brain-performance

Without Brain Health, you do not have Health

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As you go through life, your brain under­goes extra­or­di­nary devel­op­ment. Your brain is the most adapt­able, mod­i­fi­able organ in your body, and it can change both pos­i­tive­ly and neg­a­tive­ly by how you use it each day. Just by read­ing a book such as this one, your brain has been changed.

How has your brain been altered through­out your life? How may it change in years and decades ahead? The good news is that much of the age-relat­ed decline is like­ly avoid­able and even reversible. The fact that you bought and have read this book to the very end tells me you are moti­vat­ed to do some­thing about your brain per­for­mance. Our cog­ni­tive brain health tends to decline over time because we let it, but you can be your own brain health fit­ness coach to max­i­mize brain func­tion. Grow­ing brain research shows that a major­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als can make their brain smarter every sin­gle day. [Read more…] about With­out Brain Health, you do not have Health

U.S. Army develops novel way to analyze brain imaging data and shape emerging non-invasive neurotechnology

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Aggre­gate dis­tri­b­u­tion of cor­ti­cal brain-wave activ­i­ty, orga­nized by stan­dard fre­quen­cy bands, across a range of depths. Cred­it: U.S. Army

Army devel­ops big data approach to neu­ro­science (press release):

“A big data approach to neu­ro­science promis­es to sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve our under­stand­ing of the rela­tion­ship between brain activ­i­ty and performance.

To date, there have been rel­a­tive­ly few attempts to use a big-data approach with­in the emerg­ing field of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy. [Read more…] about U.S. Army devel­ops nov­el way to ana­lyze brain imag­ing data and shape emerg­ing non-inva­sive neurotechnology

Five Essential Guidelines to Improve Brain Health for All

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Since 2010, the Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit has been bring­ing togeth­er neu­ro­sci­en­tists, entre­pre­neurs, and prac­ti­tion­ers with a mis­sion to improve men­tal health­care, brain per­for­mance and gen­er­al well-being.

As we get ready to host our next col­lec­tive brain­storm­ing next week, let us share some key themes from our last Sum­mit, since they helped shape the Agen­da for this one.

In 2017, the gathering’s tone was gen­er­al­ly optimistic–given the explo­sion of sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs, start-ups and investments–but impor­tant eth­i­cal con­cerns were also wide­ly discussed.

1. The Need is Very Real, Very Large and Largely Unmet

Dr. Tom Insel, a well-known sci­en­tist turned pol­i­cy-mak­er turned entre­pre­neur, shared a deep dive into the land­scape of health­care inno­va­tion: We have seen $15 Bil­lion invest­ed in Health Tech since 2012, in over a thou­sand new com­pa­nies … yet men­tal health­care has not tru­ly evolved while brain and men­tal dis­or­ders remain among the costli­est con­di­tions in the US, with an annu­al bur­den esti­mat­ed at $200+ Billion.

 

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Same thing regard­ing aging and brain health: the need is very real and very large, both in devel­oped and in emerg­ing coun­tries. At least there we see stronger signs of advo­cates and pol­i­cy­mak­ers begin­ning to take note. For exam­ple, Sarah Lenz Lock from AARP spoke about the need for improved dig­i­tal assess­ments that are evi­dence-based and per­son­al­ized, help­ing mil­lions of old­er adults self-mon­i­tor their brain health and delay cog­ni­tive and mem­o­ry problems.

 

A num­ber of researchers shared pop­u­la­tion-lev­el ways to pro­mote life­long brain health. For exam­ple, Belén Guer­ra-Car­ril­lo at UC-Berke­ley dis­cussed how Big Data com­ing from new online and mobile plat­forms can inform pol­i­cy. Dr. David Bartrés-Faz from the Barcelona Brain Health Ini­tia­tive described how track­ing behaviors–that sus­tain neur­al func­tion­ing in advanced age—can help per­son­al­ize inter­ven­tions, and how they are mea­sur­ing lifestyle fac­tors in a large, 3,000-subject-strong, ran­dom­ized trial.

 

2. Solutions Start with Early Detection and Digital Phenotyping

A very inge­nious pre­sen­ta­tions came from Jan Samzelius of Neu­raMetrix, one of the win­ners of the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test. His team, with a back­ground in cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, dis­cov­ered a method of assess­ing typ­ing cadence which could enable ear­ly detec­tion of neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases, from Alzheimer’s Dis­ease to Parkinson’s. The sys­tem can run silent­ly (yes, per­mis­sion and pri­va­cy will be issues to address) in the back­ground of a per­son­al com­put­er or smart­phone, inte­grat­ing hun­dreds of vari­ables in a per­sons’ key­board cadence and flag­ging unusu­al patterns.

Anoth­er great exam­ple came from Nan­cy Briefs of Dig­i­tal Cog­ni­tion Tech­nolo­gies, which has adapt­ed a tra­di­tion­al neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal test (the ‘Clock Draw­ing Task’) and com­bined it with machine learn­ing to pro­vide fast, afford­able, and scal­able detec­tion of cog­ni­tive changes.

Mind­strong Health has been at the fore­front of dig­i­tal phe­no­typ­ing. Dr. Tom Insel dis­cussed how ‘dig­i­tal exhaust’ –data tak­en from smart phones– can be used to pro­vide objec­tive, con­tin­u­ous, and proac­tive mark­ers of mood, cog­ni­tion, and behav­ior. The firm has found that vari­ables extract­ed through machine learn­ing are as good at pre­dict­ing cog­ni­tive func­tion as the test-retest reli­a­bil­i­ty of numer­ous cog­ni­tive tests, pre­sent­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty for scal­able and non­in­va­sive solu­tions to detect men­tal health dis­or­ders.  Fur­ther, the infor­ma­tion gained from these meth­ods could be used by clin­i­cians and patients not only to enable ear­ly inter­ven­tion but also to mon­i­tor progress over time, some­thing that is rarely done today.

3. And continue with Lifestyle and Digital Health/ Medicine interventions

The upcom­ing ‘dig­i­tal cav­al­ry,’ as described by Dr. Oliv­er Har­ri­son from Tele­fon­i­ca Inno­va­tion, will be high­ly com­ple­men­tary to the ear­ly detec­tion and dig­i­tal phe­no­typ­ing ini­tia­tives out­lined above.

For exam­ple, Dr. Eddie Mar­tuc­ci of Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs shared find­ings from a recent­ly-pub­lished ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­al (RCT) sup­port­ing the use of ‘pre­scrip­tion’ video games to tar­get symp­toms of atten­tion deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), while rep­re­sen­ta­tives at Click Ther­a­peu­tics, Sin­cro­lab, and Myn­dY­ou out­lined a new wave of per­son­al­ized cog­ni­tive training/ ther­a­py pro­grams. Going fur­ther, researchers at Neu­roscape and UCSF pre­sent­ed vir­tu­al and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty plat­forms for mul­ti­modal bio-sens­ing, adap­tive eval­u­a­tion and brain-body train­ing, which could well help upgrade brain health­care and cog­ni­tive rehab in the near term.

 

 

Some of the ideas dis­cussed were sim­ple yet high­ly inspired. Dr. Albert Kwon and col­leagues at Aug­men­tX craft­ed an aug­ment­ed real­i­ty adap­ta­tion of mir­ror box ther­a­py to poten­tial­ly pro­vide home-based treat­ment for stroke vic­tims. Emma Yang, the youngest Speak­er being just 13-years old, unveiled Time­less — a dig­i­tal app using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to help per­sons with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease to remem­ber events, stay con­nect­ed, and engage with friends and family.

4. Open issues: data security, privacy, equity 

While explor­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties, Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants also detailed the con­cerns over data secu­ri­ty, pri­va­cy, equi­ty, and ethics.

Dr. Simone Schurle at ETH Zurich sur­veyed bio­med­ical sys­tems for neu­ro-mon­i­tor­ing and inter­ven­tion and issued a pow­er­ful call for respon­si­ble devel­op­ment: new plat­forms and devices can pro­duce great good in health care, but also have the capac­i­ty for mis­use and harm.

 

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Dr. Álvaro Pas­cual-Leone at Har­vard Med­ical School dis­cussed state-of-the-art neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion, which offers a sig­nif­i­cant and large­ly untapped oppor­tu­ni­ty, while Dr. Anna Wexler from Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia high­light­ed real-world issues expe­ri­enced by home-based users and cham­pi­oned the need for bet­ter eco­log­i­cal research and cus­tomer pro­tec­tion, giv­en the onrush of ‘do-it-your­self’ home devices and loose­ly reg­u­lat­ed products.

Mul­ti­ple speak­ers dis­cussed major con­cerns regard­ing pri­va­cy and per­son­al auton­o­my raised by big data plat­forms, and poten­tials way forward.

5. The Time to Engage is Now

Giv­en every­thing dis­cussed above, now is the prime moment for change­mak­ers, investors, clin­i­cians and allied health­care pro­fes­sion­als to engage with the dig­i­tal brain health rev­o­lu­tion in ways that can ben­e­fit all.

Sig­nif­i­cant advances are com­ing, have come, and will con­tin­ue to come. Researchers, inno­va­tors and prac­ti­tion­ers should work togeth­er to direct the flow of the upcom­ing ‘dig­i­tal cav­al­ry’ and shape the Future of Brain Health – togeth­er we can bet­ter rec­og­nize needs, pro­vide feed­back on imple­men­ta­tion, and make sure that those who suf­fer receive actu­al benefits.

At the same time, we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to iden­ti­fy and pre­empt eth­i­cal con­cerns and to guide respon­si­ble devel­op­ment and appro­pri­ate use. If users and pro­fes­sion­als pull back from these advances out of pro­pri­ety con­cerns, turf war, or feel­ings of threat, a great oppor­tu­ni­ty will be lost. Our brain/ men­tal health care prob­lems will only get worse, not better.

 

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Let’s, togeth­er, explore and dis­cuss how to use every avail­able tool in the toolk­it to address the very real and very unmet needs of 7+ bil­lion peo­ple in the 21st Century.

– Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is the CEO & Edi­tor-in-Chief of Sharp­Brains, and Bran­don Frank is a PhD can­di­date at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty with a con­cen­tra­tion in Neuropsychology.

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Learn More & Register:

2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The Future of Brain Health (May 7–9th)

 

Washington Wizards to test virtual reality system to better monitor players’ fatigue

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Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards Part­ner With Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Com­pa­ny To Assess Play­er Fatigue (Forbes):

“Pro­fes­sion­al sports teams are always look­ing for an edge, as games are often won or lost by one quick deci­sion or one regret­ful error. As the sports world become recep­tive to tech­nolo­gies more preva­lent in oth­er sec­tors, the new knowl­edge gained can enhance that desired edge in ways that would be near­ly unrec­og­niz­able to a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete a gen­er­a­tion ago.

One area of con­tin­ued inter­est for ath­let­ic train­ing is [Read more…] about Wash­ing­ton Wiz­ards to test vir­tu­al real­i­ty sys­tem to bet­ter mon­i­tor play­ers’ fatigue

Thank you, Sponsors @ 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit, for helping shape Brain Health & Enhancement in the Digital Age!

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Thank you very much, great Sum­mit Spon­sors, for sup­port­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit tak­ing place next week (Dec. 5–7th) and gath­er­ing 50+ Speak­ers and 200+ par­tic­i­pants work­ing on ways to enhance brain health and per­for­mance in the dig­i­tal age!

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Gold Sponsors

AARP is a non­prof­it, non­par­ti­san, social wel­fare orga­ni­za­tion with a mem­ber­ship of near­ly 38 mil­lion that helps peo­ple turn their goals and dreams into real pos­si­bil­i­ties, strength­ens com­mu­ni­ties and fights for the issues that mat­ter most to fam­i­lies. Its Glob­al Coun­cil on Brain Health (GCBH), found­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Age UK, is an inde­pen­dent col­lab­o­ra­tive cre­at­ed to pro­vide trust­ed infor­ma­tion on how to main­tain and improve brain health.brain

VieLight has a mis­sion to engi­neer and com­mer­cial­ize non-inva­sive devices based on pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion that are safe and effec­tive, easy to use and afford­able – all to tru­ly help improve one’s qual­i­ty of life. It focus­es on devel­op­ing new-gen­er­a­tion home-use brain stim­u­la­tion devices that are enjoy­ing a grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion to be help­ful for men­tal acu­ity in var­i­ous pre­sen­ta­tions. Its prod­ucts are used by both prac­ti­tion­ers and con­sumers all over the world.

Silver Sponsors

arpf

The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion(ARPF) has a mis­sion to empow­er peo­ple to build healthy brains and reduce the inci­dence of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease by con­duct­ing clin­i­cal research and pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment out­reach. For 20 years, the ARPF has been on the lead­ing edge by research­ing, advo­cat­ing, and edu­cat­ing for an inte­gra­tive approach to pre­vent­ing mem­o­ry loss and Alzheimer’s.

Arrowsmith Program

The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, avail­able in 80+ schools in the US, Cana­da, Aus­tralia and New Zealand, is a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties to train key brain func­tions involved in learning.

Ban­ner Health, based in Phoenix, Ari­zona, is one of the largest non­prof­it health sys­tems in the USA, employ­ing more than 50,000 staff mem­bers in 29 hos­pi­tals and oth­er set­tings rang­ing from home care and long-term care, to lab­o­ra­to­ries and reha­bil­i­ta­tion services.

EMOTIV is a bioin­for­mat­ics com­pa­ny advanc­ing under­stand­ing of the human brain using elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) with a mis­sion to empow­er indi­vid­u­als and accel­er­ate brain research globally.

Lumosity

Lumos­i­ty was found­ed to help peo­ple keep their brains chal­lenged thanks to a sim­ple online tool allow­ing any­one to train core cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. From neu­ro­science to visu­al art, they com­bine diverse dis­ci­plines to cre­ate engag­ing brain train­ing pro­grams and, through the Human Cog­ni­tion Project, they col­lab­o­rate with over 100 lead­ing researchers, clin­i­cians and teach­ers from insti­tu­tions around the world.

Mind­Maze has devel­oped a break­through plat­form to build intu­itive human machine inter­faces com­bin­ing vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR), com­put­er graph­ics, brain imag­ing & neu­ro­science, enabling excit­ing new appli­ca­tions in gam­ing, brain machine con­trol, and healthcare.

Dur­ing Expo Day–Thursday, Decem­ber 7th–selected Sum­mit Spon­sors and Part­ners will show­case their most promis­ing brain health & enhance­ment ini­tia­tives and solu­tions. All times below reflect US Pacif­ic Time.

8.30–9am. Adam Gaz­za­ley, UCSF Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy, will present Neu­roscape.

9–9.30am. Dr. Wal­ter Green­leaf, Med­ical VR/ AR Expert at Stan­ford Vir­tu­al Human Inter­ac­tion Lab, will pro­vide an overview of health appli­ca­tions of vir­tu­al & aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (VR/AR).

9.30–10am. Dr. Lew Lim, Founder & CEO of Vielight, will dis­cuss pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion as a new way to enhance brain function.

10.30–11am. Dr. Bob Schafer, Direc­tor of Research at Lumos Labs, will present their expand­ing vision for brain train­ing, includ­ing mindfulness.

11am-Noon. Lunch break

Noon-12.30pm. Dr. Chris Walling, Chair­man of the Edu­ca­tion­al Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee at
The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF), will present the new Brain Longevi­ty Ther­a­py Training.

12.30–1pm. Dr. Leanne Young, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Brain Per­for­mance Insti­tute at UT-Dal­las Cen­ter for Brain­Health will present the new 62,000-square-foot Brain Per­for­mance Institute.

1–1.30pm. Deb­bie Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, will present plans to bet­ter equip 100+ schools help­ing stu­dents with spe­cial needs.

1.30–2pm. Dr. Ran­dal Koene, Lead Sci­en­tist at Ker­nel, will dis­cuss future direc­tions of neu­ro­engin­ner­ing and human com­put­er interfaces.

 

Look­ing for­ward to a great vir­tu­al summit!

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Learn more & Reserve your Spot HERE

(10%-off pro­mo code for Sharp­Brains read­ers: sharp2017)

Explore new ways to measure Brain Health & Performance @ 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit (December 5–7th)

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Kick­start­ed with a keynote by scientist/ pol­i­cy-mak­er/ entre­pre­neur Dr. Tom Insel,  the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 5–7th) will host a Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test to dis­cuss the lat­est tech­nolo­gies for Brain Health & Enhance­ment. 12 select­ed star­tups will get to pitch their inno­v­a­tive approach and solu­tions to our dis­tin­guished Judges –our very own “Sharp Tank”– and to all Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants. [Read more…] about Explore new ways to mea­sure Brain Health & Per­for­mance @ 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 5–7th)