Stanford and Max Planck on Mental Fitness

By Alvaro Fernandez | May 8, 2009

Stan­ford Issues Find­ings from Cog­ni­tive and Brain Experts Urg­ing Con­sumer Cau­tion on Mem­o­ry Fit­ness Prod­ucts (press release) — “Fear of mem­o­ry loss, men­tal impair­ment and Alzheimer’s dis­ease lead many con­sumers to search for prod­ucts — from sup­ple­ments to soft­ware — that claim to ward off such ail­ments,” Lau­ra L. Carstensen, found­ing direc­tor of the Stanford…

Read More

Michael Merzenich: Brain Plasticity offers Hope for Everyone

By Dr. Ginger Campbell | March 9, 2009 |

“What­ev­er you strug­gle with in a sense as it stems from your neu­rol­o­gy, the inher­ent plas­tic­i­ty of the brain gives you a basis for improve­ment. This is a way under­uti­lized and under-appre­­ci­at­ed resource that well all have.” Dr. Michael Merzenich on the Brain Sci­ence Pod­cast #54, 2/13/09. Recent­ly there has been grow­ing con­tro­ver­sy about the…

Read More

Ten Reflections on Cognitive Health and Assessments

By Alvaro Fernandez | January 28, 2009

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,…

Read More

Brain fitness & training heads towards its tipping point

By Dr. Gerard Finnemore | January 19, 2009 |

How do you know when some­thing is fast mov­ing towards a Glad­wellian tip­ping point? When health insur­ance com­pa­nies and pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers launch sig­nif­i­cant ini­tia­tives. For exam­ple, the gov­ern­ment of Ontario recent­ly announced a $10 mil­lion invest­ment with Bay­crest Research Cen­tre who will part­ner with MaRS Ven­ture Group to devel­op and com­mer­cialise brain fit­ness technologies.…

Read More

Brain Fitness/ Training by the American Senior Fitness Association

By Alvaro Fernandez | January 19, 2009 |

Brain Fit­ness Com­ing to Senior Exer­cise Class­es (press release): — “The Amer­i­can Senior Fit­ness Asso­ci­a­tion (SFA) has announced a new brain fit­ness train­ing pro­gram designed for exer­cise pro­fes­sion­als. Brain Fit­ness for Old­er Adults teach­es senior fit­ness instruc­tors and per­son­al train­ers how to incor­po­rate effec­tive cog­ni­tive fit­ness into phys­i­cal activ­i­ty pro­grams, offer­ing seniors the oppor­tu­ni­ty to…

Read More

The Overflowing Brain: Most Important Book of 2008

By Alvaro Fernandez | December 27, 2008 |

We have tracked for sev­er­al years the sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished by Torkel Kling­berg and col­leagues, often won­der­ing aloud, “when will edu­ca­tors, health pro­fes­sion­als, exec­u­tives and main­stream soci­ety come to appre­ci­ate the poten­tial we have in front of  us to enhance our brains and improve our cog­ni­tive func­tions?” Dr. Kling­berg has just pub­lished a very stimulating…

Read More