Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Brain-Training

The ultimate in transfer from brain training to real-world outcomes: Reducing the risk of at-fault accidents by almost 50%

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Can you train your brain to dri­ve longer into your gold­en years? (CTV News):

“For the elder­ly, the loss of a driver’s licence could mean the end of inde­pen­dence and the begin­ning of a decline in health, with far-reach­ing con­se­quences in their dai­ly lives…New assis­tive dri­ving tech­nolo­gies seem like an obvi­ous solu­tion in the years to come, but buy­ing new vehi­cles can be too expen­sive; while options like going for adult dri­ving lessons can be too great a blow to some seniors’ pride. Now, sci­en­tists claim that there’s anoth­er option avail­able to help old­er dri­vers main­tain their abil­i­ties on the road. [Read more…] about The ulti­mate in trans­fer from brain train­ing to real-world out­comes: Reduc­ing the risk of at-fault acci­dents by almost 50%

News you can use: To improve memory, exercise brain and body at the same time

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ eNewslet­ter  track­ing the lat­est think­ing, research and tools for brain health.

This month we fea­ture five fas­ci­nat­ing inter­views at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­science and a recent study sug­gest­ing that “Per­form­ing mem­o­ry train­ing exer­cis­es at the same time as ped­al­ing a sta­tion­ary bike led to bet­ter gains in mem­o­ry than doing the train­ing exer­cis­es after work­ing up a sweat…”

Enjoy the read!

New thinking:

New research:

New tools:

 

Final­ly, you may want to learn about cog­ni­tion and men­tal self-rota­tion with these quick brain teasers.

Have a great month of March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

NHS Choices helps improve brain health and science literacy by reporting findings in context — as seen in this brain training & schizophrenia example

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Video game-based ‘brain train­ing’ may help peo­ple with schiz­o­phre­nia (NHS Choices):

“Peo­ple with schiz­o­phre­nia can be trained by play­ing a video game to con­trol the part of the brain linked to ver­bal hal­lu­ci­na­tions,” BBC News reports [Read more…] about NHS Choic­es helps improve brain health and sci­ence lit­er­a­cy by report­ing find­ings in con­text — as seen in this brain train­ing & schiz­o­phre­nia example

Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge funds program testing neurofeedback-based brain training to reduce cravings and battle opioid addiction

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Soft­ware engi­neer Kel­ly Cash­ion (right) adjusts a wire­less EEG head­set on research engi­neer Nilesh Powar. Cred­it: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton Research Institute

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Bat­tling Addic­tion With Brain­pow­er (Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton press release):

“The Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton Research Insti­tute has won a $10,000 Ohio Opi­oid Tech­nol­o­gy Chal­lenge award for a pro­gram that will teach peo­ple with opi­oid addic­tions how to reduce their crav­ings by regain­ing con­trol of their brains.

“Using neu­ro­feed­back, we’ll work with our vol­un­teers to help them learn to reg­u­late activ­i­ty in the part of their brain asso­ci­at­ed with crav­ings and rewire some of those path­ways, allow­ing them to reduce their crav­ings and expe­ri­ence a more ‘nor­mal’ state even with­out opi­oids.” [Read more…] about Ohio Opi­oid Tech­nol­o­gy Chal­lenge funds pro­gram test­ing neu­ro­feed­back-based brain train­ing to reduce crav­ings and bat­tle opi­oid addiction

Update: Why monitoring Typing Cadence may help detect early Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease

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Above: Pat­tern of Typ­ing Cadence in 52-year-old male with Parkin­son’s. Source: NeuraMetrix

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ first eNewslet­ter in 2018, offer­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing sneek peek into the rapid­ly grow­ing toolk­it to mea­sure and improve brain health. 

(And don’t miss the fun teas­er at the end!)

New thinking:

New research:

New tools:

 

 

Final­ly, a quick brain teas­er. What do you see first, ani­mals or people?

 

Have a great month of February!

With pharma exiting Alzheimer’s research, new hope (and urgency) seen in the combination of brain training and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

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What does the future hold for the war on Alzheimer’s? (The Globe and Mail):

“After spend­ing huge sums on clin­i­cal trails in recent years, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try has failed to find a drug that can halt the mind-rob­bing dis­ease. And this month, Pfiz­er announced it is end­ing its Alzheimer’s research, although oth­er com­pa­nies haven’t thrown in the tow­el yet. But oth­er pre­ven­tion mea­sures are being explored.

Sev­er­al Toron­to hos­pi­tals are involved in an ambi­tious $10-mil­lion, five-year study to deter­mine whether a com­bi­na­tion of cog­ni­tive reme­di­a­tion – men­tal exer­cis­es – plus elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion of the brain can delay [Read more…] about With phar­ma exit­ing Alzheimer’s research, new hope (and urgency) seen in the com­bi­na­tion of brain train­ing and tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS)