military

Researchers stress need for neurotechnologies to protect the mental dimension of individuals and groups, especially mental privacy and integrity

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Image: Ars Elec­tron­i­ca | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

From Health­care to War­fare: How to Reg­u­late Brain Tech­nol­o­gy (Uni­ver­si­ty of Basel press release):

“The term “dual-use” refers to tech­nol­o­gy that can be used for both ben­e­fi­cial (i.e., med­ical) and harm­ful (i.e., mil­i­tary of ter­ror­is­tic) aims. Until recent­ly, most dual-use tech­nol­o­gy emerged espe­cial­ly in virol­o­gy and bac­te­ri­ol­o­gy. In the last years, how­ev­er, mil­i­tary-fund­ed research has entered the domain of neu­ro­science and neurotechnology.

This has result­ed in a rapid growth in brain tech­nol­o­gy pro­to­types aimed at [Read more…] about Researchers stress need for neu­rotech­nolo­gies to pro­tect the men­tal dimen­sion of indi­vid­u­als and groups, espe­cial­ly men­tal pri­va­cy and integrity

Digital health–with a brain twist–sees increased military adoption

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BrainAssessmentApp

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Mobile mashup: The mil­i­tary’s pro­lif­er­at­ing mix of smart­phones and tablets (Defense Systems):

“Smart­phones and tablets are rapid­ly mak­ing their way into mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, trim­ming costs and giv­ing warfight­ers tight­ly focused capa­bil­i­ties. But these ben­e­fits raise a host of chal­lenges, rang­ing from secu­ri­ty and the need for ruggedi­za­tion, to require­ments for [Read more…] about Dig­i­tal health–with a brain twist–sees increased mil­i­tary adoption

Monitoring stress-related use of antipsychotic drugs in the military

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fog brainWar on Drugs (OpEd at the NYT):

“LAST year, more active-duty sol­diers com­mit­ted sui­cide than died in bat­tle… Worse, accord­ing to data not report­ed on until now, the mil­i­tary evi­dent­ly respond­ed to stress that afflicts sol­diers in Iraq and Afghanistan pri­mar­i­ly by drug­ging sol­diers on the front lines…The trou­ble is that we have no idea whether it’s effec­tive — or safe — to use antipsy­chot­ic drugs on a con­tin­u­ing basis to treat war-relat­ed stress or to numb or sedate those affect­ed by it…The med­ical, mil­i­tary and civil­ian pop­u­la­tion share an inter­est in know­ing about patient-lev­el pre­scrip­tion trends, med­ical indi­ca­tions for use, effec­tive­ness of con­ven­tion­al as well as off-label treat­ments, and lon­gi­tu­di­nal fol­low-up of those sol­diers receiv­ing psy­chotrop­ic drugs.”

Relat­ed arti­cle: Mis­use & Abuse of ADHD Meds among col­lege students

June Update: High-Quality Summer Brain Reading

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Let’s explore some  high-qual­i­ty new resources, announce­ments and stud­ies in this June edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter. The field is clear­ly on the move!

Por­traits of the Mind: Sev­er­al sharp brains (Rick, Karen, John, thanks!) strong­ly rec­om­mend the recent book  “Por­traits of the Mind: Visu­al­iz­ing the Brain from Antiq­uity to the 21st Cen­tury” (which includes the image on the left) as great read­ing and as a beau­ti­ful cof­fee table book.

Pro­mot­ing Healthy, Mean­ing­ful Aging Through Social Involve­ment: The cur­rent issue of Cere­brum includes the excel­lent in-depth arti­cle on the val­ue of vol­un­teer­ing pro­gram Expe­ri­ence Corps to pro­mote healthy and mean­ing­ful aging through social involvement.

Work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can improve flu­id intel­li­gence: Final­ly, a pow­er­ful voice of com­mon sense. A new sci­en­tif­ic study con­cludes that “cog­ni­tive train­ing can be effec­tive and long-last­ing, but there are lim­it­ing fac­tors that must be con­sid­ered to eval­u­ate the effects of this train­ing, one of which is indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in train­ing per­for­mance. We pro­pose that future research should not inves­ti­gate whether cog­ni­tive train­ing works, but rather should deter­mine what train­ing reg­i­mens and what train­ing con­di­tions result in the best trans­fer effects, inves­ti­gate the under­ly­ing neur­al and cog­ni­tive mech­a­nisms, and final­ly, inves­ti­gate for whom cog­ni­tive train­ing is most useful.”

Lumos Labs rais­es $32.5m: Lumos Labs, the com­pany behind lumosity.com, has just raised the sin­gle largest amount of fund­ing in the space.

Devel­op­ing a Research Agen­da for Seri­ous Games: The recent trade book Com­puter Games and Instruc­tion brings togeth­er the lead­ing edge per­spec­tives of over a dozen sci­en­tists in the area of videogames and learn­ing, includ­ing this very insight­ful analy­sis by Harvard’s Chris Dede.

In the News: Brief arti­cles in the New York Times and a very pow­er­ful analy­sis in The New York Review of Books pro­vide use­ful clues about Brain Cal­is­then­ics, Bilin­gual Brains, and Debunk­ing Myths on Men­tal Illness.

Emerg­ing Mil­i­tary Appli­ca­tions: 2 recent announce­ments show, in a mil­i­tary con­text, inno­v­a­tive ways to enhance brain func­tion­ing and per­for­mance both to help “nor­mal” and “clin­i­cal” (post-TBI) populations.

We hope you enjoyed this newslet­ter. Please do feel free to share this with friends and col­leagues via Face­book, Twit­ter and LinkedIn, and have a great week­end and month of July!

Brain Training to Enhance Performance, both post-Traumatic Brain Injury and for the workplace

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A cou­ple of very inter­est­ing recent announce­ments show (in a mil­i­tary con­text) how well-tar­get­ed brain train­ing can com­ple­ment and aug­ment exist­ing approach­es, both to help “nor­mal” and “clin­i­cal” pop­u­la­tions, in ways that silo-based, rear-mir­ror think­ing often miss­es: [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing to Enhance Per­for­mance, both post-Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury and for the workplace

News on physical, cognitive and emotional fitness

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Brain Health NewsNice week­end read­ing mate­r­i­al — recent news reiforc­ing emerg­ing trends on phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al fit­ness, but with new twists.

Fit teens could be smarter teens

“Researchers from Swe­den and USC exam­ined data on 1.2 mil­lion Swedish men born between 1950 and 1976 who also enlist­ed for the coun­try’s manda­to­ry mil­i­tary ser­vice. They looked at the par­tic­i­pants’ glob­al intel­li­gence scores as well as log­i­cal, visu­ospa­tial, ver­bal and tech­ni­cal scores. The greater the car­dio­vas­cu­lar fit­ness, the high­er the cog­ni­tive scores at age 18. The asso­ci­a­tion between mus­cle strength and glob­al intel­li­gence, in con­trast, was weak.”

UPMC Health Plan Offers Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware to Improve Health

“UPMC Health Plan announced today that it has signed an agree­ment to offer award-win­ning brain fit­ness soft­ware from Posit Sci­ence®, at no cost, to all UPMC for Life Medicare Advan­tage mem­bers. This brain train­ing pro­gram is a new part of the UPMC Health Plan well­ness ser­vices, which focus on both mind and body fitness.

The brain fit­ness soft­ware, known as the Insight™ Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram, is a suite of five game-like com­put­er exer­cis­es that make brain train­ing chal­leng­ing and effec­tive. The pro­gram engages the brain’s nat­ur­al plas­tic­i­ty (the brain’s abil­i­ty to rewire itself) to improve basic brain function.”

Brain-fit­ness indus­try grows as baby-boomers work to stay sharp.

“When we’re younger we’re learn­ing quite inten­sive­ly,” she said. “By mid­dle age, we’re not learn­ing inten­sive­ly any­more and just using skills we’ve already mas­tered. That’s why it’s impor­tant to stretch your brain.”

Brain fit­ness games also have the poten­tial to improve one’s emo­tion­al health, said Mark Bald­win, a psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at McGill Uni­ver­si­ty in Montreal.

Bald­win has devel­oped a num­ber of com­put­er games based on keep­ing a brain active phys­i­o­log­i­cal­ly, to improve it psychologically.

“It’s about prac­tis­ing or using games to train ben­e­fi­cial habits of thought, ” he said.