game

From Angry Birds to brain mapping: The Gamification of Neuroscience

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Mouse Reti­nal Neu­rons (Type 25), per Eye­Wire Museum

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A Quar­ter Mil­lion Gamers Helped Build This Incred­i­bly Detailed Map of the Brain (Sin­gu­lar­i­ty­Hub):

“In 2012, when Angry Birds was in its prime, Seung had an inspiration.

“What if,” he won­dered, “we could cap­ture even a small frac­tion of the men­tal effort that goes into Angry Birds (for brain map­ping)? Think of what we could do.” [Read more…] about From Angry Birds to brain map­ping: The Gam­i­fi­ca­tion of Neuroscience

Virtual reality games and related neurotechnologies spark a new generation of dementia & cognitive tests

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The Sea Hero Quest vir­tu­al real­i­ty game is played on a Sam­sung Gear VR head­set. Source: Glitch­ers Ltd.

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The Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Game Gath­er­ing Data for Demen­tia Researchers (Bloomberg):

“Nav­i­gat­ing an ice-walled lake or scour­ing a swamp for a hid­den mon­ster may sound like a fun premise for a vir­tu­al-real­i­ty video game. But there’s a seri­ous pur­pose behind the new game Sea Hero Quest VR: help­ing neu­ro­sci­en­tists design a new test for demen­tia. [Read more…] about Vir­tu­al real­i­ty games and relat­ed neu­rotech­nolo­gies spark a new gen­er­a­tion of demen­tia & cog­ni­tive tests

Can Brain Training and Biofeedback Help Prevent Depression

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In two inno­v­a­tive pilot stud­ies, Ian Gotlib and his col­leagues at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, Cal­i­for­nia, showed that brain train­ing can be used to help elim­i­nate depres­sion, even before it starts. They stud­ied young girls (10 to 14 year old) whose moth­ers were depressed and who thus were at high­er risk of devel­op­ing depres­sion them­selves lat­er-on. The girls had not expe­ri­enced depres­sion per se but already showed behav­iors typ­i­cal of depressed brains, such as over­re­ac­tion to neg­a­tive stim­uli. [Read more…] about Can Brain Train­ing and Biofeed­back Help Pre­vent Depression

Update: How Stress and Emotions Impact Brain Performance

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Spon­sored Ad (How to Adver­tise on SharpBrains.com)

Time for the Octo­ber edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing this time sev­er­al arti­cles on the impact of stress, emo­tions, and self-reg­u­la­tion, on our brain’s struc­ture and performance.

We are pleased to bring to Sharp­Brains read­ers a new 6‑part series on the Neu­ro­bi­ol­ogy of Stress, based on a recent book by Sharp­Brains con­trib­u­tor Dr. Jerome Schultz. The first two parts are already avail­able: Part 1 — The Human Brain and How It Responds to Stress and Part 2 — Gray Mat­ters.

Brain Study Links Emo­tion­al Self-Reg­u­la­tion and Math Per­for­mance: A new study strong­ly sug­gests the need to “help stu­dents reap­praise the sit­u­a­tion and con­trol emo­tions before they even get into a task”. While the study focused on math anx­i­ety and per­for­mance, the impli­ca­tions are rel­e­vant out­side the class­room too.

Reminder: Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions in Novem­ber: As we announced a few weeks ago, we are hon­ored to present an upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Series. The first ses­sion, fea­tur­ing Dr. Gary Small, will take place Novem­ber 1st, 2011, 2–3pm US Eeast­ern Time. Please mark your cal­en­dar and join us at sharpbrains.com then! (no need to do any­thing pri­or to the session).

Music Train­ing Can Enhance Ver­bal Intel­li­gence and Exec­u­tive Func­tion: Very inter­est­ing new study pub­lished in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence on the val­ue of music train­ing (vs. sim­ply lis­ten­ing to music).

Gam­ing and Neu­ro­science: Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Chal­lenges: A sum­ma­ry of impres­sions by researcher  Aki Niko­laidis based on his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the recent con­fer­ence Enter­tain­ment Soft­ware and Cog­ni­tive Neu­rother­a­peu­tics Con­fer­ence (ESCoNS) at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia San Francisco.

Fam­i­lies’ Per­spec­tives on ADHD and its Treat­ment: Dr. David Rabin­er presents new data on fam­i­lies’ expe­ri­ence with ADHD and its treatment.

Brain Games and Opti­cal Illu­sions @ Nation­al Geo­graph­ic: Sev­eral Sharp­Brains friends rec­om­mend this recent 3‑part Nation­al Geo­graphic TV mini-series.

Math Brain Teas­er for Kids and Adults: Archimedes Grave: A fun puz­zle to exer­cise our brains a bit, sub­mit­ted by new con­trib­u­tor Maria Lan­do. Enjoy!

Maker of cognitive training game seeks FDA approval

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Good brief arti­cle at New Sci­en­tist, Mak­er of cog­ni­tive train­ing game seeks FDA approval:

- “Imag­ine walk­ing away from a doc­tor’s office with a pre­scrip­tion to play a video game. Brain Plas­tic­i­ty, the devel­op­er of a cog­ni­tive train­ing game, has begun talks with the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) to mar­ket the game as a ther­a­peu­tic drug.”

- “Brain Plas­tic­i­ty has been fine-tun­ing a game to help peo­ple with schiz­o­phre­nia improve the deficits in atten­tion and mem­o­ry that are often asso­ci­at­ed with the disorder.”

Announcement: USA Hockey takes gold at Brain Fitness Innovation Awards, Allstate & Nationwide Mutual Insurance runners-up

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Please join us in con­grat­u­lat­ing USA Hock­ey, All­state, and Nation­wide, for reach­ing the podi­um of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards, unveiled today.

imagesThe podi­um’s top posi­tion went to USA Hock­ey Nation­al Team Devel­op­ment Pro­gram (NTDP), a full-time devel­op­ment pro­gram aimed at prepar­ing stu­dent-ath­letes for par­tic­i­pa­tion on the US Nation­al Under-18 and Under-17 Teams, for its inno­v­a­tive cog­ni­tive train­ing sys­tem designed with the help of Applied Cog­ni­tive Engi­neer­ing (ACE) and the BIRD Foun­da­tion to help hock­ey play­ers devel­op per­cep­tion and deci­sion-mak­ing skills. More than two years in the mak­ing and $2 mil­lion to pro­duce, the Hock­ey Intel­li­Gym offers play­ers a video-game-like train­ing envi­ron­ment to enhance ‘hockey-sense’-the infor­ma­tion gath­ered from sur­round­ings to make and exe­cute play­ing deci­sions on-ice. Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics, Intel­li­Gym train­ing helped NTDP teams win more games than non-trained teams.

Judges select­ed the entry for its inspir­ing team approach-an inter­sec­tion between spe­cial­ist, coach and play­er. To adapt such a pro­gram and demon­strate its impact on real-life per­for­mance, they felt, opened new oppor­tu­ni­ties for exten­sion to oth­er sports and every­day life.

“We’re extreme­ly hon­ored that the Hock­ey Intel­li­Gym is being rec­og­nized with this pres­ti­gious award,” said Dave Ogre­an, exec­u­tive direc­tor of USA Hock­ey. “Togeth­er with ACE and the BIRD Foun­da­tion, we’re proud to have devel­oped what is a tru­ly inno­v­a­tive train­ing prod­uct that helps enhance the deci­sion-mak­ing skills of our athletes.”

allstate_protectionEntries from All­state and Nation­wide Mutu­al Insur­ance round­ed out the com­pe­ti­tion’s oth­er top-per­form­ers. Nation­wide Mutu­al Insur­ance’s ‘Healthy Hol­i­day Chal­lenge’ offered a Web based tool-MyBrain­So­lu­tions-to help employ­ees enhance pos­i­tiv­i­ty, emo­tion­al resilience and deal with oth­ers more effec­tive­ly — all key ele­ments to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. images (1)In Penn­syl­va­nia, All­state invit­ed select­ed dri­vers, 50 years and old­er, to help val­i­date the impact tar­get­ed cog­ni­tive train­ing such as Posit Sci­ence InSight can have on dri­ving safe­ty in an effort to pre­vent injuries, save lives, enable old­er peo­ple to main­tain their inde­pen­dence longer and pro­vide peace of mind to adult chil­dren faced with dif­fi­cult deci­sions as par­ents age.

The remain­ing Top 10 Final­ists includ­ed (in alpha­bet­i­cal order):

  • AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety
  • Arrow­smith School
  • Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion of Rock­land County
  • Oak­land Uni­fied School District
  • Saint Luke’s Brain and Stroke Institute
  • SCAN Health Plan
  • Uni­ver­si­ty Behav­ioral HealthCare

In its first year, the com­pe­ti­tion showed con­sid­er­able promise with 40 entries from pres­ti­gious orga­ni­za­tions and com­pa­nies around the world. “We’re delight­ed to have so many entries which show­case that brain fit­ness is for every­one at any age,” said Sharp­Brains’ CEO and Co-Founder Alvaro Fer­nan­dez. “The brain fit­ness field is still in its infan­cy but giv­en today’s longer life spans and the accom­pa­ny­ing desire to make those years healthy and pro­duc­tive, we believe it’s impor­tant to rec­og­nize those orga­ni­za­tions pio­neer­ing the way and adding to col­lec­tive learning.”

-> To learn more about the Inno­va­tion Awards, click Here.
-> To down­load full Press Kit, click Here (includes logos, FAQ, ini­tia­tive descrip­tions, PR contacts).

A full 200+ page mar­ket report detail­ing all ten final­ist case stud­ies in the con­text of over­all research and mar­ket trends will be avail­able next month.

Press con­tact:
Rebec­ca Brink
PR Rep — SharpBrains
rebec­ca at brinkcon­sult­ing dot biz

About Sharp­Brains and the Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards

Sharp­Brains is an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm cov­er­ing the emerg­ing brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health mar­ket. Its flag­ship indus­try report The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket and con­sumer guide The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness help deci­sion mak­ers and con­sumers nav­i­gate the emerg­ing brain fit­ness field based on evi­dence-based infor­ma­tion and inde­pen­dent analy­sis. The orga­ni­za­tion also hosts the 3‑day online glob­al and vir­tu­al Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, a first of its kind con­fer­ence, engag­ing pro­fes­sion­als across the globe on the state of cog­ni­tive fit­ness research, tech­nol­o­gy and mar­ket trends. SharpBrains.com, the fir­m’s edu­ca­tion­al blog and web­site, is a mem­ber of the Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can Part­ner Network.

Designed AlvaroFer_finalfile_180310to fos­ter inno­va­tion and best prac­tice shar­ing, the Awards cel­e­brate out­stand­ing pio­neers apply­ing neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty-based research and tools in the ‘real world’. Put on by inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm Sharp­Brains of San Fran­cis­co, the Awards rec­og­nize orga­ni­za­tions devis­ing and imple­ment­ing results-ori­ent­ed, scal­able ini­tia­tives demon­strat­ing com­mit­ment to the brain fit­ness of orga­ni­za­tion clients, mem­bers, patients, stu­dents or employ­ees-and show­case inno­v­a­tive uses of non-inva­sive tools to improve cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al functions.