Lumos Labs (Lumosity) Brain Training Games

By Alvaro Fernandez | June 3, 2008 |

Press release: Here – “Lumos Labs, devel­op­er of Lumosity.com, the lead­ing web-based provider of sci­en­tif­i­­cal­­ly-test­ed brain train­ing games, today announced that it has raised $3 mil­lion of equi­ty financ­ing from Pequot Ven­tures, Nor­west Ven­ture Part­ners (NVP), and exist­ing investors includ­ing Michael Dear­ing. The investor group brings exper­tise that will cat­alyze the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of Lumosity.com…

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Cognitive Development and Brain Research: Articles, Books, Papers (ASA)

By Alvaro Fernandez | October 28, 2007 |

We had a very fun ses­sion titled Teach­ing Brain Fit­ness in Your Com­mu­ni­ty at an Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging (ASA) con­fer­ence for health pro­fes­sion­als a cou­ple of weeks ago. Full house, with over 60 atten­dants and very good par­tic­i­pa­tion, show­ing great inter­est in the top­ic. I can’t wait to see the eval­u­a­tions. These are some…

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10 (Surprising) Memory Improvement Tips

By Alvaro Fernandez | September 25, 2007 |

There are sev­er­al brain fit­ness top­ics where we still see a large dis­con­nect between research and pop­u­lar knowl­edge, and a major one is the rela­tion­ship between mem­o­ry and stress. Car­o­line and I col­lab­o­rat­ed on this post to bring you some con­text and tips. Our soci­ety has changed faster than our genes. Instead of being faced with…

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Neuroplasticity 101 and Brain Health Glossary

By Alvaro Fernandez | September 10, 2007 |

Giv­en the grow­ing num­ber of arti­cles in the pop­u­lar press men­tion­ing words such as “neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty”, “fMRI” and “cog­ni­tive reserve”, let’s review some key find­ings, con­cepts and terms. First, a pre­scient quote by Span­ish neu­ro­sci­en­tist San­ti­a­go Ramon y Cajal (1852–1934): “Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculp­tor his own brain”. Thanks to new neuroimaging…

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Stress and Short Term Memory

By Caroline Latham | June 4, 2007 |

We all know chron­ic stress is bad for our heart, our weight, and our mood, but how about our memory?Interestingly, acute stress can help you focus and remem­ber things more vividly.Chronic stress, on the oth­er hand, reduces your abil­i­ty to focus and can specif­i­cal­ly dam­age cells in the hip­pocam­pus, a brain struc­ture crit­i­cal to encod­ing short term memory.When is stress chron­ic? When you feel out of con­trol of your life. You may feel irri­ta­ble or anx­ious. While every indi­vid­ual varies in their response the type and quan­ti­ty of stress, there are some things you can do to feel more in con­trol of your envi­ron­ment. This sense of empow­er­ment can low­er your stress, and as a result, help your memory.

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I am busy executive with a challenging job. How is brain fitness relevant to me?

By Caroline Latham | March 29, 2007 |

How is brain fit­ness rel­e­vant to me?Key Points: Reduce your stress to improve con­cen­tra­tion and learn­ing readi­ness and reduce distractions.Increase your men­tal stim­u­la­tion to help main­tain a healthy, flex­i­ble brain.Answer:Executives, or any­one involved in com­plex and rapid­ly evolv­ing envi­ron­ments, need to make pres­sured deci­sions based on sound log­ic, instead of emo­tion­al impuls­es.… Stress can also lim­it our men­tal flex­i­bil­i­ty and abil­i­ty to see alter­na­tive solu­tions, there­by pre­vent­ing us from adapt­ing to, and suc­ceed­ing in, new circumstances.

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