Michael-Posner

Invest in Brain Health to Drive Innovation and Prosperity

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In an increas­ing­ly knowl­edge-based and inno­va­tion-dri­ven econ­o­my, human brains—not finan­cial capital—are becom­ing the pri­ma­ry dri­vers of busi­ness suc­cess. Engaged, cre­ative cit­i­zens and work­ers mean the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure at the orga­ni­za­tion­al and soci­etal levels.

Look­ing at the prob­lem from the per­spec­tive of brain health, there are [Read more…] about Invest in Brain Health to Dri­ve Inno­va­tion and Prosperity

What Participants Say about the 2012 SharpBrains Virtual Summit

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Once the 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (June 7–14th, 2012) was over, we sent all par­tic­i­pants an anony­mous online sur­vey ask­ing for feed­back; we also request­ed brief quotes to help con­vey the val­ue of the Summit.

The chart to the left show­cas­es the high lev­els of sat­is­fac­tion with the Sum­mit Over­all. And below you can read a num­ber of state­ments by participants.

“The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit is a rare vehi­cle for get­ting mul­ti­ple expert per­spec­tives on cur­rent devel­op­ments in improv­ing brain func­tion in a con­cise and clear way. The Sum­mit is a valu­able resource for both experts and non-experts.”  — Dr. Michael Pos­ner, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, Uni­ver­sity of Oregon

“The 2012 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit was fan­tas­tic- it is clear that we are mov­ing into a new phase in study­ing human per­for­mance using big data. Our bod­ies are out­liv­ing our brains- what we need most now is evi­dence-dri­ven design to devel­op appli­ca­tions to help our brains remain as strong as our bod­ies! Fan­tas­tic con­fer­ence, can’t wait for next year!” — Sheryl Fly­nn PT, PhD, CEO, Blue Mar­ble Games Keep Read­ing »

11 Hours of Meditation Can Enhance Brain Connectivity, Functioning

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IBMT linked with pos­i­tive struc­tur­al changes in brain con­nec­tiv­i­ty (News Medical):

- “A Texas Tech Uni­ver­si­ty sci­en­tist study­ing the Chi­nese mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion known as inte­gra­tive body-mind train­ing (IBMT) said he and oth­er researchers have con­firmed and expand­ed on changes in struc­tur­al effi­cien­cy of white mat­ter in the brain that can be relat­ed to pos­i­tive behav­ioral changes in sub­jects prac­tic­ing the tech­nique for a month and a min­i­mum of 11 hours total.” [Read more…] about 11 Hours of Med­i­ta­tion Can Enhance Brain Con­nec­tiv­i­ty, Functioning

Dr. Michael Posner on Developing Brain Networks and Self-Control

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Dr. Pos­ner will pro­vide an update on lat­est research and appli­ca­tions to devel­op brain net­works and self-con­trol, at the upcom­ing 2012 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (June 7–14th, 2012).

Michael Pos­ner is Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus at the Uni­ver­sity of Ore­gon and Adjunct Pro­fes­sor at the Weill Med­ical Col­lege in New York (Sack­ler Insti­tute). He is cur­rently engaged in a project with Mary K. Roth­bart to under­stand the devel­op­ment [Read more…] about Dr. Michael Pos­ner on Devel­op­ing Brain Net­works and Self-Control

Who Says This is The Classroom of the Future?

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The New York Times has recent­ly pub­lished sev­er­al very good and seem­ing­ly unre­lat­ed articles…let’s try and con­nect some dots. What if we ques­tioned the very premise behind nam­ing some class­rooms the “class­rooms of the future” sim­ply because they have been adding tech­nol­o­gy in lit­er­al­ly mind­less ways? What if the Edu­ca­tion of the Future (some­times also referred to as “21st Cen­tu­ry Skills”) was­n’t so much about the How we edu­cate but about the What we want stu­dents to learn and devel­op, apply­ing what we know about mind and brain to the needs they are like­ly to face dur­ing the next 50–70 years of their lives? [Read more…] about Who Says This is The Class­room of the Future?

Developing self-regulation at school

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Excel­lent arti­cle in the New York Times on learn­ing, self-reg­u­la­tion and exec­u­tive fuunctions:

The School Issue: Preschool: Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Con­trol? (New York Times)

- “Over the last few years, a new buzz phrase has emerged among schol­ars and sci­en­tists who study ear­ly-child­hood devel­op­ment, a phrase that sounds more as if it belongs in the board­room than the class­room: exec­u­tive func­tion. Orig­i­nal­ly a neu­ro­science term, it refers to the abil­i­ty to think straight: to order your thoughts, to process infor­ma­tion in a coher­ent way, to hold rel­e­vant details in your short-term mem­o­ry, to avoid dis­trac­tions and men­tal traps and focus on the task in front of you. And recent­ly, cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gists have come to believe that exec­u­tive func­tion, and specif­i­cal­ly the skill of self-reg­u­la­tion, might hold the answers to some of the most vex­ing ques­tions in edu­ca­tion today.”

- “The abil­i­ty of young chil­dren to con­trol their emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive impuls­es, it turns out, is a remark­ably strong indi­ca­tor of both short-term and long-term suc­cess, aca­d­e­m­ic and otherwise.”

A tru­ly excel­lent arti­cle, high­ly rec­om­mend­ed read­ing. The only aspect lack­ing is the absence of coverage/ analy­sis of train­ing-based alter­na­tives to devel­op­ing self-reg­u­la­tion, such as med­i­ta­tion and com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing, which can help address some of the issues raised in the arti­cle (lim­it­ed scal­a­bil­i­ty, dif­fi­cul­ty in iso­lat­ing influ­en­tial vari­ables). We cov­ered this in-depth in our book inter­view with Michael Posner.