Cognitive-Training-Program

Non-invasive Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES) shows early promise to treat ADHD symptoms in children

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While tDCS uses con­stant cur­rent inten­si­ty, tRNS and tACS use oscil­lat­ing cur­rent. The ver­ti­cal axis rep­re­sents the cur­rent inten­si­ty in mil­liamp (mA), while the hor­i­zon­tal axis illus­trates the time-course. Source: Wikipedia.

Many chil­dren with ADHD ben­e­fit from med­ica­tion treat­ment, behav­ioral treat­ment, or their com­bi­na­tion, but oth­ers do not. In addi­tion, par­ents are often reluc­tant to start their child on med­ica­tion and high qual­i­ty behav­ioral treat­ments are not read­i­ly acces­si­ble in many areas. The long-term effi­ca­cy of these treat­ments is also less than desir­able. Thus, despite these evi­dence-based ADHD treat­ments, there is a press­ing need to devel­op nov­el treat­ments with strong research support.

A study pub­lished recent­ly in Trans­la­tion­al Psy­chi­a­try [Dakawar-Kawar et al (2023). Tran­scra­nial ran­dom noise stim­u­la­tion com­bined with cog­ni­tive train­ing for treat­ing ADHD: a ran­dom­ized sham-con­trolled tri­al.] reports promis­ing results for a nov­el ADHD treat­ment approach.

The Study:

Study par­tic­i­pants were 24 6–12 year-old chil­dren recent­ly diag­nosed with ADHD fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive eval­u­a­tion. They were ran­dom­ly assigned to receive either a) a type of Tran­scra­nial Elec­tri­cal Stim­u­la­tion (TES) called Tran­scra­nial Ran­dom Noise Stim­u­la­tion (TRNS) or b) sham stim­u­la­tion; chil­dren in both groups engaged in com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing dur­ing the ses­sions. [Read more…] about Non-inva­sive Tran­scra­nial Elec­tri­cal Stim­u­la­tion (TES) shows ear­ly promise to treat ADHD symp­toms in children

New $1 million grant to study working memory training in children with fragile X

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MIND Insti­tute researchers receive $1 mil­lion grant to study cog­ni­tive train­ing in chil­dren with frag­ile X (UC Davis Health Sys­tem News):

“Researchers at the UC Davis MIND Insti­tute will exam­ine whether chil­dren and youth with frag­ile X syn­drome can improve their work­ing mem­o­ry, cog­ni­tion and behav­ior by using an online com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram, through a new $1 mil­lion grant from The John Mer­ck Fund.

To con­duct the inno­v­a­tive study, the researchers will trav­el to the homes of school-aged chil­dren around the coun­try to instruct their fam­i­lies on how to use the pro­gram and deliv­er the inter­ven­tion, called Cogmed, soft­ware designed to improve work­ing mem­o­ry that is mar­ket­ed by Pear­son Edu­ca­tion.” Keep read­ing here.

–> We iden­ti­fied Cogmed/ Pear­son as one of the Top 10 Com­pa­nies to Watch in 2013–2014 based on the analy­sis in our lat­est mar­ket report.

Brain Training: It Works, and It Doesn’t Work

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The IMPACT study which we report­ed on in Decem­ber 2007, fund­ed by Posit Sci­ence, con­duct­ed by the Mayo Clin­ic and USC Davis, has just announced pub­li­ca­tion at the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Geri­atrics Soci­ety. Ref­er­ence:

- Smith et al. A Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Pro­gram Designed Based on Prin­ci­ples of Brain Plas­tic­i­ty: Results from the Improve­ment in Mem­o­ry with Plas­tic­i­ty-based Adap­tive Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Study. Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Geri­atrics Soci­ety, April 2009.

Com­put­er Exer­cis­es Improve Mem­o­ry And Atten­tion, Study Sug­gests (Sci­ence Daily)

- “The Improve­ment in Mem­o­ry with Plas­tic­i­ty-based Adap­tive Cog­ni­tive Train­ing (IMPACT) study was fund­ed by the Posit Sci­ence Cor­po­ra­tion, which owns the rights to the Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram, test­ed in the study.”

- “Of the 487 healthy adults over the age of 65 who par­tic­i­pat­ed in a ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­al, half used the Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram for 40 hours over the course of eight weeks. The Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram con­sists of six audio exer­cis­es done on a com­put­er, and is intend­ed to “retrain the brain to dis­crim­i­nate fine dis­tinc­tions in sound, and do it in a way that keeps the user engaged,” Zelin­s­ki explained.” The oth­er half of par­tic­i­pants spent an equal amount of time learn­ing from edu­ca­tion­al DVDs fol­lowed by quizzes.

Com­ment: this is a very inter­est­ing study, in that it shows both that cog­ni­tive train­ing works, and that it does­n’t work.

What do I mean? [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing: It Works, and It Doesn’t Work

Allstate: Can we improve Driver Safety using Posit Science InSight?

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Insur­ance com­pa­ny All­state and brain fit­ness soft­ware devel­op­er Posit Sci­ence just announced (see press release Pro­tect­ing Penn­syl­va­nia Dri­vers, One Brain at a Time) a very intel­li­gent initiative:

Video exer­cis­es aid dri­ving skills (Chica­go Tribune)

-“All­state, which called the Posit pro­gram “poten­tial­ly the next big break­through in auto­mo­bile safe­ty,” said it expects its soft­ware exer­cis­es to reduce risky dri­ving maneu­vers by up to 40 per­cent and improve stop­ping dis­tance by an aver­age of 22 feet when trav­el­ing at 55 miles per hour.”

-“We’ll look to see whether over the next six to nine months there will be a reduc­tion in” the num­ber of acci­dents between the group par­tic­i­pat­ing in the video exer­cis­es and those sit­ting out, said Tom War­den, assis­tant vice pres­i­dent of All­state’s research and plan­ning center.

Tom Warden Allstate

I am for­tu­nate to inter­view Tom War­den, Assis­tant Vice Pres­i­dent and Leader of Allstate’s Research and Plan­ning Cen­ter, based in Men­lo Park, California.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Tom, thank you for your time. Can you please explain the con­text behind this new ini­tia­tive that you just announced?

Tom War­den: Our research cen­ter is con­stant­ly look­ing for new ideas to improve the dri­ving behav­ior of dri­vers of all ages. Recent­ly we have paid extra empha­sis on ways to improve the safe­ty of old­er drivers.

Let me pro­vide some back­ground here. All­state, as a com­pa­ny, has always been one of the pio­neers in help­ing to intro­duce new safe­ty mea­sures. For exam­ple, we were among the pio­neers in the 60s to advo­cate for manda­to­ry use of seat­ing belts, giv­en research stud­ies on the ben­e­fits for dri­vers and pas­sen­gers alike. More recent­ly, we helped lob­by for wider adop­tion of airbags, an effec­tive but expen­sive way of pro­tec­tion that only became main­stream when man­u­fac­tur­ers were required to include them.

Let’s talk now about your agree­ment with Posit Sci­ence. What will hap­pen over the next months?

The first thing we are doing is to con­duct a research study to ana­lyze the real-life impact of Posit Sci­ence InSight, a com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram, on acci­dent rates. We know that as dri­vers get old­er [Read more…] about All­state: Can we improve Dri­ver Safe­ty using Posit Sci­ence InSight?

Brain Health/ Brain Training News

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Brain Health NewsRoundup of inter­est­ing news in this emerg­ing field:

1) Brain Health Lead­ers Team Up to Pre­vent Crashes.

2) Adults Improve Crit­i­cal Pro­fes­sion­al and Per­son­al Skills Through New Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Program.

3) Nature Neu­ro­science Pod­cast and Lon­don Taxi Drivers.

4) What Have You Changed Your Mind About, lately?.

5) The 2008 Mind & Life Sum­mer Research Insti­tute starts accept­ing applications.

6) The Mind & Life Insti­tute has announced the 2007 Fran­cis­co J. Varela Research Award Recip­i­ents. [Read more…] about Brain Health/ Brain Train­ing News

“Tis better to give than receive”: oxytocin and dopamine

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Jef­frey Gonce, a Psy­chol­o­gy teacher at Red Land High School (West Shore School Dis­trict, PA) just asked his stu­dents to “com­plete a project describ­ing a recent brain (or genet­ic) study that affects behav­ior.”  The stu­dents could opt to post their arti­cles online, and Jef­frey was kind enough to send us a link to read the results.

We enjoyed the over­all lev­el of the essays (you can read them all here), and tru­ly enjoyed read­ing a beau­ti­ful, well-researched and bet­ter writ­ten essay by Alexan­dra M, 15. Which, inci­den­tal­ly, quotes from one of our favourite pop­u­lar sci­ence books on the brain, John Ratey’s A User’s Guide to the Brain.

Enjoy!

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March 2, 2007

Alexan­dra M

It’s Christ­mas morn­ing, and your broth­er rush­es down­stairs to see what “San­ta” brought him. The morn­ing goes by in a flur­ry of col­or­ful wrap­ping paper and stringy rib­bons until all that’s left is a big present in the cen­ter of your brother’s lap. The present that “San­ta” brought him. As he rips open the paper, “Santa’s” chest swells with pride, he feels good and hap­py. As the broth­er runs around scream­ing about his new remote con­trolled F‑14 Tom­cat, “San­ta” laughs and cleans up. But why did he feel that way? [Read more…] about “Tis bet­ter to give than receive”: oxy­tocin and dopamine