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This med­i­ta­tion app is now worth $250 mil­lion and has Trump-relat­ed stress to thank (CNBC):

“Med­i­ta­tion start-up Calm was so suc­cess­ful dur­ing a chaot­ic and stress­ful 2017 that Apple rec­og­nized it as the app of the year.

“Well done, Calm,” Apple said in Decem­ber. Read the rest of this entry »

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Know Thy­self: Well-Being and Sub­jec­tive Expe­ri­ence (Cere­brum):

“Ancient Greek philoso­phers were fond of the apho­rism, “know thy­self,” inscribed above the entrance of one of the Tem­ples of Apol­lo at Del­phi. One expres­sion of this tra­di­tion, vari­ably attrib­uted to Socrates and Pla­to, is that “the unex­am­ined life is not worth liv­ing.” Anoth­er, attrib­uted to Aris­to­tle, is “to know thy­self is the begin­ning of wis­dom.” And, accord­ing to Socrates, the path to such self-knowl­edge is through inner reflec­tion, or what we now call intro­spec­tion.

Thou­sands of years lat­er, pro­fes­sions arose to help peo­ple know them­selves bet­ter Read the rest of this entry »

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This car tech makes you a bet­ter dri­ver by read­ing your mind. We gave it a test dri­ve (The Wash­ing­ton Post):

“Might the car of the future be able to read your mind?

At CES, the big tech trade show, cars dom­i­nat­ed much of the con­ver­sa­tion. But one expe­ri­ence stood out because it was so far-out: I donned an exper­i­men­tal cap from Nis­san that inter­pret­ed sig­nals from my brain with the goal of mak­ing me a bet­ter dri­ver. Read the rest of this entry »

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Try adding 3 and 8 in your head.

That was easy. Now, try­ing adding 33 and 88. That was prob­a­bly more dif­fi­cult. Final­ly, try adding 333 and 888.

Time for Sharp­Brains’ Octo­ber e-newslet­ter, this time dis­cussing a range of research find­ings and tech­nolo­gies rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing brain and men­tal health.

New thinking about cognition, brain and mind:

• Study sug­gests the real deficit under­ly­ing Atten­tion Deficit Dis­or­ders is not Atten­tion, but Work­ing Mem­o­ry (and this is why we asked you try adding 333 and 888…)
• Johns Hop­kins study shows how brain train­ing, if cor­rect­ly tar­get­ed, can enhance cog­ni­tive and brain per­for­mance
• We bet­ter train the mind as we train the body: with cross-train­ing and in good com­pa­ny

Emerging toolkit for brain health & enhancement:

• Next: Brain scans to iden­ti­fy chil­dren at high risk of devel­op­ing mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS) before symp­toms appear
• Tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) can reduce fatigue in patients with Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis (MS)
• Aus­tralian neu­rotech firm rais­es $4m to devel­op neu­ro­feed­back-based head­band aimed at help­ing kids with autism relax and bet­ter engage

News about the 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit (December 5–7th):

• Neu­ro­engi­neer­ing pio­neer Ran­dal Koene to dis­cuss neur­al inter­faces
• Meet 40 Experts and Inno­va­tors shap­ing Brain Health & Enhance­ment on Decem­ber 5–7th
• Reminder: the Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test is accept­ing sub­mis­sions until tomor­row Octo­ber 31st, 11 PM US Pacif­ic Stan­dard Time. We are look­ing for star­tups world­wide, found­ed no ear­li­er than 2012, for-prof­it or non-prof­it, work­ing on ways to har­ness brain research and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies to help every per­son thrive in the dig­i­tal age.
• Check out the lat­est Agen­da & Reg­is­ter

And finally, a couple of fun brain teasers to start the week of the right foot:

• Which direc­tion is the bus going?
• The Emp­ty Tri­an­gle

Have a great month of Novem­ber!

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ April e-newslet­ter, fea­tur­ing what’s new in brain health and cog­ni­tive per­for­mance. Quite stim­u­lat­ing read­ing 🙂

New thinking

• Why Untrained Brains Are A Bit Like Pup­pies, And How To Put Togeth­er the Build­ing Blocks of a Smarter, Hap­pi­er Mind
• Mak­ing Stress Work for You, Instead of Against You
• 5 Facts You Need To Know To Under­stand, Nav­i­gate And Enjoy The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Rev­o­lu­tion
• Spe­cial Offer: Learn from 100+ Brain Experts, Watch 40+ Hours at the Lead­ing Edge (10%-off dis­count code: sharp2017)

New research

• Dance train­ing: The ulti­mate way to delay brain decline by com­bin­ing phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive, and social engage­ment
• Help­ing bridge neu­ro­science and edu­ca­tion: 30+ experts debunk the the­o­ry of fixed, rigid “learn­ing styles”
• Par­ents’ edu­ca­tion­al and income lev­els (not breast­feed­ing per se) account for the brain devel­op­ment gains in breast­fed chil­dren
• Brain stim­u­la­tion can work–if prop­er­ly timed
• The US Navy tests neu­ro-prim­ing and oth­er non-phar­ma­co­log­i­cal aids to boost cog­ni­tion and per­for­mance

New tools

• Ful­ly con­cen­trat­ed on task at hand? Then your com­put­er won’t dis­tract you
• Aug­ment­ing phys­io­ther­a­py via neu­ro­feed­back and neu­rostim­u­la­tion: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #43
• Elon Musk to pio­neer new Inner Space Fron­tier via Neu­ralink “neur­al lace” tech­nol­o­gy
• In the field of neu­rostim­u­la­tion, what comes first, Pub­lished Research or Patents?
• Enhanc­ing cog­ni­tion via brain train­ing with a visu­al empha­sis: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #38

Upcoming event

• May 6th, New York City: Antic­i­pat­ing and Shap­ing the Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy of the Future

Final­ly, here you have 5 quick brain teasers to sharp­en two key cog­ni­tive skills: atten­tion and work­ing mem­o­ry.

Have a great month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team