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Key take-aways from the 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit

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Take-aways from 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Neu­rotech News):

“In Novem­ber (17th-19th) Sharp­Brains held its Vir­tu­al Sum­mit about “Mon­i­tor­ing & Enhanc­ing Brain Health in the Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Era.” The Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit is, as you might guess, a vir­tu­al (online) conference…The vir­tu­al sum­mit had it’s own divi­sion of top­ics for group­ing the dif­fer­ent speak­ers (see agen­da), but I’ll break it down in a dif­fer­ent way here. I’ll break it down into the fol­low­ing 4 main categories:

  • 1. Brain & Cog­ni­tive Training
  • 2. Wear­ables, Con­sumer & DIY
  • 3. Brain Health (health­care)
  • 4. Neu­rotech Field & Trends

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez start­ed the con­fer­ence by remind­ing us that we should keep in mind not to look at the field and the mar­ket as it is today, but how it will be in cou­ple years from now. As illus­trat­ed beau­ti­ful­ly in [Read more…] about Key take-aways from the 2015 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Summit

Update: Latest thinking and neuro-tools to promote lifelong brain health

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Time for Sharp­Brains’ June e‑newsletter, wrap­ping up this month’s key news and insights around brain health innovation.

New thinking to promote lifelong brain health

Emerging non-invasive neurotechnologies

 

Have a great, and sharp, month of July!

SharpBrains in the news

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newsHere you are sev­er­al recent arti­cles quot­ing Sharp­Brains and our new Dig­i­tal Brain Health mar­ket report –which I’ll dis­cuss today at ESCoNS2:

Brain Fitness Programs For Seniors Housing, Healthcare and Insurance Providers: Evaluation Checklist

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Dur­ing the research phase before the pub­li­ca­tion of the spe­cial report Brain Fit­ness Cen­ters in Seniors Hous­ing — A Field in the Mak­ing, pub­lished by the Amer­i­can Seniors Hous­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (ASHA), we real­ized that there were equal amounts of inter­est and con­fu­sion among exec­u­tives and pro­fes­sion­als think­ing about adding com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive exer­cise prod­ucts to their mix of health & well­ness activ­i­ties, so we includ­ed the Eval­u­a­tion Check­list that follows.

The real-life expe­ri­ences at lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions such as Senior Star Liv­ing, Bel­mont Vil­lage Senior Liv­ing, Erick­son Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ties and oth­ers were instru­men­tal in the devel­op­ment of the Check­list. We hope it is useful.

Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams For Seniors Hous­ing, Health­care and Insur­ance Providers: Eval­u­a­tion Checklist

Over the next sev­er­al years, it is like­ly that many seniors hous­ing oper­a­tors will begin to care­ful­ly eval­u­ate a grow­ing num­ber of options to include “brain fit­ness cen­ters” in their communities.

Some options will require pur­chas­ing a device, such as Nin­ten­do prod­ucts, or the Dakim touch-screen sys­tem. Oth­ers will require installing soft­ware in PCs in exist­ing or new com­put­er labs, such as Posit Sci­ence, Cogmed or Cog­niFit’s pro­grams. Oth­ers will be ful­ly avail­able online, such as those offered by Lumos Labs, Hap­py Neu­ron and My Vig­or­ous Mind. And still oth­ers may be tech­nol­o­gy-free, promis­ing engag­ing com­bi­na­tions of inter­ac­tive, group-based, activ­i­ties with pen-and-paper exercises.

Cre­at­ing a sol­id busi­ness case will help com­mu­ni­ties nav­i­gate through this grow­ing array of options. We sug­gest com­mu­ni­ties con­sid­er this Sharp­Brains Check­list for Brain Fit­ness Centers:

1. Ear­ly Users: Who among our res­i­dents is ready and will­ing to do the pro­gram? How are they react­ing to the pilot test­ing of the program?

2. Cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits: What are the spe­cif­ic ben­e­fits claimed for using this pro­gram? Under what sce­nario of use (how many hours/week, how many weeks)? What spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive skill(s) does the pro­gram train? How will we mea­sure progress? [Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams For Seniors Hous­ing, Health­care and Insur­ance Providers: Eval­u­a­tion Checklist

Brain and Mind News and Articles

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BrainHere you have a col­lec­tion of recent news cov­er­age on brain heath, fit­ness and train­ing topics:

1- Great Mem­o­ry Spe­cial in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, including

- Inter­ac­tive 3D map of the brain

- Mem­o­ry Game

2- Fas­ci­nat­ing What the Bea­t­les Gave Sci­ence, by Sharon Beg­ley at Newsweek

- “Even in novices, med­i­ta­tion leaves its mark. An eight-week course in com­pas­sion med­i­ta­tion, in which vol­un­teers focus on the wish that all beings be free from suf­fer­ing, shift­ed brain activ­i­ty from the right pre­frontal cor­tex to the left, a pat­tern asso­ci­at­ed with a greater sense of well-being.”

3- One of the best edi­tions of Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can Mind

- Solv­ing the IQ Puz­zle “The 20th cen­tu­ry saw the Fly­nn effect: mas­sive gains in IQ from one gen­er­a­tion to anoth­er. Now Fly­nn explains why”

- Anx­i­ety and Alzheimer- A life­time of stress could lead to mem­o­ry prob­lems and dis­ease: “Over a peri­od of up to 12 years, vol­un­teers who were anx­i­ety-prone had a 40 per­cent high­er risk of devel­op­ing mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment than more easy­go­ing indi­vid­u­als did. Mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment is thought to be a pre­cur­sor for Alzheimer’s.”

4- Exer­cise builds strong brains, too — USATODAY.com

- “Phillip Tom­porows­ki, a study co-author and exer­cise psy­chol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia in Athens, says exer­cise “may well improve the under­ly­ing men­tal process­es that are involved in a lot of behav­iors and aca­d­e­m­ic tasks.”

5- Dai­ly com­put­er game boosts maths- BBC, report­ing pre­lim­i­nary results from a small pilot

- “Play­ing a dai­ly com­put­er game has helped a class of pri­ma­ry school chil­dren improve their maths and con­cen­tra­tion, a study says.”

6- ADHD and Brain Devel­op­ment- Wash­ing­ton Post

- “Devel­op­ing more slow­ly in ADHD young­sters — the lag can be as much as three years — are brain regions that sup­press inap­pro­pri­ate actions and thoughts, focus atten­tion, remem­ber things from moment to moment, work for reward, and con­trol movement.”

Enhancing Cognition and Emotions for Learning — Learning & The Brain Conference

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Alvaro and I had the good for­tune to attend a great con­fer­ence last week called Learn­ing & The Brain: Enhanc­ing Cog­ni­tion and Emo­tions for Learn­ing. It was a fas­ci­nat­ing mix of neu­ro­sci­en­tists and edu­ca­tors talk­ing with and lis­ten­ing to each oth­er. Some top­ics were meant to be applied today, but many were food for thought — insight on where sci­ence and edu­ca­tion are head­ed and how they influ­ence each other.

Using dra­mat­ic new imag­ing tech­niques, such as fMRIs, PET, and SPECT, neu­ro­sci­en­tists are gain­ing valu­able infor­ma­tion about learn­ing. This pio­neer­ing knowl­edge is lead­ing not only to new ped­a­go­gies, but also to new med­ica­tions, brain enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies, and ther­a­pies.… The Con­fer­ence cre­ates an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary forum — a meet­ing place for neu­ro­sci­en­tists, edu­ca­tors, psy­chol­o­gists, clin­i­cians, and par­ents — to exam­ine these new research find­ings with respect to their applic­a­bil­i­ty in the class­room and clin­i­cal practice.

Take-aways

  • Humans are a mix­ture of cog­ni­tion and emo­tion, and both ele­ments are essen­tial to func­tion and learn properly
  • Edu­ca­tors and pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers need to learn more about the brain, how it grows, and how to cul­ti­vate it
  • Stu­dents of all ages need to be both chal­lenged and nur­tured in order to succeed
  • Peo­ple learn dif­fer­ent­ly — try to teach and learn through as many dif­fer­ent modal­i­ties as pos­si­ble (engage lan­guage, motor skills, artis­tic cre­ation, social inter­ac­tion, sen­so­ry input, etc.)
  • While short-term stress can height­en your cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, long term stress kills you — you need to find bal­ance and release
  • Test anx­i­ety and sub­se­quent poor test results can be improved with behav­ioral train­ing with feed­back based on heart rate variability
  • Dr. Robert Sapol­sky is a very very enlight­en­ing and fun speaker
  • Allow time for rest and con­sol­i­da­tion of learned material
  • Emo­tion­al mem­o­ries are eas­i­er to remember
  • Con­fer­ences like these per­form a real ser­vice in fos­ter­ing dia­logues between sci­en­tists and educators

[Read more…] about Enhanc­ing Cog­ni­tion and Emo­tions for Learn­ing — Learn­ing & The Brain Conference