software

Cognitive maintenance 2.0: From crossword puzzles to targeted mental stimulation

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neuroimagingThe Sil­ver Econ­o­my: Brain train­ing fired up by hard evi­dence (Finan­cial Times):

“Not so long ago, peo­ple kept age­ing brains active through read­ing and writ­ing, talk­ing with friends and fam­i­ly, and per­haps play­ing cards or doing puz­zles. Now a rapid­ly grow­ing num­ber are tak­ing a high-tech approach to cog­ni­tive main­te­nance, through com­put­er pro­grams designed to stim­u­late the brain… [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive main­te­nance 2.0: From cross­word puz­zles to tar­get­ed men­tal stimulation

Update: How Stress and Emotions Impact Brain Performance

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Spon­sored Ad (How to Adver­tise on SharpBrains.com)

Time for the Octo­ber edi­tion of the month­ly Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, fea­tur­ing this time sev­er­al arti­cles on the impact of stress, emo­tions, and self-reg­u­la­tion, on our brain’s struc­ture and performance.

We are pleased to bring to Sharp­Brains read­ers a new 6‑part series on the Neu­ro­bi­ol­ogy of Stress, based on a recent book by Sharp­Brains con­trib­u­tor Dr. Jerome Schultz. The first two parts are already avail­able: Part 1 — The Human Brain and How It Responds to Stress and Part 2 — Gray Mat­ters.

Brain Study Links Emo­tion­al Self-Reg­u­la­tion and Math Per­for­mance: A new study strong­ly sug­gests the need to “help stu­dents reap­praise the sit­u­a­tion and con­trol emo­tions before they even get into a task”. While the study focused on math anx­i­ety and per­for­mance, the impli­ca­tions are rel­e­vant out­side the class­room too.

Reminder: Brain Fit­ness Q&A Ses­sions in Novem­ber: As we announced a few weeks ago, we are hon­ored to present an upcom­ing Brain Fit­ness Q&A Series. The first ses­sion, fea­tur­ing Dr. Gary Small, will take place Novem­ber 1st, 2011, 2–3pm US Eeast­ern Time. Please mark your cal­en­dar and join us at sharpbrains.com then! (no need to do any­thing pri­or to the session).

Music Train­ing Can Enhance Ver­bal Intel­li­gence and Exec­u­tive Func­tion: Very inter­est­ing new study pub­lished in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence on the val­ue of music train­ing (vs. sim­ply lis­ten­ing to music).

Gam­ing and Neu­ro­science: Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Chal­lenges: A sum­ma­ry of impres­sions by researcher  Aki Niko­laidis based on his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the recent con­fer­ence Enter­tain­ment Soft­ware and Cog­ni­tive Neu­rother­a­peu­tics Con­fer­ence (ESCoNS) at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia San Francisco.

Fam­i­lies’ Per­spec­tives on ADHD and its Treat­ment: Dr. David Rabin­er presents new data on fam­i­lies’ expe­ri­ence with ADHD and its treatment.

Brain Games and Opti­cal Illu­sions @ Nation­al Geo­graph­ic: Sev­eral Sharp­Brains friends rec­om­mend this recent 3‑part Nation­al Geo­graphic TV mini-series.

Math Brain Teas­er for Kids and Adults: Archimedes Grave: A fun puz­zle to exer­cise our brains a bit, sub­mit­ted by new con­trib­u­tor Maria Lan­do. Enjoy!

Upcoming Talks on Applied Neuroscience, Brain Fitness and Adaptive Organizations

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A quick FYI — I will be speak­ing at the fol­low­ing events. Please do come and say Hel­lo if you get the chance!

> Sep­tem­ber 19–20th, San Fran­cisco, CA: Trans­lat­ing Neu­ro­science Into Mar­ketable Ther­a­peu­tic Inter­ven­tions, at the Enter­tain­ment Soft­ware and Cog­ni­tive Neu­rother­a­peu­tics Soci­ety (ESCoNS). Details Here.

> Sep­tem­ber 23rd, Los Gatos, CA: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, at Los Gatos Pub­lic Library. Details Here.

> Novem­ber 8th, San Fran­cisco, CA: Brain Fit­ness for Adap­tive Orga­ni­za­tions, at the 2011 Neu­roLead­er­ship Sum­mit. Details Here.

Learning with Video Games: A Revolution in Education and Training?

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In recent years, we have wit­nessed the begin­nings of a rev­o­lu­tion in edu­ca­tion.  Tech­nol­o­gy has fun­da­men­tal­ly altered the way we do many things in dai­ly life, but it is just start­ing to make head­way in chang­ing the way we teach.  Just as tele­vi­sion shows like Sesame Street enhanced the pas­sive learn­ing of infor­ma­tion for kids by teach­ing in a fun for­mat, elec­tron­ic games offer to great­ly enhance the way kids and adults are taught by active­ly engag­ing them in the process. [Read more…] about Learn­ing with Video Games: A Rev­o­lu­tion in Edu­ca­tion and Training?

Update: Preparing Society for the Cognitive Age, and Industry Webinar

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Here you have the August edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and Brain Fitnessbrain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page.

Sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tion Fron­tiers in Neu­ro­science recent­ly pub­lished a spe­cial issue on Aug­ment­ing Cog­ni­tion, and invit­ed me to con­tribute with an arti­cle titled Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age. Ground­break­ing brain research has occurred over the last 20 years. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve brain health and per­for­mance is immense, but we need to ensure the mar­ket­place matures in a ratio­nal and sus­tain­able man­ner, both through health­care and non-health­care chan­nels. Click Here to read my article.

Announce­ments

In May 2009 Sharp­Brains pub­lished The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2009, the main indus­try report for lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions prepar­ing their mem­bers, their clients, and their patients for the cog­ni­tive age. 150-pages long, the report includes a mar­ket sur­vey with 2,000+ respon­dents, detailed analy­sis of 20+ ven­dors, research briefs writ­ten by 12 lead­ing sci­en­tists and data and trends for 4 major cus­tomer segments.webinar

Below we share the full Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry of the report and announce an exclu­sive webi­nar on Sep­tem­ber 29th to dis­cuss the State of the Mar­ket in more depth with buy­ers of the report.

To order the report and access both the report and the webi­nar, you can click Here. (Only $975 ‑a 25% dis­count- using Dis­count Code Frontiers2009 before Sep­tem­ber 28th).

State of the Market

The brain fit­ness field holds excit­ing promise for the future while pre­sent­ing clear oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges today. The good news is that there are more tools avail­able than ever before to assess and train a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive skills. The bad news is that there are no mag­ic pills and that con­sumers, while sat­is­fied over­all, seem con­fused by com­pet­ing claims on how to reduce one’s “brain age.” We do see signs that this ear­ly-stage mar­ket can mature in a more ratio­nal, struc­tured man­ner; but there is much work to be done. We esti­mate that the size of the U.S. brain fit­ness soft­ware (i.e., appli­ca­tions designed to assess or enhance cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties) mar­ket in 2008 was [Read more…] about Update: Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age, and Indus­try Webinar

First Book Review is in…Two Stethoscopes Up!

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The San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle brings two great pieces today — includ­ing an excel­lent review of our new Book!

Is Your Brain A Couch Pota­to? (online book review)

“At 165 pages, we’re talk­ing a short, sweet, enter­tain­ing read of a com­plex top­ic, with time­ly (writ­ten in 1/09) reviews of 21 top tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts, as well as informed and expert pre­dic­tions of where this bur­geon­ing brain-fit­ness field is head­ed. More impor­tant­ly, after you read it, you’ll have a good, detailed sense of where you, per­son­al­ly, can act to improve your own couch-pota­to brain — and how to keep it fit and flex­i­ble your whole life. The Sharp­Brains Guide To Brain Fit­ness reminds of us all why books (and not just googling a top­ic) can be well worth your time and mon­ey. Two Stetho­scopes Up — check it out.”

Soft­ware designed to make old­er dri­vers sharp­er (arti­cle in print version)

- “All­state is exper­i­ment­ing with the soft­ware because it wants its cus­tomers who are over 50 to become bet­ter dri­vers so they have few­er acci­dents and can dri­ve longer, per­haps in return for low­er pre­mi­ums, said Tom War­den, an assis­tant vice pres­i­dent in All­state’s research and plan­ning center.”

- “All­state found Posit after the insur­ance com­pa­ny’s own sci­en­tists, who were work­ing on the phys­i­ol­o­gy and psy­chol­o­gy of good dri­vers, dis­cov­ered research done by Visu­al Aware­ness, a com­pa­ny in Alaba­ma that has worked with State Farm and var­i­ous state motor vehi­cle depart­ments on expand­ing dri­vers’ fields of view. Posit acquired Visu­al Aware­ness last year.”