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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter,  pro­vid­ing a win­dow into the ongo­ing brain health and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty revolutions–plus some fun brain teasers. Hap­py read­ing and, for those of you in the USA, Hap­py Fourth of July, and for those of you in Cana­da, Hap­py Cana­da Day!

New research:

• 20 Must-Know Facts to Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and Improve Brain Health
• Please par­tic­i­pate in this Brain Health sur­vey (should take no more than 5 min­utes, and will help us to bet­ter under­stand and address your inter­ests and needs)
• Which is the only com­mon leisure activ­i­ty that has been asso­ci­at­ed with reduced cog­ni­tive func­tion?
• Next phase in the brain health rev­o­lu­tion: Objec­tive, phys­i­o­log­i­cal, and wide­spread mea­sures of brain func­tion
• Wis­dom requires both high­er heart rate vari­abil­i­ty and adopt­ing a third-per­son per­spec­tive

New tools:

• Mer­ck and HAP­PYneu­ron part­ner to include cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion pro­gram in Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis e‑Health Solu­tion
• Too ear­ly? Brain stim­u­la­tion device Thync fails to get trac­tion in the minds of con­sumers
• Nike launch­es men­tal train­ing app to help soc­cer play­ers win the men­tal game
• Sport-spe­cif­ic brain train­ing pro­grams gain adop­tion in bas­ket­ball, ice hock­ey and soc­cer

New thinking:

• Three neu­ro­sci­en­tists win $1 mil­lion Kavli Prize for dis­cov­er­ing brain’s plas­tic­i­ty
• Dr. Michael Merzenich: To har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, we need to think “Fit­ness” more than “Games”
• Save the Date: Rein­vent­ing Brain Health at 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 6–8, 2016) (10%-off dis­count code: sharp2016)
• 5 ideas to help knowl­edge work­ers increase life­long learn­ing and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty

Finally, some brain teasers:

• 3 fun brain teasers for adults to chal­lenge your cog­ni­tive skills

Time for Sharp­Brains’ Octo­ber 2013 e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a vari­ety of arti­cles, inter­views, and brain teasers. Enjoy!

Fresh research and per­spec­tives:

• 12 Ways Yoga Med­i­ta­tion helps nour­ish the body, brain and mind
• Brain­Tech: 6 take-aways on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and cog­ni­tive train­ing
• FDA guide­lines for mobile health apps rel­e­vant to cognitive/ men­tal health
• Top 30 High­lights from the 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit
• Study shows “brain sup­ple­ments” don’t work to enhance brain health and func­tion
• Neu­rolead­er­ship, Human Cap­i­tal and tech­nol­o­gy in Wash­ing­ton, DC next week

Inter­views with sharp brains:

• Deb­o­rah Roz­man: The brain is not only about cog­ni­tion
• Ellen Somers: Stay­ing sharp by con­tin­u­al­ly learn­ing and teach­ing about brain health
• Nel­son Calderon: Let’s spread brain fit­ness knowl­edge in devel­op­ing coun­tries
• Tere­sa Kennedy: Total health includes phys­i­cal AND men­tal fit­ness
• Daniel Fer­gu­son: Big Data opens a world of oppor­tu­ni­ty in health, psy­chol­o­gy, neu­ro­science

Brain teasers:

• Brain teas­er game: Can you count? (atten­tion exper­i­ment)
• Test your Brain with these Brain Teasers, Games and Illu­sions

Hap­py Hal­loween, and have a great month of Novem­ber!

Time for Sharp­Brains’ July 2013 e‑newsletter, fea­turing a vari­ety of resources and arti­cles at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and brain fit­ness. Enjoy the brain food!

New resources:

• Inter­view: The Sharp­Brains Guide, adopt­ed as core read­er in neu­ro­science and coach­ing course
• New Dis­cus­sion Guide for The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness
• “Use it or lose it” requires trav­el­ling out of our com­fort zone

New sci­ence:

• Read­ing or watch­ing TV tonight?
• Can men­tal train­ing in com­pas­sion lead to altru­is­tic behav­ior and bet­ter health?
• Book review of Ungift­ed: Intel­li­gence Rede­fined
• Work­outs at the (New York­er) brain gym

New tech­nol­o­gy:

• FDA clears use of EEG-based ADHD test
• Nebras­ka foot­ball team devel­op­ing 10-minute con­cus­sion test
• Brain train­ing going main­stream: new cen­ter at Beth Israel Dea­coness Med­ical Cen­ter
• Can elec­tric­i­ty-based brain stim­u­la­tion har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty safe­ly?

Final­ly, please make sure to review the impres­sive Speak­er Ros­ter at the upcom­ing 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Sept 19–20, held over the Inter­net so there is no need to trav­el). We hope you can join us!

Have a great sum­mer.

Let’s explore some  high-qual­i­ty new resources, announce­ments and stud­ies in this June edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter. The field is clear­ly on the move!

Por­traits of the Mind: Sev­er­al sharp brains (Rick, Karen, John, thanks!) strong­ly rec­om­mend the recent book  “Por­traits of the Mind: Visu­al­iz­ing the Brain from Antiq­uity to the 21st Cen­tury” (which includes the image on the left) as great read­ing and as a beau­ti­ful cof­fee table book.

Pro­mot­ing Healthy, Mean­ing­ful Aging Through Social Involve­ment: The cur­rent issue of Cere­brum includes the excel­lent in-depth arti­cle on the val­ue of vol­un­teer­ing pro­gram Expe­ri­ence Corps to pro­mote healthy and mean­ing­ful aging through social involve­ment.

Work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can improve flu­id intel­li­gence: Final­ly, a pow­er­ful voice of com­mon sense. A new sci­en­tif­ic study con­cludes that “cog­ni­tive train­ing can be effec­tive and long-last­ing, but there are lim­it­ing fac­tors that must be con­sid­ered to eval­u­ate the effects of this train­ing, one of which is indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in train­ing per­for­mance. We pro­pose that future research should not inves­ti­gate whether cog­ni­tive train­ing works, but rather should deter­mine what train­ing reg­i­mens and what train­ing con­di­tions result in the best trans­fer effects, inves­ti­gate the under­ly­ing neur­al and cog­ni­tive mech­a­nisms, and final­ly, inves­ti­gate for whom cog­ni­tive train­ing is most use­ful.”

Lumos Labs rais­es $32.5m: Lumos Labs, the com­pany behind lumosity.com, has just raised the sin­gle largest amount of fund­ing in the space.

Devel­op­ing a Research Agen­da for Seri­ous Games: The recent trade book Com­puter Games and Instruc­tion brings togeth­er the lead­ing edge per­spec­tives of over a dozen sci­en­tists in the area of videogames and learn­ing, includ­ing this very insight­ful analy­sis by Harvard’s Chris Dede.

In the News: Brief arti­cles in the New York Times and a very pow­er­ful analy­sis in The New York Review of Books pro­vide use­ful clues about Brain Cal­is­then­ics, Bilin­gual Brains, and Debunk­ing Myths on Men­tal Ill­ness.

Emerg­ing Mil­i­tary Appli­ca­tions: 2 recent announce­ments show, in a mil­i­tary con­text, inno­v­a­tive ways to enhance brain func­tion­ing and per­for­mance both to help “nor­mal” and “clin­i­cal” (post-TBI) pop­u­la­tions.

We hope you enjoyed this newslet­ter. Please do feel free to share this with friends and col­leagues via Face­book, Twit­ter and LinkedIn, and have a great week­end and month of July!