Stanford

Registration is now closed @ Pervasive Neurotech Webinar, where the Digital Revolution meets the Human Brain

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Pervasive Neurotechnology Infographic 430wide

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Heads-up: Reg­is­tra­tion just closed for our webi­nar on how the Dig­i­tal Rev­o­lu­tion is meet­ing the Human Brain, build­ing on the new report Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­ogy: A Ground­break­ing Analy­sis of 10,000+ Patent Fil­ings Trans­form­ing Med­i­cine, Health, Enter­tain­ment and Busi­ness.

–> To learn more about the webi­nar and report, click HERE. Reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants so far include inno­va­tors at IBM, Medtron­ic, Sam­sung, CNS Response, UCSF, Stan­ford, Intel­lec­tu­al Ven­tures, Neu­ro­verse, Brain Resource, AARP, and more!

127 scientists challenge the purported brain training “consensus” released by the Stanford Center for Longevity

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Open-Letter—

Sci­en­tists to Stan­ford: Research Shows Brain Exer­cis­es Can Work (Press release):

“A group of 127 sci­en­tists sent an “open let­ter” to the Stan­ford Cen­ter for Longevi­ty, today, in reac­tion to a recent state­ment by the cen­ter that was high­ly crit­i­cal of the emerg­ing sci­ence of brain train­ing and dero­gat­ed the effi­ca­cy of all brain exercises…The let­ter is signed by 127 doc­tors and sci­en­tists, many of whom are lumi­nar­ies in the field of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty – the dis­ci­pline that exam­ines the brain’s abil­i­ty to change. Sig­na­to­ries include mem­bers of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, mem­bers of the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine, [Read more…] about 127 sci­en­tists chal­lenge the pur­port­ed brain train­ing “con­sen­sus” released by the Stan­ford Cen­ter for Longevity

Coral Gables, Miami, Friday/ Viernes: Cómo invertir en su cerebro (Spanish book launch)

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books-and-booksEscuche a uno de los más nota­bles exper­tos sobre la relación entre el cere­bro, la mente y la vida. Nue­stro orador nos pon­drá al día acer­ca de las últi­mas inves­ti­ga­ciones sobre cómo fun­ciona el cere­bro y cómo inver­tir en él para mejo­rar su salud y rendimien­to, basa­do en el nue­vo libro Cómo inver­tir en su cere­bro: Una guía Sharp­Brains para mejo­rar su mente y su vida  ¿Cuál es la conex­ión entre la salud cere­bral, la capaci­dad para [Read more…] about Coral Gables, Mia­mi, Friday/ Viernes: Cómo inver­tir en su cere­bro (Span­ish book launch)

Meet the 16 Judges of the 2010 Brain Fitness Innovation Awards

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We are hon­ored to count on such a dis­tin­guished, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and for­ward-look­ing Inno­va­tion Awards Judg­ing Pan­el (please judge for your­self!), thanks to the par­tic­i­pa­tion of:

shiv-babaBaba Shiv, Pro­fes­sor at Stan­ford Busi­ness School, con­ducts research on con­sumer deci­sion mak­ing and deci­sion neu­ro­science, with spe­cif­ic empha­sis on the neu­ro­log­i­cal under­pin­nings of emo­tion and moti­va­tion in deci­sion mak­ing. His recent work exam­ines the poten­tial for non­con­scious place­bo effects relat­ed to pric­ing. He is cur­rent­ly the edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Research and sits on the edi­to­r­i­al board of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Psy­chol­o­gy and the Jour­nal of Mar­ket­ing Research.

Bill0828Bill Tuck­er, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, is a social entre­pre­neur who has found­ed and led both non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions and for-prof­it com­pa­nies. He is respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the day-to-day oper­a­tions of Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, and also leads pol­i­cy work focused on tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion. His involve­ment in edu­ca­tion dates to ear­ly in his career, when he man­aged a middle/high school stu­dent vol­un­teer and ser­vice learn­ing pro­gram, work­ing with 22 schools and over 75 non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, and served as a com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er for an adult lit­er­a­cy pro­gram. He is a grad­u­ate of Duke Uni­ver­si­ty and has both an MBA and a Master’s of Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford University.

murphyBri­an Mur­phy, Pres­i­dent of De Anza Col­lege, has led De Anza Col­lege since 2004 with a key focus on the prepa­ra­tion of stu­dents to be active, involved cit­i­zens com­mit­ted to trans­form­ing their com­mu­ni­ties. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Pres­i­dent Mur­phy served for 12 years as exec­u­tive direc­tor of the San Fran­cis­co Urban Insti­tute at San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty, and was chief con­sul­tant to the Cal­i­for­nia State Legislature’s reviews of the Mas­ter Plan for High­er Edu­ca­tion and the com­mu­ni­ty col­lege reform process in the late 1980s. He has taught polit­i­cal the­o­ry and Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Cruz, San­ta Clara Uni­ver­si­ty and San Fran­cis­co State University.

jenningsCharles Jen­nings, Direc­tor of the McGov­ern Insti­tute Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram, MIT, became an edi­tor with the sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Nature fol­low­ing post­doc­tor­al stud­ies in devel­op­men­tal biol­o­gy at Har­vard and MIT. He was the found­ing edi­tor of Nature Neu­ro­science, wide­ly con­sid­ered a lead­ing jour­nal in its field. More recent­ly, he was the first exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Har­vard Stem Cell Insti­tute, and he con­tin­ues to serve as an advi­sor to the Con­necti­cut Stem Cell Research Program.

house_for-webChuck House, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Stan­ford Media X, leads Stan­ford University’s Indus­try Affil­i­ate research pro­gram on media and tech­nol­o­gy, and is a senior research schol­ar in the Human Sci­ences and Tech­nol­o­gy Advanced Research divi­sion at Stan­ford. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he was the direc­tor of Soci­etal Impact of Tech­nol­o­gy for Intel Cor­po­ra­tion, and the first Direc­tor of Intel’s Vir­tu­al Research Col­lab­o­ra­to­ry. He recent­ly co-authored The HP Phe­nom­e­non: Inno­va­tion and Busi­ness Trans­for­ma­tion (Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Octo­ber 2009).

colinmilnerCol­in Mil­ner, Founder and CEO of the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil on Active Aging (ICAA), is one of the world’s vision­ar­ies on the health and well-being of the old­er adult. Mil­ner is a mem­ber of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, the active-aging spokesper­son for the Cana­di­an Asso­ci­a­tion of Fit­ness Pro­fes­sion­als, and the res­i­dent indus­try expert on aging for the Inter­na­tion­al Health, Rac­quet and Sports­club Asso­ci­a­tion. An award-win­ning writer, Mil­ner has authored more than 200 arti­cles on aging-relat­ed issues.

elizabeth_edgerly-head-shot-1Eliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Nation­al Spokesper­son for Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion “Main­tain Your Brain”, is the Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion and nation­al spokesper­son for the Association’s Main­tain Your Brain pro­gram. She over­sees the many pro­grams of the Asso­ci­a­tion for patients, fam­i­lies and health care pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion, she staffs the Med­ical Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Coun­cil of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion – North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She received her Ph.D. in clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy at the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York and spe­cial­ized in geropsy­chol­o­gy and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy. Dr. Edger­ly joined the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion after com­plet­ing a fel­low­ship in clin­i­cal geropsy­chol­o­gy at the Palo Alto VA Hos­pi­tal. [Read more…] about Meet the 16 Judges of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards

Corporate Wellness Programs start to include Brain Health

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Brain-fit­ness games join work­place, as well as senior cen­ter, arse­nals (Mar­ket­Watch)

- “Con­sumers and retire­ment homes have made brain-fit­ness games and exer­cis­es a com­mer­cial hit, but now some insur­ers and employ­ers are incor­po­rat­ing them into well­ness pro­grams that pro­mote health not just for the body but also for the mind.”

- “Improv­ing brain health can result in less pre­sen­teeism, the ten­den­cy to be at work but be dis­tract­ed and not able to focus,” he added. “If you look at dis­abil­i­ty costs, absen­teeism and pre­sen­teeism account for most of the med­ical costs, and that’s a good rea­son for employ­ers to be focused on brain health.” (accord­ing to Dr. Eugene Bak­er, vice pres­i­dent at OptumHealth’s Behav­ioral Solu­tions division)”

The arti­cle reviews inno­v­a­tive prac­tices at OptumHealth, Nation­wide Auto Insur­ance Com­pa­ny, Humana, Penn Treaty Amer­i­can Corp, All­state, and the US Army. I am glad to see the media start to notice the impor­tance of cog­ni­tive assess­ments and the grow­ing activ­i­ty by insur­ers. [Read more…] about Cor­po­rate Well­ness Pro­grams start to include Brain Health

Stanford and Max Planck on Mental Fitness

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Stan­ford Issues Find­ings from Cog­ni­tive and Brain Experts Urg­ing Con­sumer Cau­tion on Mem­o­ry Fit­ness Prod­ucts (press release)

- “Fear of mem­o­ry loss, men­tal impair­ment and Alzheimer’s dis­ease lead many con­sumers to search for prod­ucts — from sup­ple­ments to soft­ware — that claim to ward off such ail­ments,” Lau­ra L. Carstensen, found­ing direc­tor of the Stan­ford Cen­ter on Longevi­ty, said. “Such prod­ucts are becom­ing more pro­lif­ic, but this bur­geon­ing indus­try is com­plete­ly unreg­u­lat­ed and the claims can range from rea­son­able though untest­ed, to bla­tant­ly false. It is impor­tant for con­sumers to pro­ceed with cau­tion before buy­ing into many of these prod­uct claims. There is no mag­ic bul­let solu­tion for cog­ni­tive decline.”

- The Sum­mit’s (Note: held in April 2008) state­ment points out that “it would be wrong to con­clude that noth­ing can be done to improve men­tal fit­ness.” But goes on to “strong­ly encour­age research that com­pares the effi­ca­cy and the cost-effec­tive­ness of dif­fer­ent approach­es to main­tain­ing cog­ni­tive fitness.”