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We are proud that Ama­zon India has select­ed The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age as part of its Kin­dle Week­ly Deal run­ning from Octo­ber 13th to the 17th — when many best­selling eBooks will be dis­count­ed to just 49 rupees.

– To ben­e­fit from the pro­mo­tion, click HERE.

– Read­ers in oth­er coun­tries can pur­chase the book at reg­u­lar prices by click­ing HERE. The book is also avail­able in Span­ish, Japan­ese, Pol­ish and Por­tuguese. Read the rest of this entry »

After a very busy month, it’s time now for Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter to sum­ma­rize the lat­est ini­tia­tives, tools and ideas for life­long brain health and men­tal fit­ness — and to share a few puz­zles and illu­sions to tease your brain.

A grow­ing num­ber of class­rooms in Chi­na are equipped with arti­fi­cial-intel­li­gence cam­eras and brain-wave track­ers. Video: Crys­tal Tai for The Wall Street Jour­nal.

New neuro-infused education and healthcare initiatives:

• Chi­na is har­ness­ing brain-wave track­ers and arti­fi­cial-intel­li­gence to raise bet­ter (and more com­pli­ant?) stu­dents
• Report calls for wide class­room-based adop­tion of ten brain fit­ness pro­grams designed to improve foun­da­tion­al exec­u­tive func­tions
• The Nation­al Health Ser­vice (NHS) in the UK con­sid­ers adding a 5‑minute cog­ni­tive test to its annu­al health check-up
• CVS Health: Cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) apps may help you more than sleep­ing pills

New neurotech and digital health tools:

• What does the Face­book acqui­si­tion of CTRL-Labs mean for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Aug­ment­ed & Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty?
• Start­up Aur­al Ana­lyt­ics rais­es $4.3M to mon­i­tor neu­ro­log­i­cal health by ana­lyz­ing speech pat­terns
• Will per­son­al­ized med­i­ta­tion apps be able to repli­cate the expe­ri­ence of work­ing with a coach?
• IBM, VA and Total Brain to test dig­i­tal men­tal health plat­form for vet­er­ans and reservists

New thinking on brain and mental health:

• Two great pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties with renowned neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg
• Apple/ Eli Lilly’s bet: Wear­able and mobile con­sumer devices may well help us detect cog­ni­tive impair­ment and demen­tia
• May “indus­try review boards” con­tribute to the wider adop­tion of vir­tu­al and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty for phys­i­cal and men­tal health?

Finally, a few fun brain teasers for adults and kids alike 🙂

• Tease your brain with the Her­mann Grid illu­sion
• Brain teas­er to test your pat­tern recog­ni­tion: Fill the void
• Math brain teas­er requir­ing no math — just per­cep­tion and cog­ni­tion

Have a great month of Octo­ber,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Nation­al Non­prof­it Releas­es Report Call­ing for Brain Fit­ness Inter­ven­tions in All U.S. Schools (press release):

“Brain­Fu­tures released a report today that makes a clear case for inte­grat­ing proven brain fit­ness pro­grams into all U.S. class­rooms. Over a decade of research has shown that evi­dence-based pro­grams can improve stu­dents’ exec­u­tive func­tion skills and proso­cial behav­iors, which are more accu­rate pre­dic­tors of aca­d­e­m­ic readi­ness and life suc­cess than IQ or any oth­er per­for­mance mark­ers. Read the rest of this entry »

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Online brain games can extend in-game ‘cog­ni­tive youth’ into old age (Sci­ence News):

“A Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine-led study has found that online brain game exer­cis­es can enable peo­ple in their 70s and even 80s to mul­ti­task cog­ni­tive­ly as well as indi­vid­u­als 50 years their junior. This is an increas­ing­ly valu­able skill, giv­en today’s dai­ly infor­ma­tion onslaught, which can divide atten­tion and be par­tic­u­lar­ly tax­ing for old­er adults Read the rest of this entry »

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The all-too-under­stand­able urge to buy a bet­ter brain (Vox):

“… unfor­tu­nate­ly, Bradley Coop­er is part­ly to blame for the boom of the edi­ble brain-improve­ment indus­try.

In 2011, he starred in Lim­it­less, a movie about a man who takes a spe­cial pill and becomes smarter and more capa­ble than any­one else on Earth. I’m jok­ing about the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of this movie, but I’m also not. It was a wild card and an unex­pect­ed hit, and it main­streamed an idea that had already been tak­ing hold among Sil­i­con Val­ley bio­hack­ers and human opti­miza­tion zealots. Read the rest of this entry »