Torkel-Klingberg

Gaming and Neuroscience: Opportunities and Challenges

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A cou­ple weeks ago I attend­ed the Enter­tain­ment Soft­ware and Cog­ni­tive Neu­rother­a­peu­tics Con­fer­ence, ESCoNS, at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Fran­cis­co. The speak­ers’ talks were insight­ful, sur­pris­ing, and inspir­ing in many regards. The pur­pose of this meet­ing was to bring togeth­er great minds in a vari­ety of fields from neu­ro­science to game design and to come up with some ideas how to make game based cog­ni­tive train­ing a real­i­ty as an effec­tive ther­a­py for many of today’s most chal­leng­ing dis­or­ders and deficits. Many of the sci­en­tists also thought that game based ther­a­pies for cog­ni­tive deficits could be used as enhance­ment tools for healthy indi­vid­u­als as well. [Read more…] about Gam­ing and Neu­ro­science: Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Challenges

Study: Working memory training can improve fluid intelligence

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Very inter­est­ing new study on com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing (or brain train­ing), well sum­ma­rized in LA Times arti­cle Mem­o­ry train­ing improves intel­li­gence in some chil­dren, report says. Quote:

The train­ing pro­gram used by Jaeg­gi and co-work­ers focused on ramp­ing up work­ing mem­o­ry: the abil­i­ty to hold in mind a hand­ful of infor­ma­tion bits briefly, and to update them as need­ed. Cog­ni­tive sci­en­tists con­sid­er work­ing mem­o­ry a key com­po­nent of intel­li­gence. But they have [Read more…] about Study: Work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing can improve flu­id intelligence

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

Save the Date: SharpBrains Summit, Technology for Cognitive Health and Performance

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We are very excit­ed to announce the first Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence to take place Jan­u­ary 18–20th, 2010.  Over 30 lead­ing speak­ers and a pro­fes­sion­al audi­ence will dis­cuss emerg­ing inno­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy for life­long cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance. The Sum­mit will high­light the con­ver­gence of neu­rocog­ni­tive research, non-inva­sive tech­nol­o­gy and health­care, dis­cuss emerg­ing best prac­tices, and help pre­dict how a grow­ing range of tools may pro­vide solu­tions to cog­ni­tive health and per­for­mance-relat­ed issues.

sharpbrains_summit_logo_webYou can see speak­ers and agen­da by click­ing on Sharp­Brains Sum­mit. Please reg­is­ter if you are inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing: Jan­u­ary 18–20th 2010 (Pacif­ic Time).

  • Con­fer­ence: Jan­u­ary 18–19th. 9–10 pan­els to dis­cuss Mar­ket and Research Insights,  togeth­er with online discussions.
  • Expo Day: Jan­u­ary 20th. Prod­uct demos by Sponsors.

Con­firmed speak­ers and themes:

Monday, January 18th, 2010:

Cog­ni­tion and Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: The New Health­care Frontier

  • Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains
  • David White­house, Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solutions
  • William Reich­man, Pres­i­dent, Baycrest
  • P Murali Doraiswamy, Bio­log­i­cal Psy­chi­a­try Divi­sion Head, Duke University

Tools for Safer Dri­ving: Teenagers and Old­er Adults

  • Steven Aldrich, CEO, Posit Science
  • Peter Chris­tian­son, Pres­i­dent of Young Dri­vers of Canada
  • Jer­ri Edwards, Assoc. Pro­fes­sor Uni­ver­si­ty of South Florida

Clin­i­cal Appli­ca­tions: Research­ing, Iden­ti­fy­ing, Treat­ing Cog­ni­tive Deficits

  • Kei­th Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader, Unit­ed BioSource Corporation
  • Jonas Jen­di, CEO, Cogmed
  • Michel Noir, Pres­i­dent, Sci­en­tif­ic Brain Training
  • Elkhonon Gold­berg, Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor, SharpBrains

[Read more…] about Save the Date: Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, Tech­nol­o­gy for Cog­ni­tive Health and Performance

Preparing Society for the Cognitive Age (Frontiers in Neuroscience article)

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Frontiers in Neuroscience Augmenting Cognition(Edi­tor’s note: this arti­cle belongs to the excel­lent May 2009 spe­cial issue on Aug­ment­ing Cog­ni­tion at sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Fron­tiers in Neu­ro­science. The arti­cle, an indus­try overview, is repro­duced here with autho­riza­tion by the Fron­tiers Research Foun­da­tion)

Preparing Society for the Cognitive Age

By Alvaro Fernandez

Ground­break­ing cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science research has occurred over the last 20 years — with­out par­al­lel growth of con­sumer aware­ness and appro­pri­ate pro­fes­sion­al dis­sem­i­na­tion. “Cog­ni­tion” remains an elu­sive con­cept with unclear impli­ca­tions out­side the research community.

Ear­li­er this year, I pre­sent­ed a talk to health care pro­fes­sion­als at the New York Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine, titled “Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware: Help­ing Con­sumers Sep­a­rate Hope from Hype”. I explained what com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ment and train­ing tools can do (assess/enhance spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive func­tions), what they can­not do (reduce one’s “brain age”) and the cur­rent uncer­tain­ties about what they can do (i.e., delay Alzheimer’s symp­toms). At the same sym­po­sium, Dr. Gary Kennedy, Direc­tor of Geri­atric Psy­chi­a­try at Mon­te­fiore Med­ical Cen­ter, pro­vid­ed guid­ance on why and how to screen for exec­u­tive func­tion deficits in the con­text of dementia.

I could per­ceive two emerg­ing trends at the event: 1) “Aug­ment­ing Cog­ni­tion” research is most com­mon­ly framed as a health­care, often phar­ma­co­log­i­cal top­ic, with the tra­di­tion­al cog­ni­tive bias in med­i­cine of focus­ing on detec­tion and treat­ment of dis­ease, 2) In addi­tion, there is a grow­ing inter­est in non-inva­sive enhance­ment options and over­all lifestyle issues. Research find­ings in Aug­ment­ing Cog­ni­tion are only just begin­ning to reach the main­stream mar­ket­place, most­ly through health­care chan­nels. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is immense, but we will need to ensure the mar­ket­place matures in a ratio­nal and sus­tain­able man­ner, both through health­care and non-health­care channels.

In Jan­u­ary 2009, we polled the 21,000 sub­scribers of Sharp­Brains’ mar­ket research eNewslet­ter to iden­ti­fy atti­tudes and behav­iors towards the “brain fit­ness” field (a term we chose in 2006 based on a num­ber of con­sumer sur­veys and focus groups to con­nect with a wider audi­ence). Over 2,000 deci­sion-mak­ers and ear­ly adopters respond­ed to the survey.

One of the key ques­tions we asked was, “What is the most impor­tant prob­lem you see in the brain fit­ness field and how do you think it can be solved?”. Some exam­ples of the sur­vey free text answers are quot­ed here, togeth­er with my suggestions.

Most impor­tant prob­lems in the brain fit­ness field

Pub­lic aware­ness (39%): “To get peo­ple to under­stand that hered­i­ty alone does not decide brain func­tion­ing”. We need to ramp up efforts to build pub­lic aware­ness and enthu­si­asm about brain research, includ­ing estab­lish­ing clear links to dai­ly liv­ing. We can col­lab­o­rate with ini­tia­tives such as the Dana Foundation’s Brain Aware­ness Week and use the recent “Neu­ro­science Core Con­cepts” mate­ri­als devel­oped by the Soci­ety for Neu­ro­science to give talks at schools, libraries and workplaces.

Claims (21%): “The lack of stan­dards and clear def­i­n­i­tions is very con­fus­ing, and [Read more…] about Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age (Fron­tiers in Neu­ro­science article)

Distracted in the Workplace? Meet Maggie Jackson’s Book (Part 2 of 2)

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Today we con­tin­ue the con­ver­sa­tion with Mag­gie Jack­son, author of Dis­tract­ed: The Ero­sion of Atten­tion and the Com­ing Dark Age.

You can read part 1 here.

Q — In your Har­vard Man­age­ment Update inter­view, you said that “When what we pay atten­tion to is dri­ven by the last email we received, the triv­ial and the cru­cial occu­py the same plane.” As well, it seems to be that a prob­lem is our cul­ture’s over-ide­al­iza­tion of “always on” and “road war­rior” habits, which dis­tract from the impor­tance of exec­u­tive func­tions such as pay­ing atten­tion to one’s envi­ron­ment, set­ting up goals and plans, exe­cut­ing on them, mea­sur­ing results, and inter­nal­iz­ing learn­ing. How can com­pa­nies bet­ter equip their employ­ees for future suc­cess? Can you offer some exam­ples of com­pa­nies who have pos­i­tive cul­tures that encour­age and reward employ­ees ful­ly put their frontal lobes into good use?

A.  As I men­tioned above, we are work­ing and liv­ing in ways that under­mine our abil­i­ty to strate­gize, focus, reflect, inno­vate. Skim­ming, mul­ti­task­ing and speed all have a place in 21st-cen­tu­ry life. But we can’t let go of deep­er skills of focus and think­ing and relat­ing, or we’ll cre­ate a soci­ety of mis­un­der­stand­ing and shal­low thinking.

To cre­ate work­places that fos­ter strate­gic think­ing, deep social con­nec­tion and inno­va­tion, we need to take three steps:

First, ques­tion the val­ues that ven­er­ate McThink­ing and under­mine atten­tion. Recent­ly, my morn­ing paper car­ried a front-page sto­ry about efforts in an age of impa­tience to cre­ate a quick-boot com­put­er. It’s ridicu­lous to ask peo­ple to wait a cou­ple of min­utes to start up their com­put­er, explained one tech exec­u­tive. The first hand up in the class­room, the hyper busi­ness-man or woman who can’t sit still, much less lis­ten  these are icons of suc­cess in Amer­i­can soci­ety. Still, many of us are begin­ning to ques­tion our ado­ra­tion of instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion and hyper-mobility.

Sec­ond, we need to set the stage for focus indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly by rewrit­ing our cli­mate of dis­trac­tion and inat­ten­tion. To help, some com­pa­nies and busi­ness lead­ers are exper­i­ment­ing with white space the cre­ation of phys­i­cal spaces or times on the cal­en­dar for unin­ter­rupt­ed, unwired think­ing and [Read more…] about Dis­tract­ed in the Work­place? Meet Mag­gie Jackson’s Book (Part 2 of 2)