Lumosity

Can trained older brains outperform untrained younger ones at demanding cognitive tasks? Quick answer: YES

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Online brain games can extend in-game ‘cog­ni­tive youth’ into old age (Sci­ence News):

“A Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Irvine-led study has found that online brain game exer­cis­es can enable peo­ple in their 70s and even 80s to mul­ti­task cog­ni­tive­ly as well as indi­vid­u­als 50 years their junior. This is an increas­ing­ly valu­able skill, giv­en today’s dai­ly infor­ma­tion onslaught, which can divide atten­tion and be par­tic­u­lar­ly tax­ing for old­er adults [Read more…] about Can trained old­er brains out­per­form untrained younger ones at demand­ing cog­ni­tive tasks? Quick answer: YES

Want to feel more Calm, get some Headspace, and practice Mindfulness Daily?

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Let me ask again…want to feel more Calm, get some Head­space, and prac­tice Mind­ful­ness Daily?

There are apps for that—hundreds of them, besides the three I just mentioned.

These apps make a promise: Rather than invest­ing count­less hours and dol­lars in mind­ful­ness class­es or mind­ful­ness-based ther­a­py, we can choose to med­i­tate from the com­fort of our smart­phones. Users are flock­ing to mind­ful­ness apps in hopes of cul­ti­vat­ing kind atten­tion to their own thoughts and feel­ings, and of reap­ing the men­tal and phys­i­cal ben­e­fits that go along with mindfulness.

But do they work? What does sci­ence say about mind­ful­ness apps? [Read more…] about Want to feel more Calm, get some Head­space, and prac­tice Mind­ful­ness Daily?

Top 10 moments from the 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit/ Slidedecks & Recordings are Available

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Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants @ 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 5–7th, 2017)

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Whew.

What a rich and diverse 3‑day con­ver­sa­tion on the future of brain health and brain enhance­ment among 50+ Speak­ers and 200+ par­tic­i­pants in 24 countries.

From the dozens of fas­ci­nat­ing insights and moments, here are some our favorites:

(Note: slid­edecks are now freely avail­able; ses­sion record­ings require reg­is­tra­tion and login credentials)

1. That mas­ter­ful 40-minute overview by Dr. Tom Insel on the past, present and future of men­tal health (view slid­edeck Here)

2. Dis­cussing with Akili’s Eddie Mar­tuc­ci the FDA impli­ca­tions from the sig­nif­i­cant research find­ings released just the day before (view slid­edeck Here)

3. Explor­ing the rev­o­lu­tion in brain health assess­ments (view slid­edeck Here), as cov­ered in the arti­cle Firms Race to Find New Ways to Scan Brain Health at WebMD

4. Dis­cov­er­ing the lat­est in EEG, vir­tu­al reality/ aug­ment­ed real­i­ty, and pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion with experts at UCSF, Emo­tiv, Stan­ford, AUG­MEN­Tx ad VieLight ((view main slid­edeck Here)

5. Pre­view­ing why Lumos­i­ty is get­ting into Mind­ful­ness (view slid­edeck Here; final presentation)

6. Con­sid­er­ing the ethics of dif­fer­ent meth­ods of cog­ni­tive enhance­ment, includ­ing the grow­ing use of con­sumer-dri­ven brain stim­u­la­tion (view slid­edeck Here)

7. Learn­ing about the largest new Ran­dom­ized Con­trolled Tri­al on the impact of lifestyle fac­tors such as exer­cise and nutri­tion on healthy brain aging (view slid­edeck Here)

8. Dis­cussing the upbeat find­ings about edu­ca­tion and cog­ni­tive train­ing from a just-pub­lished study involv­ing 200,000+ peo­ple! (view slid­edeck Here)

– Judg­ing Pan­el for the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Contest

9. Explor­ing the next 80 years of brain enhance­ment and Human Com­put­er Inter­faces with neu­ro­engi­neer Ran­dal Koene (view slid­edeck for all pm ses­sions Here)

10. Hear­ing the great ques­tions and feed­back by Judges dur­ing the Brainnova­tions pitch con­tests to mea­sure brain health and to improve it, to har­ness Big Data, to boost work­place pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and resilience (view slid­edecks Here, Here, Here and Here)

 

In sum­ma­ry, Brain Health and Men­tal Health will look very dif­fer­ent in 2020 than they do today. And not a minute too soon, since the needs and the gaps are so large.

Hap­py Hol­i­days, Hap­py Hanukkah, Mer­ry Christ­mas, and Hap­py and Pros­per­ous 2018  to you and to your fam­i­ly at home and at work,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez on behalf of the Sharp­Brains Team

 

PS1: Sum­mit Par­tic­i­pants already have full access to all record­ings click­ing above or HERE (one-year access to 50+ Speak­ers, 15+ Hours), using same log-in cre­den­tials pro­vid­ed dur­ing the Summit.

PS2: If you didn’t par­tic­i­pate in the Sum­mit but want access all record­ings, they are avail­able for pur­chase HERE ($150; 10%-off dis­count-code: sharp2018)

10 favorite moments from the 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit/ Recordings are Available

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Whew.

What a rich and cut­ting-edge 3‑day con­ver­sa­tion last week on the future of brain health and brain enhancement.

We enjoyed dozens of fas­ci­nat­ing insights and moments — here’s a sam­ple of our favorites:

1. That mas­ter­ful 40-minute overview by Dr. Tom Insel on the past, present and future of men­tal health

2. Dis­cussing with Akil­i’s Eddie Mar­tuc­ci the FDA impli­ca­tions from the sig­nif­i­cant research find­ings released just the day before

3. Explor­ing the rev­o­lu­tion in brain health assess­ments, as cov­ered in the arti­cle Firms Race to Find New Ways to Scan Brain Health at WebMD

4. Dis­cov­er­ing the lat­est in EEG, vir­tu­al reality/ aug­ment­ed real­i­ty, and pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion with experts at UCSF, Emo­tiv, Stan­ford, AUG­MEN­Tx ad VieLight

5. Pre­view­ing why Lumos­i­ty is get­ting into Mind­ful­ness  [Read more…] about 10 favorite moments from the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Summit/ Record­ings are Available

Thank you, Sponsors @ 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit, for helping shape Brain Health & Enhancement in the Digital Age!

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Thank you very much, great Sum­mit Spon­sors, for sup­port­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit tak­ing place next week (Dec. 5–7th) and gath­er­ing 50+ Speak­ers and 200+ par­tic­i­pants work­ing on ways to enhance brain health and per­for­mance in the dig­i­tal age!

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Gold Sponsors

AARP is a non­prof­it, non­par­ti­san, social wel­fare orga­ni­za­tion with a mem­ber­ship of near­ly 38 mil­lion that helps peo­ple turn their goals and dreams into real pos­si­bil­i­ties, strength­ens com­mu­ni­ties and fights for the issues that mat­ter most to fam­i­lies. Its Glob­al Coun­cil on Brain Health (GCBH), found­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Age UK, is an inde­pen­dent col­lab­o­ra­tive cre­at­ed to pro­vide trust­ed infor­ma­tion on how to main­tain and improve brain health.brain

VieLight has a mis­sion to engi­neer and com­mer­cial­ize non-inva­sive devices based on pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion that are safe and effec­tive, easy to use and afford­able – all to tru­ly help improve one’s qual­i­ty of life. It focus­es on devel­op­ing new-gen­er­a­tion home-use brain stim­u­la­tion devices that are enjoy­ing a grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion to be help­ful for men­tal acu­ity in var­i­ous pre­sen­ta­tions. Its prod­ucts are used by both prac­ti­tion­ers and con­sumers all over the world.

Silver Sponsors

arpf

The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion(ARPF) has a mis­sion to empow­er peo­ple to build healthy brains and reduce the inci­dence of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease by con­duct­ing clin­i­cal research and pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment out­reach. For 20 years, the ARPF has been on the lead­ing edge by research­ing, advo­cat­ing, and edu­cat­ing for an inte­gra­tive approach to pre­vent­ing mem­o­ry loss and Alzheimer’s.

Arrowsmith Program

The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, avail­able in 80+ schools in the US, Cana­da, Aus­tralia and New Zealand, is a com­pre­hen­sive suite of cog­ni­tive pro­grams for stu­dents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties to train key brain func­tions involved in learning.

Ban­ner Health, based in Phoenix, Ari­zona, is one of the largest non­prof­it health sys­tems in the USA, employ­ing more than 50,000 staff mem­bers in 29 hos­pi­tals and oth­er set­tings rang­ing from home care and long-term care, to lab­o­ra­to­ries and reha­bil­i­ta­tion services.

EMOTIV is a bioin­for­mat­ics com­pa­ny advanc­ing under­stand­ing of the human brain using elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) with a mis­sion to empow­er indi­vid­u­als and accel­er­ate brain research globally.

Lumosity

Lumos­i­ty was found­ed to help peo­ple keep their brains chal­lenged thanks to a sim­ple online tool allow­ing any­one to train core cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. From neu­ro­science to visu­al art, they com­bine diverse dis­ci­plines to cre­ate engag­ing brain train­ing pro­grams and, through the Human Cog­ni­tion Project, they col­lab­o­rate with over 100 lead­ing researchers, clin­i­cians and teach­ers from insti­tu­tions around the world.

Mind­Maze has devel­oped a break­through plat­form to build intu­itive human machine inter­faces com­bin­ing vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR), com­put­er graph­ics, brain imag­ing & neu­ro­science, enabling excit­ing new appli­ca­tions in gam­ing, brain machine con­trol, and healthcare.

Dur­ing Expo Day–Thursday, Decem­ber 7th–selected Sum­mit Spon­sors and Part­ners will show­case their most promis­ing brain health & enhance­ment ini­tia­tives and solu­tions. All times below reflect US Pacif­ic Time.

8.30–9am. Adam Gaz­za­ley, UCSF Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy, will present Neu­roscape.

9–9.30am. Dr. Wal­ter Green­leaf, Med­ical VR/ AR Expert at Stan­ford Vir­tu­al Human Inter­ac­tion Lab, will pro­vide an overview of health appli­ca­tions of vir­tu­al & aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (VR/AR).

9.30–10am. Dr. Lew Lim, Founder & CEO of Vielight, will dis­cuss pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion as a new way to enhance brain function.

10.30–11am. Dr. Bob Schafer, Direc­tor of Research at Lumos Labs, will present their expand­ing vision for brain train­ing, includ­ing mindfulness.

11am-Noon. Lunch break

Noon-12.30pm. Dr. Chris Walling, Chair­man of the Edu­ca­tion­al Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee at
The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF), will present the new Brain Longevi­ty Ther­a­py Training.

12.30–1pm. Dr. Leanne Young, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Brain Per­for­mance Insti­tute at UT-Dal­las Cen­ter for Brain­Health will present the new 62,000-square-foot Brain Per­for­mance Institute.

1–1.30pm. Deb­bie Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, will present plans to bet­ter equip 100+ schools help­ing stu­dents with spe­cial needs.

1.30–2pm. Dr. Ran­dal Koene, Lead Sci­en­tist at Ker­nel, will dis­cuss future direc­tions of neu­ro­engin­ner­ing and human com­put­er interfaces.

 

Look­ing for­ward to a great vir­tu­al summit!

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Learn more & Reserve your Spot HERE

(10%-off pro­mo code for Sharp­Brains read­ers: sharp2017)

The future (of Brain Health & Enhancement) is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed

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“The future is already here — it’s just not very even­ly dis­trib­uted” — William Gibson

Last week we asked the ques­tion, Have you ever used–for your­self or for others–technologies or prod­ucts that you think would fall into the cat­e­go­ry of brain enhance­ment? a) If Yes, what did you use and what lessons learned can you share? b) If No, what issues would you like to see addressed before con­sid­er­ing doing so?

Thank you every­one for your great answers and comments!

They are very valu­able in help­ing us final­ize the agen­da of the the upcom­ing 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th).

As a token of appre­ci­a­tion, we are issu­ing 4 com­pli­men­ta­ry Sum­mit pass­es for Eva, A. Mark, Kitt and Gwyneth to join the Sum­mit and add their per­spec­tives and ques­tions to the mix, based on these insight­ful answers (light­ly edit­ed for clar­i­ty). [Read more…] about The future (of Brain Health & Enhance­ment) is already here — it’s just not very even­ly distributed