neuropsychologists

To screen, or not to screen (for dementia), that is still the question

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A lead­ing group of med­ical experts on Tues­day declined to endorse cog­ni­tive screen­ing for old­er adults, fuel­ing a debate that has sim­mered for years.

The U.S. Pre­ven­tive Ser­vices Task Force said it could nei­ther rec­om­mend nor oppose cog­ni­tive screen­ing, cit­ing insuf­fi­cient sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence of the practice’s ben­e­fits and harms and call­ing for fur­ther studies.

The task force’s work informs poli­cies set by Medicare and pri­vate insur­ers. Its rec­om­men­da­tions, an accom­pa­ny­ing sci­en­tif­ic state­ment and two edi­to­ri­als were pub­lished Tues­day in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Association.

The task force’s new posi­tion comes as con­cern mounts over a ris­ing tide of old­er adults with Alzheimer’s dis­ease and [Read more…] about To screen, or not to screen (for demen­tia), that is still the question

Executive Functions in Health and Disease: New book to help integrate Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

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Neu­ro­science used to be the monop­oly of a few elite uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in a hand­ful of coun­tries. Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy used to be a quaint niche dis­ci­pline rel­a­tive­ly uncon­nect­ed to the larg­er world of neu­ro­science and con­tent in its meth­ods with paper-and-pen­cil tests. [Read more…] about Exec­u­tive Func­tions in Health and Dis­ease: New book to help inte­grate Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Neuropsychology

5 trends shaping the future of brain enhancement and neuropsychology

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Pre­sen­ta­tion by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez at the New York Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy Group (NYNG) 2017 Annu­al Spring Con­fer­ence.

Descrip­tion: Hun­dreds of com­pa­nies around the globe–now includ­ing Elon Musk’s Neu­ralink and even Facebook–are research­ing and devel­op­ing new ways to help brain own­ers be smarter, sharp­er, and health­i­er. What explains this flur­ry of activ­i­ty, and where may it be head­ed? What are the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges for the Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gists of the Future? We will struc­ture the con­ver­sa­tion around five emerg­ing and thought-pro­vok­ing statements:

1. There are 7.5 bil­lion human brains out there, and every­one needs help

2. Life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty means all those brains can “sculpt” themselves

3. Mobile, sens­ing, wear­able tech­nolo­gies, cou­pled with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI), pro­vide a new plat­form to har­ness that neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty for good

4. Entre­pre­neur­ship and invest­ments are fuel­ing accel­er­at­ed growth

5. Pro­fes­sion­als are step­ping up to help edu­cate con­sumers and patients.

To learn more, read Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright and explore these 25 Key Resources to Improve Brain Health and Men­tal Health.

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

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Heads-up about an upcom­ing joint meet­ing by the New York Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy Group and the Psy­chol­o­gy Sec­tion of the New York Acad­e­my of Sciences.

  • What: Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy of the future and how we can pre­pare for it today
  • When: Sat­ur­day May 6th, 2017, 10 am – 1 pm
  • Where: Podell Audi­to­ri­um in Bern­stein Pavil­ion, Mount Sinai Beth Israel 10 Nathan D Perl­man Place NY, NY 10003

The Focus

Please join promi­nent neu­ropsy­chol­o­gists and indus­try lead­ers to explore the future of neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and how you can har­ness recent find­ings and tech­nolo­gies to pre­pare for [Read more…] about May 6th, New York City: Antic­i­pat­ing and Shap­ing the Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy of the Future

Trend: Mobile, data-rich apps to monitor and promote neurocognitive health

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david_eagleman_braincheck—–

BrainCheck rais­es $3 mil­lion for app to mon­i­tor brain health (TechCrunch):

“A Hous­ton-based start­up called BrainCheck has raised $3 mil­lion in seed fund­ing for an app that helps users under­stand, by sim­ply play­ing some games on an iPad, if they or a loved one may have suf­fered a con­cus­sion. [Read more…] about Trend: Mobile, data-rich apps to mon­i­tor and pro­mote neu­rocog­ni­tive health

Centre for Brain Fitness at Baycrest: Interview with Dr. William Reichman

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In April 2008, Bay­crest, a lead­ing research insti­tute focused on aging and brain func­tion, received $10-mil­lion from the Ontario Gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a ground­break­ing Cen­tre for Brain Fit­ness. Its stat­ed goal was to “devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize a range of prod­ucts designed to improve the brain health of aging Ontar­i­ans and oth­ers around the world”.

“Our gov­ern­ment is proud to sup­port Bay­crest and its invalu­able work, which is already lead­ing to the dis­cov­ery of impor­tant new tools and approach­es to treat­ing brain dis­eases asso­ci­at­ed with aging,” said Min­is­ter of Research and Inno­va­tion, John Wilkinson.

We have Baycrest’s CEO with us today, to explore why Ontario and Bay­crest chose to Bill Reichman Baycrestbecome pio­neers in this area, and dis­cuss some of the main oppor­tu­ni­ties, and chal­lenges. Dr. William E. Reich­man is Pres­i­dent and CEO of Bay­crest. Dr. Reich­man, an inter­na­tion­al­ly-known expert in geri­atric men­tal health and demen­tia, is also Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try on the Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Bill, thank you for your time. Let me start by ask­ing, giv­en that you just spoke at the recent Con­sumer Elec­tron­ic Show, what do you make of the grow­ing brain fit­ness field?

Bill Reich­man: it looks like a clas­sic exam­ple of a very promis­ing but still ear­ly stage field – a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ty and enthu­si­asm, but also a lot of prod­uct claims that are not backed by sol­id research. Think about the phys­i­cal fit­ness anal­o­gy: even today, after decades of progress, you still see peo­ple buy­ing research-based prod­ucts such as tread­mills but also all types of ran­dom machines they see on TV and have not been sub­ject to any val­i­da­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, con­sumers today do not know what to make of grow­ing brain fit­ness claims. As anoth­er speak­er point­ed out, for the indus­try to ful­fill its promise, it will need to be care­ful with research and claims, not to end up like the nutraceu­ti­cals category.

By the way, let me rec­og­nize that the work you are doing with Sharp­Brains reports and your web­site is very impor­tant to offer qual­i­ty information.

Thank you. Let’s step back for a moment. Tak­ing a, say, 10 years view, what is the main oppor­tu­ni­ty that tech­nol­o­gy-based brain fit­ness can offer to society?

First of all, let me say that I think we have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make major progress in Brain Health in the XXI cen­tu­ry, sim­i­lar to what hap­pened with Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Health in the XX, and tech­nol­o­gy will play a cru­cial role.

Giv­en the rapid advances we are wit­ness­ing today in the research and tech­nol­o­gy are­nas, I feel con­fi­dent in say­ing that in less than 10 years we will have both valid and reli­able assess­ments of cog­ni­tive func­tions, that will be used both by [Read more…] about Cen­tre for Brain Fit­ness at Bay­crest: Inter­view with Dr. William Reichman