Recently Alvaro Fernandez of SharpBrains interviewed Dr. Michael Merzenich about his thoughts on a variety of topics, from safe driving to personal brain trainers to lifelong cognitive vitality. They also discussed Dr. Merzenich’s vision of a future filled with personal brain trainers and and improved cognitive assessments. You can read the full article (and a plethora of other interesting brain fitness content) on the SharpBrains website.

We mentioned in a previous post that SharpBrains is hosting a 2-day virtual summit about brain fitness, featuring Mike Merzenich and Steven Aldrich, plus the voices of collaborators, competitors, and many others who are making key progress in the field of brain fitness.  The summit will be Monday January 18th and Tuesday January 19th. We will be liveblogging most of the SharpBrains Summit sessions on Monday and Tuesday. Follow us on Twitter or become a Facebook fan for updates about the liveblogging, or check this site on Monday and Tuesday!

Although there have been numerous small studies investigating the effects of Ginkgo Biloba on memory, they have generally have been small and followed participants for short periods of time. The results have been inconsistent and overall inconclusive. The GEM (Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory) study was set up to address these  inconsistent results. GEM is a large randomized controlled double-blind study. This type of study is regarded as the gold standard of scientific investigation.

The study followed 3069 participants aged between 72 and 96 over a 6 year period. Half the participants took a twice-daily 120 mg dose of Ginkgo Biloba and the other half took placebo pills. The results were published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) [1]. The study found no difference in the rates of cognitive decline between the placebo and treatment groups. There was no evidence that Ginkgo Biloba had any impact on cognitive performance including memory.

Continue reading "Does Ginkgo Biloba Improve Memory?" »

If you ever get a chance to talk to Dr. Mike Merzenich, be assured he’ll fill you with a missionary’s zeal for brain fitness.  You’ll leave the conversation wondering why everyone isn’t taking advantage of their brains’ natural abilities to improve.  However, we know good habits aren’t embraced by our society overnight.  It’s taken decades to get people talking about and taking action for things like physical fitness and smoking cessation.

I’m excited that we might be moving more swiftly in that direction on brain health.  On January 3, New York Times editor Barbara Strauch published this article on how to train the aging brain.  The point I want to make is not about the article itself but rather this:  for days, it has been among the top emailed stories from the Times.  Given everything that’s happening in our world, people are taking time to email each other a story about brain health!  That’s exactly the kind of engagement we need to make brain training more… top of mind.

In most of the roles I’ve held over the past 15 years a key outcome was to create a growth business. It didn’t matter whether the effort was a start-up, creating a new product, an acquisition, or a partnership.  One of the hardest things to do in those roles was to take an idea and translate that idea into a fully formed business that made peoples’ lives better.

The work we’re doing at Posit Science has brought this to the forefront again. The scientific breakthrough of harnessing the power of the brain to improve performance is clear.  This is the invention.  Invention- the word invent comes from the Latin word inventus, in plus ventus, meaning to come upon or to encounter.  I think of an invention as a discovery or an idea that we dream up.

Continue reading "Turning Invention Into Innovation" »

Great news for tinnitus sufferers: today the New York Times reports that researchers in Germany have developed and tested a novel music therapy for ameliorating the symptoms of tinnitus, with promising results. The researchers’ work is based on behavioral training that aims to reorganize the auditory cortex- much as the Brain Fitness Program works.  Read the full story to learn more about how this novel music therapy for tinnitus.

Tinnitus is a disorder characterized by a persistent ringing (or, less frequently, other sounds like buzzing or hissing) in the ears. While the causes of tinnitus are not clearly understood and may be brought on by a variety of incidents, the condition often accompanies hearing loss and in some cases is attributed to prolonged exposure to loud noises. The American Tinnitus Association (ATA) estimates that 12 million Americans have tinnitus which is severe enough to seek medical attention, and that roughly 2 million people are so debiliatated by the condition that they cannot function at a normal level on a day-to-day basis.

Continue reading "Tinnitus, Music, and Brain Plasticity" »

Lately I’ve been really interested in the role of brain development and function in criminal behavior–both for “minor” crimes like drug possession and more serious felonies. It’s a controversial topic that has the potential to shake our judicial and prison systems to the core. If someone’s brain is  “wired” to believe a certain criminal activity is acceptable (or even imperative), or in a way that prevents them from understanding the consequences of their actions, how does that affect how we as a society judge them and mete out punishment to them?

We (thankfully) no longer label people with dyslexia as “stupid” because we know it’s not related to intelligence, and isn’t a matter of “not trying hard enough.” It’s an issue of brain (mis)wiring. Does the same apply to the criminal if we discover his or her criminal behavior arises from a cognitive dysfunction? Do we stop labeling certain criminals as “bad” or “evil,” and if so, what possible role can incarceration–rather than treatment–play in serving justice? I think these questions are particularly interesting for impulse (rather than premeditated) crimes.

Continue reading "Criminality, the Brain, and Brain Plasticity" »

Posit Science is taking a short break for the holidays- but we’ll be updating the blog in the New Year when we’re back from a much-needed rest. Our offices will be closed from December 24, 2009 to January 1, 2010. We’ll be back at work on the 4th of January at full speed ahead.

Of course, our wonderful Customer Delight team is going to soldier through the break, in case you have any technical or support-related questions. You can always access the online support forums at http://support.positscience.com/positscience 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of weekends and holidays. Phone support will be open and available except for December 25-27 and January 1-3.

Continue reading "Holiday Break + Customer Support " »

At the holidays, we like to get together as a company to play some games and share in some fun. Of course, learning to play new and challenging games can be good for your brain, so that was an added bonus of our billiards and foosball party. We thought it would be fun to share a few pictures of our staff celebrating! Enjoy and happy holidays to all!

Our fearless leader Steven with Michael from Sales

Continue reading "Posit Science Holiday Party – With Pictures!" »

I recently read an article in New Scientist about a study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers found that brain-injured mice developed lower levels of certain amino acids known as BCAAs within a few days of being injured. The low-BCAA mice were divided into 2 groups, with one group getting plain water and the other group getting BCAA-enriched water. The mice in the 2nd group were reported to have normalized BCAA levels and performed better on a learning task. The research dovetails with similar findings from scientists at the University of Pavia in Italy.

Continue reading "A New Link Between Proteins and Brain Injury" »

“No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another.” George Bernard Shaw said that, and as someone who aims to learn as many languages as one lifespan permits, I am delighted to report that the findings of cognitive and linguistic research have actually demonstrated au contraire.

Take this Dartmouth College study from way back in 2002 on bilingual children, which found that “if children are exposed to two languages from a very early age, they will essentially grow as if there were two mono-linguals housed in one brain….without any of the dreaded ‘language contamination’ often attributed to early bilingual exposure.”

But that’s only if someone is raised bilingual, right? It’s not as if mature adults can simply “grow” another linguistic framework in addition to the one they’ve had since childhood….right?

Continue reading "How the Brain Develops a Second Language " »