter­ven­tions to keep our brains sharp as we age. This inter­est is very time­ly, giv­en the aging pop­u­la­tion, increas­ing Alzheimer’s rates, and soar­ing health care costs that place more empha­sis than ever on pre­ven­tion and chang­ing lifestyle.

This past Tues­day, the MIT Club of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, and Smart­Sil­vers spon­sored an event on The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket: Build­ing Bet­ter Brains to explore the real­i­ties and myths of this grow­ing field. The pan­el was mod­er­at­ed by Zack Lynch, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Orga­ni­za­tion, and com­posed of a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist and 3 CEOs of pro­gram devel­op­ers in the field. Before the pan­el, I had the chance to present an overview of the state of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket based on our upcom­ing report to be released on March 4th.

Why are we talk­ing about this field at all? Well, for one, an increas­ing num­ber of com­pa­nies are achiev­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial suc­cess in pack­ag­ing “brain exer­cise”. An exam­ple is the line of Nin­ten­do games, such as Brain Age and Brain Train­ing, that have shipped over 15 mil­lion units world­wide despite lim­it­ed sci­en­tif­ic sup­port, since 2005. What is less vis­i­ble is that a num­ber of com­pa­nies and sci­en­tists are [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing Games: Con­text, Trends, Questions

The Emerging Brain Fitness Software Market: Building Better Brains

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This is an event you may be inter­est­ed in, if you are based in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area.

The MIT Club of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, The Busi­ness Forum on Aging and Smart­Sil­vers presents:

The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket:  Build­ing Bet­ter Brains (Con­tact infor­ma­tion and Reg­is­tra­tion Here)

Date: 02/12/2008 Tuesday
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Wil­son Sonsini
Loca­tion: 950 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto
Cost: $20 online, $25 walk-in

Con­tact infor­ma­tion and Reg­is­tra­tion Here.

Here is the buzz  Sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and demo­graph­ic trends have con­verged to cre­ate an excit­ing new mar­ket in brain fit­ness, where soft­ware and online appli­ca­tions can assess and train cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. That equates to a sharp­er mind and bet­ter mem­o­ry reten­tion con­tribut­ing to health­i­er aging.  There is cur­rent­ly a $400m world­wide mar­ket with high growth ahead predicted.

Join us in live­ly and infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sions as Alvaro Fer­nan­dez; CEO of SharpBrains.com sum­ma­rizes the sci­ence, key mar­ket seg­ments, play­ers and trends, based on the first Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket Report, pre­sent­ed in this event.  He will dis­cuss the impli­ca­tions with sev­er­al neu­ro-tech­nol­o­gy, gam­ing experts and investors.”  Mod­er­at­ed by Zack Lynch, the speak­er and pan­el will dis­cuss: [Read more…] about The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket: Build­ing Bet­ter Brains

Creativity, Michael Ray and Motto

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Mot­to Mag­a­zine brings a great inter­view between Ani­ta Sharpe and Michael Ray, on How To Reach Your High­est Goal. Very fun week­end read­ing mate­r­i­al, includ­ing plen­ty of quotes and reflec­tions on how cre­ativ­i­ty can be trained/ enhanced by one of my favorite Stan­ford MBA pro­fes­sors. Some quotes:

  • “But as the 1980s began, Ray and Myers kicked off more than two decades teach­ing one of the most influ­en­tial and talked about cours­es at Stan­ford University’s Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness — a class on cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion. They taught MBA stu­dents who would go on to become some of the great­est cre­ators in the world of busi­ness, includ­ing eBay’s first pres­i­dent, Jef­frey Skoll, and Good to Great author Jim Collins.”
  • “When (Apple co-founder) Steve Jobs came to our class, every­body was say­ing we have to get into the com­put­er busi­ness. He said, you don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have to do that. He said, go into San Fran­cis­co and get a job as a wait­er and find out what comes out of that.”
  • MOTTO: You have had a num­ber of renowned and suc­cess­ful stu­dents. How would you sum­ma­rize the char­ac­ter­is­tics that they share that con­tribute to their inner and out­er success?
  • RAY: A sense of open­ness of con­scious­ness. Those peo­ple who are [Read more…] about Cre­ativ­i­ty, Michael Ray and Motto