brain-training-market

Under new CEO, Lumosity to expand brain training platform with focus on applied skills and broader social, wellness factors

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lumosityLumosity’s Stum­ble Reveals How We Think About Think­ing (Buz­zFeed News):

“The ads were per­va­sive, pop­ping up on CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Google search­es. And they were per­sua­sive: Play­ing Lumos­i­ty games would do your brain good…But these claims sound­ed a lit­tle too rosy to the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion, which [Read more…] about Under new CEO, Lumos­i­ty to expand brain train­ing plat­form with focus on applied skills and broad­er social, well­ness factors

Sneak peak into the Preliminary Agenda @ 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit

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2014_SharpBrains_Virtual_Summit_Shaping the Practice and the Future of Brain FitnessHeads-up: If you want to join 20+ con­firmed world-class speak­ers and 100+ pro­fes­sion­als at the fore­front of brain health and applied neu­ro­science, please Reg­is­ter now and help us final­ize the fas­ci­nat­ing Sum­mit Agenda:

Tues­day, Octo­ber 28, 2014

  • 8:15–9:45am. The State of the Brain Fit­ness Move­ment: demo­graphic, sci­en­tific, and mar­ket trends, explained
  • 10:00–11:30am. Inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships to improve life­long learn­ing, brain health, and cus­tomer satisfaction
  • 12.30–2pm. How to har­ness videogames and big data to deliv­er per­son­al­ized cog­ni­tive training
  • 3–4:30pm. Max­i­miz­ing the men­tal health and per­for­mance of lead­ers, athletes…and astronauts

[Read more…] about Sneak peak into the Pre­lim­i­nary Agen­da @ 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Summit

Brain Training and Cognitive Assessment Market Surpassed $1.3 Billion In 2013

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Heads-up: We just announced a new intel­li­gence pack­age aimed at edu­ca­tion, health, gam­ing and tech­nol­o­gy exec­u­tives and innovators.

“Many mar­ket reports pro­vide lit­tle val­ue for the mon­ey. This mar­ket report by Sharp­Brains is the pre­cise oppo­site. Its wealth of data and analy­sis pro­vides very valu­able strate­gic and busi­ness devel­op­ment guid­ance to orga­ni­za­tions at the fron­tier of health and well­ness,” says Alexan­dra More­house, VP of Brand Man­age­ment at Kaiser Per­ma­nente. [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing and Cog­ni­tive Assess­ment Mar­ket Sur­passed $1.3 Bil­lion In 2013

Brain Training Market Talk, at MIT/ BoomerTech Series

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We’ll have an excit­ing ses­sion in Palo Alto on Octo­ber 6th, as part of the BoomerTech series orga­nized by the MIT Club and Smart­Sil­vers. Let me share the details now.

Fact or Fad: Who is Shap­ing the Brain Fit­ness Market? 
Descrip­tion: Lots of buzz … Per­haps you think that “Senior Moments” are an inevitable part of aging. MIT Club Northern CaliforniaBut research shows you may be able to keep your brain young and fit the same way you do your body, with exer­cise and train­ing. With the suc­cess of Nintendo’s Brain Age, Posit Sci­ence and dozens of new soft­ware pro­grams and games that promise “brain fit­ness”, the real ques­tion is: “Are we expe­ri­enc­ing a fad, or an emerg­ing new con­sumer market?”

Join our speak­er, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, author of the new book, The Sharp Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, and our expert pan­el to discuss:

* What are the top prod­ucts on the mar­ket today?
* Can the emerg­ing field of Brain fit­ness improve your job performance?
* How will con­sumers make informed deci­sions on what to buy and use?
* What are the emerg­ing trends to lever­age for entre­pre­neurs to jump into the marketplace?

Click Here to Register

Speak­er, Pan­elist & Moderator

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, Sharp­Brains — Alvaro is co-founder and CEO of Sharp­Brains, a lead­ing mar­ket research firm that tracks the mar­ket and research for cog­ni­tive assess­ments, train­ing, and games. A mem­ber of the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils, he has been quot­ed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, USA Today, and more, and recent­ly co-authored the book, The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp. Alvaro received mas­ters’ degrees in edu­ca­tion and busi­ness from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, and teach­es at UC-Berke­ley Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Institute.

Pan­elists

Roger Quy, Gen­er­al Part­ner, Tech­nol­o­gy Part­ners — Roger has been respon­si­ble for the life sci­ence prac­tice of Tech­nol­o­gy Part­ners since 1989. He spe­cial­izes in neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, invest­ing in both bio­phar­ma and med­ical device com­pa­nies. Roger began his career at the Queen Square Insti­tute of Neu­rol­o­gy, Lon­don where he was a Research Fel­low for the British Med­ical Research Coun­cil. He devel­oped and com­mer­cial­ized tech­niques for mon­i­tor­ing the brains of ambu­la­to­ry patients. He con­tributed to a text­book on epilep­sy and holds eight patents. Roger earned a BA with hon­ors in psy­chol­o­gy and law and a PhD in neu­ro­science from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Keele, Eng­land. He received an MBA from the Haas School of Busi­ness at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley.

Jan Zivic, Founder, Vibrant Brains — Jan’s inter­est in Brain Fit­ness is very per­son­al. She suf­fered a trau­mat­ic brain injury after an auto­mo­bile acci­dent sev­er­al years ago, and expe­ri­enced the con­cept of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty first-hand as she reha­bil­i­tat­ed from not being able to walk or think ratio­nal­ly to restor­ing much of her pre­vi­ous function.

Jan has served in a vari­ety of lead­er­ship roles includ­ing: the Board of Direc­tors of the Yer­ba Bue­na Cen­ter for the Arts where she cur­rent­ly serves as Pres­i­dent of the Board, the Library Com­mis­sion of SF, the Cal­i­for­nia Exec­u­tive Recruiters Asso­ci­a­tion (its first female Pres­i­dent), the Kather­ine Del­mar Burke Inde­pen­dent School, and The Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Agency of SF — Pres­i­dent of the Board. Jan was rec­og­nized as The SF Cable Car Awards “Woman of the Year,” and lat­er as the recip­i­ent of the Maya Angelou Com­mu­ni­ty Lead­er­ship Award, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co Med­ical School’s Cen­ter Of Excellence.

Date: Tues­day, Octo­ber 6, 2009

Time:

* 6:00PM Reg­is­tra­tion, Hors d’oeuvres and Networking
* 7:00PM Pre­sen­ta­tion and Pan­el Discussion

Cost:

* $20.00 in advance on the website
* $25.00 Walk-ins at the door (cash or check please, no cred­it cards accept­ed at door)

Con­tact:

Michael Sar­fat­ti
tel 415–885-2293
sarfatti@alum.mit.edu

Loca­tion:

Wil­son Sonsini
950 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94301

Click Here to Register

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!

Update: Preparing Society for the Cognitive Age, and Industry Webinar

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

Sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tion Fron­tiers in Neu­ro­science recent­ly pub­lished a spe­cial issue on Aug­ment­ing Cog­ni­tion, and invit­ed me to con­tribute with an arti­cle titled Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age. Ground­break­ing brain research has occurred over the last 20 years. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve brain health and per­for­mance is immense, but we need to ensure the mar­ket­place matures in a ratio­nal and sus­tain­able man­ner, both through health­care and non-health­care chan­nels. Click Here to read my article.

Announce­ments

In May 2009 Sharp­Brains pub­lished The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2009, the main indus­try report for lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions prepar­ing their mem­bers, their clients, and their patients for the cog­ni­tive age. 150-pages long, the report includes a mar­ket sur­vey with 2,000+ respon­dents, detailed analy­sis of 20+ ven­dors, research briefs writ­ten by 12 lead­ing sci­en­tists and data and trends for 4 major cus­tomer segments.webinar

Below we share the full Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry of the report and announce an exclu­sive webi­nar on Sep­tem­ber 29th to dis­cuss the State of the Mar­ket in more depth with buy­ers of the report.

To order the report and access both the report and the webi­nar, you can click Here. (Only $975 ‑a 25% dis­count- using Dis­count Code Frontiers2009 before Sep­tem­ber 28th).

State of the Market

The brain fit­ness field holds excit­ing promise for the future while pre­sent­ing clear oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges today. The good news is that there are more tools avail­able than ever before to assess and train a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive skills. The bad news is that there are no mag­ic pills and that con­sumers, while sat­is­fied over­all, seem con­fused by com­pet­ing claims on how to reduce one’s “brain age.” We do see signs that this ear­ly-stage mar­ket can mature in a more ratio­nal, struc­tured man­ner; but there is much work to be done. We esti­mate that the size of the U.S. brain fit­ness soft­ware (i.e., appli­ca­tions designed to assess or enhance cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties) mar­ket in 2008 was [Read more…] about Update: Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age, and Indus­try Webinar