Neuroscience Interview Series

Cognitive Training and Brain Fitness Computer Programs: Interview with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg

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Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg is a clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­o­gy at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, and author of over 50 peer-reviewed papers. His areas of exper­tise include exec­u­tive func­tions, mem­o­ry, atten­tion deficit dis­or­der, demen­tia, trau­mat­ic brain injury, and oth­ers. Dr. Gold­berg was a stu­dent and close asso­ciate of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria. His book The Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civ­i­lized Mind (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2001) has received crit­i­cal acclaim and has been pub­lished in 12 lan­guages. His recent book The Wis­dom Para­dox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Old­er (Gotham Books, Pen­guin, 2005) offers an inno­v­a­tive under­stand­ing of cog­ni­tive aging and what can be done to fore­stall cog­ni­tive decline. It has been, or is in the process of being, pub­lished in 13 languages.

We are for­tu­nate that Dr. Gold­berg is Sharp­Brains Co-Founder and Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor. His book The Wis­dom Para­dox inspired me to embark in this path, and has been a key sound­ing board in the devel­op­ment of what we are doing.

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Key take-aways

- “Use It and Get More of It” reflects real­i­ty bet­ter than “Use It or Lose It”.

- Let’s demys­ti­fy cog­ni­tion and the brain. Every­one needs to have a basic under­stand­ing of the brain-and how to cul­ti­vate it.

- Well-direct­ed men­tal exer­cise is a must for cog­ni­tive enhance­ment and healthy aging.
[Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and Brain Fit­ness Com­put­er Pro­grams: Inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg

Brain Training and “Brain-ism” in Japan

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Go HiranoToday we are trav­el­ing to Japan. Go Hira­no is a ser­i­al Japan­ese entre­pre­neur who has been explor­ing neu­ro­science-based oppor­tu­ni­ties in Japan, hav­ing recent­ly cre­at­ed the com­pa­ny NeuWell (neu­ro­science for wellness).

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Key take-aways:

- Peo­ple in Japan devour any prod­uct with brain-relat­ed claims

- But there has been a recent back­lash against chil­dren videogames, so game devel­op­ers have start­ed to focus on old­er audi­ences with (most­ly unproven) brain-health-improv­ing games

- The mar­ket is ripe for pro­grams with proven research and tan­gi­ble benefits

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AF: Hira­no-san, tell us a bit about your­self and how you became inter­est­ed in applied neuroscience. 

GH: after help­ing launch one of the first DSL providers in Japan, I start­ed to won­der what the next big­ger val­ue for soci­ety would be. I have always been fas­ci­nat­ed by brain research, so I start­ed to explore oppor­tu­ni­ties to help bring to mar­ket neu­ro­science-based pro­grams to help stu­dents do bet­ter in exams, and adults age in brain-friend­ly ways.

AF: what is the state of Brain Fit­ness and Brain Train­ing in Japan? what are the most pop­u­lar appli­ca­tions so far?

GH: I think peo­ple under­stand the con­cepts of Brain Fit­ness and Brain Train­ing. If one method or product/service sounds a bit sci­en­tif­ic there are peo­ple who would try it for fun and curios­i­ty. How­ev­er, [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing and “Brain-ism” in Japan

Enhancing Trader Performance and The Psychology of Trading: Interview with Brett N. Steenbarger

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Today we are going to talk about the appli­ca­tions of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science to trad­ing and neu­ro­fi­nance. Brett N. Steen­barg­er , Ph.D. is Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try and Behav­ioral Sci­ences at SUNY Upstate Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty, active trad­er for over 30 years, for­mer Direc­tor of Trad­er Devel­op­ment for Kingstree Trad­ing, LLC, and author of The Psy­chol­o­gy of Trad­ing: Tools and Tech­niques for Mind­ing the Mar­kets(Wiley, 2003) and the new Enhanc­ing Trad­er Per­for­mance: Proven Strate­gies From the Cut­ting Edge of Trad­ing Psy­chol­o­gy (Wiley, 2007).

He writes fea­ture columns for the Trad­ing Mar­kets web­site and sev­er­al trad­ing pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing Stocks Futures and Options Magazine.

Key take-aways

-Elite per­form­ers in any high­ly-com­pet­i­tive field fol­low struc­tured learn­ing and train­ing process­es to devel­op their skills, ensur­ing con­tin­u­ous feed­back and refinement.

- Traders would ben­e­fit to fol­low­ing this exam­ple. Tools at their dis­pos­al include books, sim­u­la­tion pro­grams, biofeed­back pro­grams for emo­tion­al man­age­ment, and coaches.

- Spe­cif­ic skills to train are brain speed and work­ing mem­o­ry (for short-term traders), ana­lyt­i­cal skills (long-term ones). For both, man­ag­ing emo­tion­al-dri­ven impul­sive behavior.

Books on Trad­ing and Peak Performance

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (Alvaro): Wel­come, Prof. Steen­barg­er. Why don’t you start by pro­vid­ing us some con­text on your inter­est in trad­ing per­for­mance and how it led you to your new book? [Read more…] about Enhanc­ing Trad­er Per­for­mance and The Psy­chol­o­gy of Trad­ing: Inter­view with Brett N. Steenbarger

Cognitive Training for Basketball Game-Intelligence: Interview with Prof. Daniel Gopher

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Professor Daniel Gopher
Pro­fes­sor Daniel Gopher is a fel­low of the U.S. Human Fac­tors and Ergonom­ics Soci­ety and the Inter­na­tion­al Ergonom­ics Asso­ci­a­tion, Pro­fes­sor of Cog­ni­tive Psy­chol­o­gy and Human Fac­tors Engi­neer­ing at Tech­nion, Israel’s Insti­tute of Sci­ence, and one of world’s lead­ing fig­ures in the field of Cog­ni­tive Train­ing.

Dur­ing his 40 year career, he has held a vari­ety of sci­en­tif­ic and aca­d­e­m­ic posi­tions, such as act­ing Head of the Research Unit of the Mil­i­tary Per­son­nel Divi­sion, Asso­ciate Edi­tor of the Euro­pean Jour­nal of Cog­ni­tive Psy­chol­o­gy, mem­ber of the Edi­to­r­i­al Boards of Acta Psy­cho­log­i­ca, the Inter­na­tion­al Jour­nal of Human-Com­put­er Inter­ac­tion, and the jour­nal Psychology.

He pub­lished an award-win­ning arti­cle in 1994, Gopher, D., Weil, M. and Baraket, T. (1994), Trans­fer of skill from a com­put­er game train­er to flight, Human Fac­tors 36, 1–19., that con­sti­tutes a key mile­stone in the cog­ni­tive engi­neer­ing field.

Prof. Gopher has also devel­oped inno­v­a­tive a) med­ical sys­tems, assess­ing the nature and caus­es of human error in med­ical work, and redesign­ing med­ical work envi­ron­ments to improve safe­ty and effi­cien­cy, and b) work safe­ty sys­tems, devel­op­ing meth­ods and mod­els for the analy­sis of human fac­tors, ergonom­ic, safe­ty and health prob­lems at the indi­vid­ual, team and plant level.

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Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (AF): Pro­fes­sor Gopher, it is an hon­or that you speak to us. Could you pro­vide an overview of the projects are you work­ing on now? [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Bas­ket­ball Game-Intel­li­gence: Inter­view with Prof. Daniel Gopher

The Art of Changing the Brain: Interview with Dr. James Zull

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Kolb on BrainLearn­ing through a vir­tu­ous Learn­ing Cycle. That’s the mes­sage from Dr. James Zull, Pro­fes­sor of Biol­o­gy and Bio­chem­istry at Case West­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, Direc­tor of UCITE (The Uni­ver­si­ty Cen­ter for Inno­va­tion in Teach­ing and Edu­ca­tion), and Pro­fes­sor of a Human Learn­ing and The Brain class.

Dr. Zull loves to learn. And to teach. And to build con­nec­tions. He has spent years build­ing bridges between neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy and ped­a­gogy, as a result of which he wrote The Art of Chang­ing the Brain: Enrich­ing the Prac­tice of Teach­ing by Explor­ing the Biol­o­gy of Learn­ing, which shows how neu­ro­bi­o­log­i­cal research can inform and refine some of the best ideas in edu­ca­tion­al theory.
[Read more…] about The Art of Chang­ing the Brain: Inter­view with Dr. James Zull

Cognitive Training and ADD/ADHD: Interview with Prof. David Rabiner

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On Fri­day we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­view Pro­fes­sor David Rabin­er. He is a Senior Research Sci­en­tist and the Direc­tor of Psy­chol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science Under­grad­u­ate Stud­ies at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty, and also advo­cate for chil­dren and adults with ADD/ADHD.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (AF): wel­come, Pro­fes­sor Rabin­er. Could you first pro­vide us with some back­ground on your research inter­ests?
[Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Train­ing and ADD/ADHD: Inter­view with Prof. David Rabiner