What Summit Speakers and Participants Say About Brain Check-ups, Cognitive Wellness, and More

On September 19-20th, 2013, over 30+ speakers at the frontier of Brain, Health and Innovation will engage with over 200 professionals in North America and abroad. You can check out the quite amazing Speaker Bios and Summit Agenda. Also, as part of SharpBrains’ new interview series, here’s what several Summit Speakers and Participants have to say about the opportunities and challenges at hand:

Cori Lathan: It’s time for an annual brain check-up, a “brain thermometer”

Q: Where do you see clear “low-hanging fruit” to enhance behav­ioral and brain health based on neu­ro­science and inno­va­tion?
A: An annual brain check-up or “brain ther­mome­ter” that tracks cog­ni­tive health the way we cur­rently track many other health indi­ca­tions like weight and blood pressure.

Robert Bilder: We are embarking on the next stage of human evolution

Q: Please tell us about your inter­est in applied brain sci­ence. What areas are you most inter­ested in? What moti­vated you to pur­sue work in your field? 
A: I’m a clin­i­cal neuropsychologist inter­ested in under­stand­ing how we can deploy new neu­ro­science knowl­edge to change our brains. I believe we are embark­ing on the next stage of human evo­lu­tion!

Dharma Singh Khalsa: Why are yoga and meditation often overlooked for healthy brain aging?

Q: What are 1–2 key things you’d like every per­son to under­stand regard­ing his/ her own brain and mind, that you think is com­monly mis­rep­re­sented or not addressed in the pop­u­lar media? 
A: …Yoga and Med­i­ta­tion are under­ap­pre­ci­ated as a way to keep your brain sharp with age. They belong in the con­ver­sa­tion with diet, exer­cise and so on. It has been revealed that med­i­ta­tion not only has mul­ti­ple pos­i­tive effects on your brain and help reverse mem­ory loss but is also the fastest and deep­est way to cre­ate psy­cho­log­i­cal and spir­i­tual well-being, a crit­i­cally impor­tant fea­ture of healthy brain aging. It’s easy and more peo­ple must seek it out.

Stephanie Korszen: Let’s improve mental self-awareness, starting with the role of fatigue

Q: Where do you see clear “low-hanging fruit” to enhance behav­ioral and brain health based on neu­ro­science and inno­va­tion?
A: I’d say that the “low-hanging fruit” is more self-awareness regard­ing per­sonal brain health and men­tal acu­ity.  I see future poten­tial for more objec­tive mea­sures and use­ful, unob­tru­sive neurofeedback.

Sherrie All: A neuropsychologist shaping the future of cognitive wellness

Q: What would you like the 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit to accom­plish?
A: Con­tinue to inspire and help con­nect like-minded peo­ple with one another in a fun and time-efficient way to help advance the field of brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive wellness.

John Todor: To reach brain potential, we need less individual “improv”

Q: Please tell us about your inter­est in applied brain sci­ence. What areas are you most inter­ested in? What moti­vated you to pur­sue work in your field?
A: …my expe­ri­ence with middle-aged and older exec­u­tives indi­cate that new dis­cov­er­ies are not enough. We need to develop effec­tive method­olo­gies for wide­spread adop­tion of pos­i­tive lifestyles. We are now in a state of “improv” mostly at an indi­vid­ual level. This is a huge prob­lem in a world with an aging pop­u­la­tion and fast-changing dynam­ics where well-being depends on enhanced adap­tive potential.

—These con­ver­sa­tions are part of a new inter­view series with Speak­ers and Par­tic­i­pants in the upcom­ing 2013 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit (Sep­tem­ber 19-20th).  Please join us! You can reg­is­ter with a 20% dis­count using pro­mo­tional code: sharp2020