NASA astro­naut Scott Kel­ly checks out the Microsoft HoloLens aboard a space sta­tion on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2016. (Pho­to by NASA via Get­ty Images)

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About the con­cern: Brain MRI scans may help NASA plan safer mis­sions to space (Health Imag­ing):

“Not a lot is known about cog­ni­tive impair­ment in humans dur­ing space­flight,” Don­na R. Roberts, MD, Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty of South Carolina’s Depart­ment of Radi­ol­o­gy, said in a state­ment Read the rest of this entry »

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The flight that brings space weight­less­ness to Earth (BBC Future):

“Five, four, three, two, one…”

Not many air­craft cap­tains give their pas­sen­gers a rock­et launch-style count­down before take-off, but this is no ordi­nary plane. For starters, every­one on board, apart from the crew, is a sci­en­tist and has passed a full med­ical check – includ­ing a heart assess­ment. This is not a trip for ner­vous fliers Read the rest of this entry »

Cour­tesy David Lee at The Dai­ly Cal­i­forn­ian

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UC Berke­ley study links cog­ni­tive longevi­ty to high­er edu­ca­tion (The Dai­ly Cal­i­forn­ian):

“A study led by cam­pus researchers found that high­er lev­els of edu­ca­tion are linked to lat­er ages of peak cog­ni­tive performance…The team was able to use anony­mous data gath­ered from almost 200,000 sub­scribers to Lumos­i­ty, an online cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram, whose users con­sent­ed that their results could be used for sci­en­tif­ic research. Read the rest of this entry »

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ May e‑newsletter, high­light­ing what’s new in brain health and men­tal per­for­mance, and fea­tur­ing a very rel­e­vant MIT ini­tia­tive and a thought-pro­vok­ing study on the “Cog­ni­tive Divide.”

New thinking

• MIT Solve launch­es Brain Health Chal­lenge: How can every per­son improve their brain health and men­tal resilience?
• Men­tal Health Inno­va­tion and Dr. Tom Insel: from the NIMH to Google/ Ver­i­ly Life Sci­ences to Start­up Mind­strong
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright (relat­ed slides here)
• Eight research teams work­ing with DARPA to dis­cov­er best ways to acti­vate neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and accel­er­ate learn­ing
• Researchers pro­pose four “neu­ror­ights” to har­ness neu­rotech­nol­o­gy for good: cog­ni­tive lib­er­ty, men­tal pri­va­cy, men­tal integri­ty, and psy­cho­log­i­cal con­ti­nu­ity

New research

• Is moder­ni­ty lead­ing to a grow­ing Cog­ni­tive Divide?
• Phys­i­cal­ly-active video games (‘exergames’) boost cog­ni­tion more than phys­i­cal activ­i­ty alone
• Com­mon med­ica­tion treat­ments for PTSD can increase the risk of devel­op­ing demen­tia
• Study iden­ti­fies brain cir­cuits enabling four-year-olds to “put them­selves in oth­er people’s shoes”

New tools

• Want a music sys­tem that lifts you up when you’re feel­ing down? Meet this audio head­set with bio-sig­nal sen­sors (Neu­roSky patent)
• Eval­u­at­ing neur­al respons­es via EEG brain data in vir­tu­al real­i­ty envi­ron­ments (Nielsen patent)
• Con­nect­ing car­di­o­log­i­cal and neu­ro­log­i­cal health (Medtron­ic patent)
• Start-up Aira rais­es $12M, show­ing the way for cog­ni­tive sci­ence and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) to improve the lives of blind and low vision indi­vid­u­als

Have a great month of June and, for those based in the US, a great Memo­r­i­al Day week­end,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ April e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing what’s new in brain health and cog­ni­tive per­for­mance. Quite stim­u­lat­ing read­ing 🙂

New thinking

• Why Untrained Brains Are A Bit Like Pup­pies, And How To Put Togeth­er the Build­ing Blocks of a Smarter, Hap­pi­er Mind
• Mak­ing Stress Work for You, Instead of Against You
• 5 Facts You Need To Know To Under­stand, Nav­i­gate And Enjoy The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Rev­o­lu­tion
• Spe­cial Offer: Learn from 100+ Brain Experts, Watch 40+ Hours at the Lead­ing Edge (10%-off dis­count code: sharp2017)

New research

• Dance train­ing: The ulti­mate way to delay brain decline by com­bin­ing phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive, and social engage­ment
• Help­ing bridge neu­ro­science and edu­ca­tion: 30+ experts debunk the the­o­ry of fixed, rigid “learn­ing styles”
• Par­ents’ edu­ca­tion­al and income lev­els (not breast­feed­ing per se) account for the brain devel­op­ment gains in breast­fed chil­dren
• Brain stim­u­la­tion can work–if prop­er­ly timed
• The US Navy tests neu­ro-prim­ing and oth­er non-phar­ma­co­log­i­cal aids to boost cog­ni­tion and per­for­mance

New tools

• Ful­ly con­cen­trat­ed on task at hand? Then your com­put­er won’t dis­tract you
• Aug­ment­ing phys­io­ther­a­py via neu­ro­feed­back and neu­rostim­u­la­tion: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #43
• Elon Musk to pio­neer new Inner Space Fron­tier via Neu­ralink “neur­al lace” tech­nol­o­gy
• In the field of neu­rostim­u­la­tion, what comes first, Pub­lished Research or Patents?
• Enhanc­ing cog­ni­tion via brain train­ing with a visu­al empha­sis: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #38

Upcoming event

• May 6th, New York City: Antic­i­pat­ing and Shap­ing the Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy of the Future

Final­ly, here you have 5 quick brain teasers to sharp­en two key cog­ni­tive skills: atten­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry.

Have a great month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team