BrainHQ

Addressing aging-related cognitive decline via targeted training using visual sweeps: Key neurotech patent by Posit Science

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visual sweeps
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 8,215,961

Today we are fea­tur­ing a 2012 patent by Posit Sci­ence Cor­po­ra­tion, the devel­op­er of Brain­HQ cog­ni­tive train­ing system.

U.S. Patent No. 8,215,961: Cog­ni­tive train­ing using visu­al sweeps

  • Assignee(s): Posit Sci­ence Corporation
  • Inventor(s): Michael M. Merzenich, Peter B. Delahunt, Joseph L. Hardy, Stephen G. Lis­berg­er, Hen­ry W. Mahncke
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neu­rocog­ni­tive training
  • Issue Date: July 10, 2012

SharpBrains’ Take:

The back­ground of the ‘961 patent describes the decline in cog­ni­tive func­tion asso­ci­at­ed with aging, such as the reduced abil­i­ty to com­pre­hend and respond to stim­u­lus. [Read more…] about Address­ing aging-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline via tar­get­ed train­ing using visu­al sweeps: Key neu­rotech patent by Posit Science

5 Facts You Need To Know To Understand, Navigate And Enjoy The Digital Brain Health Revolution

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Hun­dreds of com­pa­nies around the globe, now includ­ing Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink and even Face­book,  are research­ing and devel­op­ing new ways to help brain own­ers be smarter, sharp­er, and healthier.

What explains this flur­ry of activ­i­ty? Where may it be headed?

To help you under­stand what’s going on, let me high­light five key facts that emerged from the recent Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit.

 

Fact 1. There are 7.5 billion human brains out there, and everyone needs help

Con­sid­er all unmet needs derived from the tra­di­tion­al phar­ma-exclu­sive approach to brain health.

Learn­ing and cog­ni­tive dis­abil­i­ties in chil­dren are grow­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly, from ADHD and OCD, to autism. The relat­ed emo­tion­al and eco­nom­ic bur­den is sub­stan­tial — yet, over 60–70% of those with treat­ment have poor out­comes, and many who need help don’t get any.

Glob­al­ly, around 350 mil­lion peo­ple suf­fer from depres­sion. Add to that sub­stance abuse, and we are talk­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple with­out prop­er care and very high relapse rates for the lucky ones get­ting help.

Con­cus­sions and brain impair­ments per­vade through mil­lions of vet­er­ans and high-con­tact sports prac­ti­tion­ers, yet diag­no­sis and treat­ments are elusive.

And let’s not for­get the per­fect­ly healthy. [Read more…] about 5 Facts You Need To Know To Under­stand, Nav­i­gate And Enjoy The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Revolution

Enhancing cognition via brain training with a visual emphasis: Key neurotechnology patent #38

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cognitive training
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 7,773,097

Today we high­light a 2010 patent assigned to Posit Sci­ence Cor­po­ra­tion, the devel­op­er of Brain­HQ brain train­ing sys­tem. (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patents, from old­er to new­er by issue date, to get a bet­ter glimpse into emerg­ing trends)

U.S. Patent No. 7,773,097: Visu­al empha­sis for cog­ni­tive train­ing exercises

  • Assignee(s): Posit Sci­ence Corporation
  • Inventor(s): Michael M. Merzenich, Peter B. Delahunt, Joseph L. Hardy, Hen­ry W. Mah­ncke, Don­ald Richard
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neu­rocog­ni­tive training
  • Issue Date: August 10, 2010

SharpBrains’ Take:

In a sim­i­lar yet unique approach to the ‘961 patent (anoth­er note­wor­thy non-inva­sive neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent assigned to Posit Sci­ence), the ‘097 patent dis­clos­es meth­ods for iter­a­tive­ly test­ing and train­ing a user’s abil­i­ty to dis­cern between pre­sent­ed stim­uli. [Read more…] about Enhanc­ing cog­ni­tion via brain train­ing with a visu­al empha­sis: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #38

Four reasons the future of brain health is digital, pervasive and bright

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Hun­dreds of com­pa­nies and sci­ence labs around the globe are research­ing the inner work­ings of the human brain and mind, and devel­op­ing new ways to help brain own­ers be smarter, sharp­er, and health­i­er for longer.

What explains this flur­ry of activ­i­ty? [Read more…] about Four rea­sons the future of brain health is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and bright

Witnessing an explosion of consumer-facing neurotechnologies to (potentially) harness lifelong neuroplasticity

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Last week I shared some key sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and invest­ment trends rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Brain Health, based on my par­tic­i­pa­tion at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit, and promised a sec­ond arti­cle more focused on the tech­nol­o­gy side of things.

Here it is 🙂

Just a few weeks after the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit I also attend­ed CES 2017. While I enjoyed the myr­i­ad emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies –autonomous vehi­cles, robot­ics, drones, aug­ment­ed and vir­tu­al real­i­ty head­sets, voice acti­vat­ed every­thing– I was most­ly struck by a firm named Halo Neu­ro­science. They have a fas­ci­nat­ing wear­able prod­uct, Halo Sport, claim­ing to accel­er­ate gains in strength, explo­sive­ness, endurance, and mus­cle mem­o­ry, improv­ing the brain’s response to ath­let­ic train­ing. It uses tDCS (tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion), essen­tial­ly prim­ing move­ment-relat­ed cir­cuits of the brain to become more recep­tive to stim­uli, help­ing the brain wire in the prac­tice for improved future response.

The cutting edge of applied neuroplasticity

Both con­fer­ences allowed me to see the cut­ting edge of [Read more…] about Wit­ness­ing an explo­sion of con­sumer-fac­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies to (poten­tial­ly) har­ness life­long neuroplasticity

Thank you, Summit Speakers, Participants and Sponsors!

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What a fan­tas­tic, diverse, stim­u­lat­ing, for­ward-look­ing Sum­mit we enjoyed last week. Thank you so much, every­one, for your par­tic­i­pa­tion and contributions!!

Spe­cial thanks go to the orga­ni­za­tions at the lead­ing edge who sup­port­ed this unique event as Sponsors:

Gold Sponsors

arpf

The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF), estab­lished in 1993, is ded­i­cat­ed to reduc­ing the inci­dence of Alzheimer’s dis­ease by con­duct­ing clin­i­cal research and pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion­al outreach.

 FitBrains_webFit Brains is a cut­ting-edge, brain-train­ing pro­gram brought to you by Roset­ta Stone, a pre­mier learn­ing com­pa­ny with lead­ing prod­ucts used by schools, busi­ness and gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions, and mil­lions of indi­vid­u­als around the world.

Silver Sponsors

AAAFoundation

The AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safe­ty was found­ed in 1947 by AAA to iden­ti­fy traf­fic safe­ty prob­lems, fos­ter research that seeks solu­tions and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion and edu­ca­tion­al materials.

Arrowsmith ProgramThe Arrow­smith Pro­gram, avail­able in pub­lic and pri­vate schools in the U.S., Cana­da, Aus­tralia and New Zealand, is a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties that tar­gets 19 areas that are most com­mon­ly involved in learning.

CC-ABHI_BaycrestBay­crest, ful­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, is one of the world’s pre­mier aca­d­e­m­ic health sci­ences cen­ters focused on aging, and will host the new $100m+ Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Aging and Brain Health Inno­va­tion.

Brain­Base­line is the first iPad appli­ca­tion for mea­sur­ing how well your brain works. Devel­oped by Dig­i­tal Arte­facts, it helps users world­wide under­stand how demo­graph­ic fac­tors and leisure activ­i­ties impact over­all brain health.

Lumosity

Lumos­i­ty is a lead­ing brain train­ing com­pa­ny with more than 70 mil­lion mem­bers from 180 coun­tries. Found­ed in 2005 and launched in 2007, Lumos­i­ty offers more than 40 games that are designed to chal­lenge core cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. Lumosity’s games are based on neu­ro­science, with con­tin­u­ing inde­pen­dent third-par­ty stud­ies being con­duct­ed by researchers at aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions around the world.

Bronze Sponsors

brainHQ

brain­HQ is a brain train­ing sys­tem built by Posit Sci­ence to help peo­ple be at their best through­out their lives. Their team of experts designs, tests, and refines online exer­cis­es that effec­tive­ly address cog­ni­tive issues relat­ed to healthy aging and oth­er conditions.

Cog­niFit is a health­care com­pa­ny spe­cial­ized in brain fit­ness soft­ware. Since 1999, the firm has designed and devel­oped com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ments and online brain train­ing applications.

Peak, found­ed by a group of indi­vid­u­als from Google, Ama­zon and EA who believe in rein­vent­ing edu­ca­tion through mobile, games and sci­ence. Lead by neu­ro­sci­en­tists and cog­ni­tive learn­ing experts, Peak devel­ops mobile apps that enables users world­wide to improve their cog­ni­tive skills for a health­i­er, sharp­er life.