brain-fitness-innovation

What is Brain fitness? What are Future Opportunities? Experts Answer.

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What is brain fit­ness real­ly? What will hap­pen in terms of brain fit­ness inno­va­tion in the next decade? What’s the biggest challenge?

Who could answer these ques­tions bet­ter than the expert Sharp­Brains 2011 Sum­mit speak­ers? Dis­cov­er below the answers of 7 of them.

.1. How would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?
Alvaro Pas­cual-Leone, Har­vard Med­ical School: Phys­i­cal fit­ness can refer to an over­all or gen­eral state of health and well-being. How­ever, it is also often used more specif­i­cally to refer to the abil­ity to per­form a giv­en activ­ity, occu­pa­tion, or sport. Sim­i­larly brain fit­ness might be used to refer to a gen­eral state of healthy, opti­mized brain func­tion, or a more spe­cific brain-based abil­ity to process cer­tain, spe­cific infor­ma­tion, enable cer­tain motor actions, or sup­port cer­tain cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Impor­tantly though, I would argue that phys­i­cal fit­ness REQUIRES brain fit­ness, while brain fit­ness ben­e­fits from, but does not require phys­i­cal fitness.

Ken­neth Kosik, UC San­ta Bar­bara: The brain is sim­ply an organ in the body with all the health require­ments of any oth­er organ. There­fore, I am trou­bled by the “ver­sus” in your ques­tion. Why set up an unnec­es­sary dual­ism? [Read more…] about What is Brain fit­ness? What are Future Oppor­tu­ni­ties? Experts Answer.

Lessons from the SharpBrains Summit: Status Quo Not an Option

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The 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit gath­ered  more than 260 research and indus­try lead­ers in 16 coun­tries for 3 days to dis­cuss the chang­ing land­scape. Held online, par­tic­i­pants from all over the globe  attend­ed to hear more than 40 thought lead­ers, sci­en­tists, entre­pre­neurs and pol­i­cy mak­ers out­line the evolv­ing mar­ket­place. Dis­cus­sion moved from cog­ni­tive fit­ness to neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, across reg­u­la­to­ry and pol­i­cy trends, and new prod­uct launch­es by new and estab­lished play­ers  What did we take home from the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit? Was it nov­el con­sumer insights aris­ing from a new retail land­scape? What of pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives from inno­va­tion clus­ters around the globe? Do you see a future pop­u­lat­ed by neu­ro­science toolk­its, dri­ven by the inex­orable demo­graph­ic changes set to occur in the com­ing decades? Or was it a look “under the hood” of tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms devel­oped by cat­e­go­ry lead­ers that sharp­ened our insight? Here are 10 emerg­ing themes:

1. The Need for Stan­dard­iza­tion of methodologies 

A pro­fu­sion of cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al health tests, bat­ter­ies and new tech­nolo­gies are crowd­ing the research envi­ron­ment. The NIH tool­box for the assess­ment of a broad range of cog­ni­tive domains [Read more…] about Lessons from the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit: Sta­tus Quo Not an Option

Meet the 16 Judges of the 2010 Brain Fitness Innovation Awards

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We are hon­ored to count on such a dis­tin­guished, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and for­ward-look­ing Inno­va­tion Awards Judg­ing Pan­el (please judge for your­self!), thanks to the par­tic­i­pa­tion of:

shiv-babaBaba Shiv, Pro­fes­sor at Stan­ford Busi­ness School, con­ducts research on con­sumer deci­sion mak­ing and deci­sion neu­ro­science, with spe­cif­ic empha­sis on the neu­ro­log­i­cal under­pin­nings of emo­tion and moti­va­tion in deci­sion mak­ing. His recent work exam­ines the poten­tial for non­con­scious place­bo effects relat­ed to pric­ing. He is cur­rent­ly the edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Research and sits on the edi­to­r­i­al board of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Psy­chol­o­gy and the Jour­nal of Mar­ket­ing Research.

Bill0828Bill Tuck­er, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, is a social entre­pre­neur who has found­ed and led both non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions and for-prof­it com­pa­nies. He is respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the day-to-day oper­a­tions of Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, and also leads pol­i­cy work focused on tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion. His involve­ment in edu­ca­tion dates to ear­ly in his career, when he man­aged a middle/high school stu­dent vol­un­teer and ser­vice learn­ing pro­gram, work­ing with 22 schools and over 75 non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, and served as a com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er for an adult lit­er­a­cy pro­gram. He is a grad­u­ate of Duke Uni­ver­si­ty and has both an MBA and a Master’s of Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford University.

murphyBri­an Mur­phy, Pres­i­dent of De Anza Col­lege, has led De Anza Col­lege since 2004 with a key focus on the prepa­ra­tion of stu­dents to be active, involved cit­i­zens com­mit­ted to trans­form­ing their com­mu­ni­ties. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Pres­i­dent Mur­phy served for 12 years as exec­u­tive direc­tor of the San Fran­cis­co Urban Insti­tute at San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty, and was chief con­sul­tant to the Cal­i­for­nia State Legislature’s reviews of the Mas­ter Plan for High­er Edu­ca­tion and the com­mu­ni­ty col­lege reform process in the late 1980s. He has taught polit­i­cal the­o­ry and Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Cruz, San­ta Clara Uni­ver­si­ty and San Fran­cis­co State University.

jenningsCharles Jen­nings, Direc­tor of the McGov­ern Insti­tute Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram, MIT, became an edi­tor with the sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Nature fol­low­ing post­doc­tor­al stud­ies in devel­op­men­tal biol­o­gy at Har­vard and MIT. He was the found­ing edi­tor of Nature Neu­ro­science, wide­ly con­sid­ered a lead­ing jour­nal in its field. More recent­ly, he was the first exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Har­vard Stem Cell Insti­tute, and he con­tin­ues to serve as an advi­sor to the Con­necti­cut Stem Cell Research Program.

house_for-webChuck House, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Stan­ford Media X, leads Stan­ford University’s Indus­try Affil­i­ate research pro­gram on media and tech­nol­o­gy, and is a senior research schol­ar in the Human Sci­ences and Tech­nol­o­gy Advanced Research divi­sion at Stan­ford. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he was the direc­tor of Soci­etal Impact of Tech­nol­o­gy for Intel Cor­po­ra­tion, and the first Direc­tor of Intel’s Vir­tu­al Research Col­lab­o­ra­to­ry. He recent­ly co-authored The HP Phe­nom­e­non: Inno­va­tion and Busi­ness Trans­for­ma­tion (Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Octo­ber 2009).

colinmilnerCol­in Mil­ner, Founder and CEO of the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil on Active Aging (ICAA), is one of the world’s vision­ar­ies on the health and well-being of the old­er adult. Mil­ner is a mem­ber of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, the active-aging spokesper­son for the Cana­di­an Asso­ci­a­tion of Fit­ness Pro­fes­sion­als, and the res­i­dent indus­try expert on aging for the Inter­na­tion­al Health, Rac­quet and Sports­club Asso­ci­a­tion. An award-win­ning writer, Mil­ner has authored more than 200 arti­cles on aging-relat­ed issues.

elizabeth_edgerly-head-shot-1Eliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Nation­al Spokesper­son for Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion “Main­tain Your Brain”, is the Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion and nation­al spokesper­son for the Association’s Main­tain Your Brain pro­gram. She over­sees the many pro­grams of the Asso­ci­a­tion for patients, fam­i­lies and health care pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion, she staffs the Med­ical Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Coun­cil of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion – North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She received her Ph.D. in clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy at the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York and spe­cial­ized in geropsy­chol­o­gy and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy. Dr. Edger­ly joined the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion after com­plet­ing a fel­low­ship in clin­i­cal geropsy­chol­o­gy at the Palo Alto VA Hos­pi­tal. [Read more…] about Meet the 16 Judges of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards

United BioSource Corporation Announces Acquisition of Cognitive Drug Research (computerized cognitive testing)

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Press release: “Leader in cog­ni­tion mea­sure­ment inte­grates into UBC to max­i­mize mea­sure­ment pre­ci­sion of piv­otal end­points and ensure data integri­ty. Unit­ed BioSource Cor­po­ra­tion (UBC) today announced the acqui­si­tion of CDR”

Press release (09/10/09): Here

Analy­sis for mem­bers of Sharp­Brains Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion: Here

For con­text, see our pre­vi­ous arti­cle titled Com­put­er­ized Cog­ni­tive Assess­ments: oppor­tu­ni­ties and con­cerns, focused on the OptumHealth — Brain­Re­source part­ner­ship and inno­v­a­tive work by the US Army.

Update: Retooling Use It or Lose It at New York Public Library

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Here you have the Sep­tem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health Brain Fitnessand brain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page.

In the cur­rent edi­tion of The Jour­nal on Active Aging, I dis­cuss why we need to Retool “Use it or lose it”, and why rou­tine, doing things inside our com­fort zones, is the most com­mon ene­my of the nov­el­ty, vari­ety and chal­lenge our brains need. You can read the full arti­cle for free Here.

Book Tour

We are glad to report that The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness con­tin­ues to obtain excel­lent endorsements:

“This is the only book that I know of that seam­less­ly inte­grates lat­est infor­ma­tion about cog­ni­tive health across the lifes­pan. Very use­ful to any­one inter­est­ed in brain care.”

–Arthur Kramer, Ph. D., Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of Illinois

“…we now have a rock sol­id primer on brain health that we can rec­om­mend with confidence…I found it par­tic­u­lar­ly effec­tive to start the book with a list of ten brain myths that need debunking.”
–Michael C. Pat­ter­son, for­mer Man­ag­er NRTA/ Stay­ing Sharp at AARP

The offi­cial book tour starts this week, and includes New York Pub­lic Library!
09/08: Club One Fit­ness Cen­ter, Petaluma, CA
09/09: San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty OLLI
09/11: ASA Brain Health Day, Oak­land, CA
09/23: New York Pub­lic Library, Bronx Library Center
09/25: New York Pub­lic Library, Stephen Schwarz­man Building
10/06, Smart­Sil­vers MIT North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Palo Alto, CA
10/14: UC-Berke­ley OLLI, CA

You can find all the details here. If you haven’t read the book yet, you can order it via Ama­zon Here (print book) or Here (Kin­dle edi­tion). Or ask your local book­store or library.

Brain Reserve

Edu­ca­tion AND Life­long Cog­ni­tive Activ­i­ties Delay Mem­o­ry Loss: Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon reports how a recent fol­low-up to the Bronx Aging Study, where 488 ini­tial­ly healthy adults have been tracked over 20 years, shows that every addi­tion­al cog­ni­tive “activ­i­ty day” (par­tic­i­pat­ing in one activ­i­ty for one day a week) helps delay for about two months the onset of rapid mem­o­ry loss as we grow older.
Need ideas for extra activities?

Chang­ing our Minds…by Read­ing Fic­tion: What about get­ting a nov­el in your hands (or writ­ing one)? By imag­in­ing many pos­si­ble worlds, argues psy­chol­o­gist Kei­th Oat­ley, fic­tion gives us the sur­prise which can help expand our under­stand­ing of our­selves and the social world.

Sharp­Brains Fan Page in Face­book: What about par­tic­i­pat­ing in our new Fan Page at Face­book? You can not only receive lat­est updates but com­ment on your favorite arti­cles and teasers, and dis­cuss your own ideas and resources.

Med­ica­tion and Training

Cog­ni­tive Enhance­ment via Phar­ma­col­o­gy AND Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy: our co-founder Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg inte­grates three appar­ent­ly sep­a­rate worlds ‑cog­ni­tive enhance­ment via drugs, brain fit­ness train­ing soft­ware, com­put­er­ized neu­rocog­ni­tive assessments‑, in a much updat­ed new edi­tion of his book The Exec­u­tive Brain.

Com­par­ing Cog­ni­tive Train­ing & Med­ica­tion Treat­ment for ADHD: a recent study shows that work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing improves work­ing mem­o­ry more than stim­u­lant med­ica­tion treat­ment-and ben­e­fits per­sist longer. Does this mat­ter?, Does this mean train­ing is bet­ter than med­ica­tion for kids with atten­tion deficits?  Dr. David Rabin­er dis­sects the study search­ing for answers.

Inno­va­tion

AAA to deploy Dri­ve­Sharp: Peter Kissinger, CEO of the AAA Foun­da­tion, explains why the cur­rent sys­tem of dri­ver licens­ing is inad­e­quate and incon­sis­tent, why AAA is rec­om­mend­ing old­er dri­vers use a new cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram, and why he believes insur­ance com­pa­nies will soon start to offer brain train­ing to their members.

Sharp­Brains Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion: in order to help lead­ers of the brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health com­mu­ni­ty learn, con­nect and col­lab­o­rate, Sharp­Brains has cre­at­ed a vir­tu­al LinkedIn net­work for clients. The net­work will be for­mal­ly launched with a webi­nar on Sep­tem­ber 29th that will dis­cuss The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket in 2009. For orga­ni­za­tions that want to order the report, attend the webi­nar, and join the net­work, more infor­ma­tion is avail­able Here.

Brain Teas­er

Brain Quiz: Do You Have a Brain?: Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon dares you to answer these 10 ques­tions cor­rect­ly to prove that you have a brain.

Enjoy!