Neurotechnology-Industry-Organization

Best practices to fund, develop and commercialize evidence-based mental health innovation

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In this ses­sion we dis­cuss key lessons learned for sci­en­tists and start-ups to suc­cess­ful­ly bring to mar­ket evi­dence-based inno­v­a­tive solu­tions. We will present non-dilu­tive fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and com­mer­cial­iza­tion resources offered through the US small busi­ness research pro­grams, and a sci­en­tist and inven­tor turned ser­i­al entre­pre­neur wrap-ups the day shar­ing insights from his pre­vi­ous venture–funded by the NIMH and sold to McKesson–and his cur­rent strat­e­gy and vision.

  • Chair: Dr. Ali­son Fen­ney, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Organization
  • Dr. Mar­garet Grabb, SBIR/STTR Pro­gram Direc­tor at the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH)
  • Dr. Rex Jakobovits, Founder of Viva­l­og Tech­nolo­gies and Experiad

These pre­sen­ta­tions took place at the 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Rein­vent­ing Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 6–8th, 2016).

Invitation to SharpBrains Summit — Technology for Cognitive Health and Performance

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We are excit­ed to invite you to the first vir­tu­al, glob­al Sharp­Brains Sum­mit (Jan­u­ary 18–20th, 2010). The Sharp­Brains Sum­mit will fea­ture a sharpbrains_summit_logo_webdream team of over 25 speak­ers who are lead­ers in indus­try and research from 7 coun­tries, to dis­cuss emerg­ing research, tools and best prac­tices for cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance. This inau­gur­al event will expose health and insur­ance providers, devel­op­ers, inno­va­tors at For­tune 500 com­pa­nies, investors and researchers, to the oppor­tu­ni­ties, part­ner­ships, trends, and stan­dards of the rapid­ly evolv­ing cog­ni­tive fit­ness field.

Reg­is­ter Today

Learn more and reg­is­ter Here today, at dis­count­ed ear­ly-bird rates, to receive these benefits:

  • Learn: Full access to all Con­fer­ence live ses­sions, and Down­load­able Record­ings and Handouts
  • See: lat­est tech­nolo­gies and prod­ucts dur­ing Expo Day
  • Con­nect and Dis­cuss: become a mem­ber of the Sharp­Brains Net­work for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion (mem­bers-only LinkedIn Group) through the end of 2010, access online chats dur­ing the sum­mit, meet oth­er reg­is­trants in your city
  • Under­stand the Big Pic­ture: access 10 Research Exec­u­tive Briefs pre­pared by lead­ing scientists

On top of those ear­ly-bird dis­counts, we offer an addi­tion­al 15% dis­count for Sharp­Brains read­ers who want Reg­u­lar Admis­sion. Dis­count code: sharp2010. You can reg­is­ter Here.

Agenda/ Speak­ers

Monday, January 18th, 2010:

(Pre­lim­i­nary sched­ule, US Pacif­ic Time)

8–9.15am. Cog­ni­tion & Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: The New Health­care Frontier

  • Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains
  • David White­house, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solutions
  • William Reich­man, Baycrest
  • P Murali Doraiswamy, Duke University

9.30–11am. Tools for Safer Dri­ving: The Oppor­tu­ni­ty with Teenagers and Adults

  • Steven Aldrich, Posit Science
  • Shlo­mo Breznitz, CogniFit
  • Jer­ri Edwards, Uni­ver­si­ty of South Florida
  • Peter Chris­tian­son, Young Dri­vers of Canada

Noon‑1.30pm. Baby Boomers and Beyond: Main­tain­ing Cog­ni­tive Vitality

Brain Training Games: Context, Trends, Questions

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A spate of recent news cov­er­age on brain fit­ness and “brain train­ing” reflects a grow­ing inter­est in nat­ur­al, non-drug-based inter­ven­tions to keep our brains sharp as we age. This inter­est is very time­ly, giv­en the aging pop­u­la­tion, increas­ing Alzheimer’s rates, and soar­ing health care costs that place more empha­sis than ever on pre­ven­tion and chang­ing lifestyle.

This past Tues­day, the MIT Club of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, and Smart­Sil­vers spon­sored an event on The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket: Build­ing Bet­ter Brains to explore the real­i­ties and myths of this grow­ing field. The pan­el was mod­er­at­ed by Zack Lynch, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Orga­ni­za­tion, and com­posed of a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist and 3 CEOs of pro­gram devel­op­ers in the field. Before the pan­el, I had the chance to present an overview of the state of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket based on our upcom­ing report to be released on March 4th.

Why are we talk­ing about this field at all? Well, for one, an increas­ing num­ber of com­pa­nies are achiev­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial suc­cess in pack­ag­ing “brain exer­cise”. An exam­ple is the line of Nin­ten­do games, such as Brain Age and Brain Train­ing, that have shipped over 15 mil­lion units world­wide despite lim­it­ed sci­en­tif­ic sup­port, since 2005. What is less vis­i­ble is that a num­ber of com­pa­nies and sci­en­tists are [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing Games: Con­text, Trends, Questions

The Emerging Brain Fitness Software Market: Building Better Brains

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This is an event you may be inter­est­ed in, if you are based in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area.

The MIT Club of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, The Busi­ness Forum on Aging and Smart­Sil­vers presents:

The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket:  Build­ing Bet­ter Brains (Con­tact infor­ma­tion and Reg­is­tra­tion Here)

Date: 02/12/2008 Tuesday
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: Wil­son Sonsini
Loca­tion: 950 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto
Cost: $20 online, $25 walk-in

Con­tact infor­ma­tion and Reg­is­tra­tion Here.

Here is the buzz  Sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and demo­graph­ic trends have con­verged to cre­ate an excit­ing new mar­ket in brain fit­ness, where soft­ware and online appli­ca­tions can assess and train cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. That equates to a sharp­er mind and bet­ter mem­o­ry reten­tion con­tribut­ing to health­i­er aging.  There is cur­rent­ly a $400m world­wide mar­ket with high growth ahead predicted.

Join us in live­ly and infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sions as Alvaro Fer­nan­dez; CEO of SharpBrains.com sum­ma­rizes the sci­ence, key mar­ket seg­ments, play­ers and trends, based on the first Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket Report, pre­sent­ed in this event.  He will dis­cuss the impli­ca­tions with sev­er­al neu­ro-tech­nol­o­gy, gam­ing experts and investors.”  Mod­er­at­ed by Zack Lynch, the speak­er and pan­el will dis­cuss: [Read more…] about The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket: Build­ing Bet­ter Brains

Neurotechnology Trends, and the Neurosoftware Market

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The Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Orga­ni­za­tion (NIO) just announced the top ten emerg­ing areas of neu­ro­science that will “impact the future of treat­ments for brain and ner­vous sys­tem”: Top 10 Neu­ro­science Trends in 2007.

It pro­vides superb food for thought. And some of them will sound famil­iar to read­ers of this blog:

* 6. Nor­mal brain aging gets more atten­tion: More research and devel­op­ment is being focused on think­ing impair­ments that only par­tial­ly lim­it inde­pen­dence and qual­i­ty of life for senior cit­i­zens, adults and school aged chil­dren. Neu­rosoft­ware will pen­e­trate nurs­ing homes and schools, as brain fit­ness soft­ware becomes new first-line treat­ment strategy.
* 8. Pre­ven­tion evi­dence grows: You are what you eat; smok­ing is as bad as we thought; and new stud­ies reveal the effects of envi­ron­men­tal sub­stances on Alzheimer’s dis­ease, Parkin­son’s dis­ease and others.
* 9. Emo­tion­al dis­or­ders research advances:  New research con­tin­ues to link neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis to treat­ment of depres­sion.  A bet­ter under­stand­ing of PTSD should lead to new treat­ment regimes.

Want to read prob­a­bly the best overview of the neurosoftware/ brain fit­ness soft­ware mar­ket? Check this arti­cle, fresh from the oven: Thank Boomers for Buff­ing Up Brain Mar­ket.

To clar­i­fy the num­bers men­tioned: we project $225m in the US alone (grow­ing from $70m in 2003), bro­ken-down as fol­lows: $80m for the Con­sumer seg­ment, $60m in K12 Edu­ca­tion, $50m in Clin­i­cal appli­ca­tions, and $35m in the Cor­po­rate seg­ment. The Con­sumer seg­ment, with a healthy aging val­ue propo­si­tion, is the most recent one but the most rapid­ly growing.

Brain training to live long and strong

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If you want to live long and strong, you’ve got to do more than work out your body; you’ve got to exer­cise your brain, insists Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­o­gy at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine. While we’ve heard for years that men­tal stim­u­la­tion can stave off demen­tia and Alzheimer’s, Dr. Gold­berg says sci­en­tists now know exact­ly how to keep our brains from turn­ing to mush – by stim­u­lat­ing the growth of new neu­rons and inter­con­nec­tions between them that boost brain effi­cien­cy. If you don’t use your brain in new and nov­el ways, your brain won’t be fit to use.

As the chief sci­en­tif­ic advis­er for SharpBrains.com, Dr. Goldberg’s site offers an array of brain teasers and exer­cis­es that improve brain func­tion. But online tests are not all you can do. Just do some­thing dif­fer­ent and chal­leng­ing. Get­ting out of your mid­dle-aged com­fort zone is the dif­fer­ence in a high qual­i­ty of life when you’re old­er than none at all.

Keep read­ing more of the Flori­da Today inter­view with Dr. Gold­berg at Next Up, A Gym for the Mind.

You can also read our more detailed (and prob­a­bly more pre­cise) inter­view with Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg on Brain Fit­ness and Cog­ni­tive Train­ing.