White House

A Call to Action: Improv­ing brain & men­tal health via dig­i­tal plat­forms, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity research and the White House BRAIN initiative

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Ses­sion held at the 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit, fea­tur­ing:

  • Dr. Thomas Insel, Direc­tor of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH)
  • Dr. Adam Gaz­za­ley, Direc­tor of UCSF Neu­ro­science Imag­ing Cen­ter and Co-founder of Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs
  • Dr. Daphne Bave­lier, Head of the Brain & Learn­ing Lab at the Uni­ver­sity of Gene­va & U. of Rochester
  • Jack Young, Head of Qual­comm Life Fund
  • Chair: Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO of SharpBrains

–> Click HERE to watch all sessions

Adam Gazzaley, Director of UCSF Neuroimaging Center & Akili co-founder, to speak at 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit

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adam gazzaleyHap­py to share that Adam Gaz­za­ley, Direc­tor of UCSF Neu­ro­science Imag­ing Cen­ter and Co-founder of Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs, will share his work and insights on Improv­ing brain & men­tal health via dig­i­tal plat­forms, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity research and the White House BRAIN ini­tia­tive, at the 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (Octo­ber 28–30th).

Dr. Gaz­za­ley is a fac­ulty mem­ber in the [Read more…] about Adam Gaz­za­ley, Direc­tor of UCSF Neu­roimag­ing Cen­ter & Akili co-founder, to speak at 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Summit

Next: Neurotechnologies to visualize (and why not enhance) brain circuits

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Cred­it: Vin­cent Pieri­bone, Ph.D., John B. Pierce Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Inc.

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Obama’s Brain Project Backs Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review):

“…The White House had com­mit­ted to spend­ing $100 mil­lion this year on the project, which seeks to devel­op new tech­nolo­gies for study­ing the brain. As part of that, today the U.S. Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health announced [Read more…] about Next: Neu­rotech­nolo­gies to visu­al­ize (and why not enhance) brain circuits

BRAIN Initiative: New call to action amidst growing skepticism

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humanconnectomeA White House Call To Action to Advance the BRAIN Ini­tia­tive (press release):

“Under this ini­tia­tive, Fed­er­al agen­cies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH), the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (NSF), and the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) are sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment and appli­ca­tion of inno­v­a­tive, new tech­nolo­gies that can cre­ate a dynam­ic under­stand­ing of brain func­tion and its rela­tion­ship to behav­ior [Read more…] about BRAIN Ini­tia­tive: New call to action amidst grow­ing skepticism

Update: A Fresh Look at Enhancing Brain & Mental Health Across the Lifespan

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kid brainTime for Sharp­Brains’ May 2013 e‑newsletter, which fea­tures a vari­ety of arti­cles offer­ing a more opti­mistic and evi­dence-based approach to brain and men­tal health than cur­rent practices.

First of all, let us high­light that Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can just pub­lished an excel­lent review of our new book. The author sums it up by say­ing that “…I wish I had read this awe­some guide when I was much younger…I find the emerg­ing field of neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty immense­ly excit­ing, and guides like this one are both hope­ful and rea­son­able.” As a read­er points out, the word “awe­some” does not appear often in sci­ence-ori­ent­ed publications…so we are espe­cial­ly proud to see the book mer­it such treatment.

New think­ing:

New sci­ence:

New tools:

That’s it for now. Have a stim­u­lat­ing June!

White House BRAIN Initiative should start with the end goal in mind

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human-brainWhite House BRAIN Ini­tia­tive is a nice start, but it’s too small and timid (Ven­ture Beat): “…it’s unlike­ly to move the nee­dle because, unlike pre­vi­ous nation­al projects, it lacks ade­quate fund­ing and action­able objec­tives that can cap­ture the imag­i­na­tion of inno­va­tors and the pub­lic at large…Is there an alter­na­tive approach? Yes. Start with the soci­etal goal in mind, and chart the most like­ly path to make a ground­break­ing dif­fer­ence there…Although the BRAIN Ini­tia­tive is often com­pared to the moon project, per­haps the bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ty would be for it to draw inspi­ra­tion from JFK’s fit­ness ini­tia­tive. In announc­ing that pro­gram, Pres­i­dent Kennedy said, “The strength of our democ­ra­cy and our coun­try is real­ly no greater in the final analy­sis than the well-being of our cit­i­zens.” Read full article