Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Co-Adaptive-Learning

Ten Reflections on Cognitive Health and Assessments

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Let me sum­ma­rize ten high­lights and reflec­tions from stim­u­lat­ing dis­cus­sions on cog­ni­tive health and assess­ments I have had this month so far.

Jan­u­ary 8–9th: Sym­po­sium on Co-Adap­tive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­o­gy for the Aging (details Here), orga­nized by the Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty’s Cen­ter for Adap­tive Neur­al Systems:

1. Cog­ni­tive health is a crit­i­cal fac­tor in over­all health­care, but is often approached in a frag­ment­ed, non-sys­tem­at­ic way. Most speak­ers in the sym­po­sium did men­tion how cog­ni­tive health issues inter­act with their spe­cif­ic areas of focus (aging, Parkin­son’s Dis­ease, trau­mat­ic brain injury, Alzheimer’s…) but there was a lack of a com­mon frame­work and tax­on­o­my to define the prob­lem and iden­ti­fy solu­tions and inter­ven­tions to mea­sure and help main­tain cog­ni­tive health across the lifespan.

2. For exam­ple, Parkin­son’s Dis­ease. Did you know (I did­n’t) that a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Parkin­son’s patients have well-iden­ti­fied cog­ni­tive impair­ments, most­ly in their exec­u­tive func­tions but also per­cep­tu­al problems?

3. We tru­ly need a Cul­ture of Cog­ni­tive Health, as Ran­dal Koene point­ed out.

4. May online cog­ni­tive games serve as ongo­ing, real-time assess­ment of cog­ni­tive func­tion? Misha Pavel thought so. He also added we may well see “cog­ni­tive exer­cise coach­es” some­time in the horizon.

5. Skip Riz­zo pre­sent­ed how vir­tu­al real­i­ty can help address Post Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (PTSD) and even to admin­is­ter inno­v­a­tive cog­ni­tive assessments.

6. My pre­sen­ta­tion, titled The Emerg­ing Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Mar­ket: Sta­tus, Trends and Chal­lenges, is avail­able Here

7. Jan­u­ary 22nd: Con­sumer Reports orga­nized a health sum­mit titled [Read more…] about Ten Reflec­tions on Cog­ni­tive Health and Assessments

Co-Adaptive Learning: Adaptive Technology for the Aging

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My apolo­gies for not hav­ing blogged in a few days. I land­ed back in San Fran­cis­co today after speak­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a very stim­u­lat­ing event put togeth­er by the Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty’s Adap­tive Neur­al Sys­tems Cen­ter with fund­ing from the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion.

The 2‑day sym­po­sium was titled Co-Adap­tive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­o­gy for the Aging (link opens a PDF with the agen­da), fea­tured impres­sive speak­ers and a high­ly qual­i­fied audi­ence, and cov­ered a wide array of cur­rent and future health­care and aging appli­ca­tions of neu­ro­science. The one aspect that was very mean­ing­ful for me to observe how often we dis­cussed cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, cog­ni­tive deficits, cog­ni­tive assess­ments, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment tools (both inva­sive and non-inva­sive) in a vari­ety of healthy aging and clin­i­cal contexts.

I will share more about the event in the next few days, includ­ing links to the fas­ci­nat­ing work pre­sent­ed by speak­ers, but let me know sim­ply thank the two gra­cious orga­niz­ers and hosts of the event by quot­ing the goal of their cen­ter and work:

- Jim­my Abbas, PhD: “One of the hall­marks of bio­log­i­cal sys­tems is the abil­i­ty to adapt. In our work, we mim­ic neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal sys­tems in order to endow tech­nol­o­gy with the abil­i­ty to adapt, and we use tech­nol­o­gy to max­i­mize adap­ta­tions in neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal sys­tems. With these approach­es, we aim to pro­mote func­tion­al adap­ta­tion after disability.”

- Ranu Jung, PhD: “Our goal is to improve the qual­i­ty of life of indi­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties by design­ing tech­niques to inves­ti­gate, replace and repair dam­aged neur­al sys­tems to enhance mobil­i­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty. Whether a per­son has spinal cord injury, limb loss or Parkin­son’s dis­ease, mobil­i­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty mean independence.”

Links:

Cen­ter: Adap­tive Neur­al Sys­tems Center. 

Agen­da (PDF): Co-Adap­tive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­o­gy for the Aging