PROTOCOL FOR A BRAIN TRAINING PROGRAM

Disclaimer: The information contained in this protocol is not

intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical

advice, it is provided for educational purposes only. Nothing

contained in this procedure is intended to be used for medical

diagnosis or treatment. I do not endorse any product or

company, and expressly disclaims liability for any product,

manufacturer, distributor, service or service provider

mentioned.

Acknowledgements: This workshop is based on The

SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness written by Alvaro Fernandez,

Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg and Pascale Michelon PhD, Soft-Wired

written by Dr. Michael Merzenich PhD, and BrainHQ by Posit

Science. This presentation is my interpretation of these three

sources and it is not sponsor by SharpBrains, Dr. Michael

Merzenich, and BrainHQ by Posit Science.

Disclosure: At present I am cooperating with BrainHQ as bhq

admin. I had a royalty from the sales of Como invertir en su

cerebro. The royalty expired 12/31/15.

Part I. An Analogy. The Earth, the Brain and Vacation Traveling

Vacation Traveling

Part I (cont.)The Neuron the Brain’s Basic unit

Part I (cont.)Connectomes

Part IIBasic Terms

Cognitive Abilities (or Brain functions), Neuroplasticity, Neurogenesis, Neuroimaging, Cognitive Reserve (or Brain Reserve), and the Scientific

Method.

Part IIBasic Terms

Cognitive Abilities (or Brain functions): Brain-based skills we need to carry out any task. They have more to do with the mechanisms of how we learn, remember, and pay attention rather

than with any actual knowledge.

Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to reorganize itself throughout life.

Neurogenesis: The process by which neurons continue to develop throughout our lives.

Part II (cont.)Basic Terms

Neuroimaging: Techniques that either directly or indirectly image the structure, function, or physiology of the brain. Recent techniques (such as fMRI) have enabled researchers to understand better the living human brain.

Cognitive Reserve (or Brain Reserve): Theory that addresses the fact that individuals vary considerably in the

severity of cognitive aging and clinical dementia. Mental stimulation, education and occupational level are believed

to be major active components of building a cognitive reserve that can help resist the effects of brain disease on

cognition.

Part II (cont.)Basic Terms

The Scientific Method

This method is the instrument that scientists have to test their assumptions. These postulations come from the observation of a particular phenomenon. Based on these suppositions the scientist

formulates a hypothesis. Next designs a group of experiments to proof that hypothesis. After submitting the results of the experiments to statistical analysis the scientist might reach the

conclusion that the hypothesis was correct or incorrect. But from the beginning the scientist has to accept that the hypothesis is falsifiable. In other words that the hypothesis could be wrong and that

some other scientist could proof it incorrect. Otherwise is not science. It’s dogma.

Part III

Why brain fitness matters

Part IIIWhy brain fitness matters

Part IV

The 4 Pillars of Brain Maintenance

Part IVThe 4 Pillars of Brain

Maintenance

Old tools build this marvel

Part IV The Four Pillars of Brain Maintenance

We need new implements to develop our brain

Part IVThe 4 Pillars of Brain

Maintenance

Physical Exercise.

Nutrition.

Stress Management: exercise, relax, socialize, empower, and biofeedback.

Metal stimulation: building a Brain Cognitive Reserve. Brain training exercises

with novelty, variety, and challenge.

Part V

Cognitive Biases and Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

Part VCognitive Biases and

Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

The Exposure effect: This is the tendency to like things merely because they are familiar. For instance, having heard for

decades that crossword puzzles or blueberries are the most important things to promote brain health may make them seem more convincing than they are. It

can perhaps be explained by the fact that it takes less work for our brains to process

things that are familiar.

Part V (cont.)Cognitive Biases and Randomized Control

Trial (RCT)Confirmation bias: This is the tendency to favor information that

confirms one's preconceptions, beliefs, or hypotheses. For instance, having always believed that videogames are responsible for violent behaviors may lead a person to generally only notice, and therefore remember, news reports suggesting that videogames are bad for the brain. A more subtle example that we have witnessed often: A person reads a book not to figure out what else he or she could be doing but

simply to find reinforcement for whatever it is that person already believes and does, while ignoring the rest.

Part V (cont.)Cognitive Biases and

Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

Recency bias: This is the tendency to overvalue and remember more vividly

information that was encountered more recently. For instance, having read a news

story yesterday may lead you to lend it more credence than the one you read last

week – even if it was actually of worse quality. Imagine the combined impact of this natural bias with the barrage of daily

news about brain health.

Part V (cont.)Cognitive Biases and

Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT): A research study in which participants

are randomly assigned to a test and a control/placebo groups. A RCT provides the most compelling

evidence that the treatment or intervention tested has a causal effect

on human health or behavior.

Part VIComputerized Brain Training Programs

Part VI (cont.)Computerized Brain Training Programs

Definition

“We define brain training software as fully-automated applications designed to assess and enhance cognitive abilities. Adaptive software-based programs present the user with various tools to exercise different brain structures and cognitive skills by continually

responding to performance and increasing difficulty level incrementally.” [1]

So far there is no magic pill

Part VIISHARPBRAINS’ CHECKLIST FOR EVALUATING BRAIN FITNESS CLAIMS

1. Are there credible, university-based scientists (ideally neuropsychologists or cognitive neuroscientists) in the company’s scientific advisory board?

2. Are there peer-reviewed, scientific papers that have been published in mainstream scientific and professional journals that analyze the effects of the specific product? How many? With what population of users?

3. Does the program tell me which specific brain function(s) I am exercising? What are the specific benefits claimed for using this program?

4. Is there an independent assessment to measure my progress?

5. Is it a structured program with guidance on how many hours per week and days per week to use it?

6. Do the exercises vary and teach me something new?

7. Does the program challenge and motivate me, or does it feel like it would become easy once I learned it?

8. Does the program fit my personal goals?

9. Does the program fit my lifestyle?

10. Am I ready and willing to do the program, or would it be too stressful?

Part VIIIIt’s vacation time

Let’s visit the six continents

• Attention

• Brain Speed

• Memory

• People Skills

• Intelligence

• Navigation

ATTENTION

The act or power of carefully thinking about, listening to, or watching someone or something. Notice, interest, or awareness.

Double Decision

Double Decision uses a uniquely proven technology to extend useful field of view. This technology, called UFOV®, has been

used in numerous studies (including the ACTIVE study), where it has usually

been referred to as “speed training.” These studies show many benefits to

training with UFOV, including faster visual processing, an expanded useful field of

view, safer driving, and much more.

Target Tracker

Target Tracker is designed to challenge your brain to build

divided attention by requiring you to track several items moving

around your screen at the same time.

Divided Attention

Divided Attention challenges your brain to focus in on and react to particular

details—matching colors, shapes, and/or fill patterns—while at the same time dismissing competing information. It

repeatedly shows two shapes on screen, asking you to press the left arrow key

when the two meet certain criteria. For example, it might ask you to press the left arrow key when the two shapes are the

same color, but the right arrow key when they aren’t.

Mixed Signals

• Mixed Signals challenges your brain to home in on certain information, while ignoring competing information. It does so by requiring you to listen to a number, letter, color, or other piece of information while looking at a set of numbers, symbols, letters, words, or other information. If what you hear matches what you see in a particular way, you hit the space bar. If not, you don’t. For example, you might see “aaiaa” on screen, and be required to hit the space bar if what you hear matches the middle letter, in this case, “i.” If you hear “a” or another letter, you don’t hit the space bar. This type of training, where what you see and hear sometimes compete and you must control your attention very quickly, is called a Stroop task.

Freeze Frame targets both tonic and phasic alertness. It requires the brain to maintain a “relaxed and ready” state of alertness over increasingly longer delay periods. In the

exercise, your brain is required to discriminate between target images and distractor images. When you see a distractor—something that is not the target—you press the space

bar. When you see a target, you have to “freeze,” or prevent yourself from pressing the space bar.

Examples Freeze Frame

BRAIN SPEED

The rate at which a human can take in a bit of new information, reach some judgment on it and then formulate a response.

Hawk Eye challenges your visual precision by asking you to locate specific birds in your peripheral vision, even when they appear on screen for a very short time. At first, the birds are fairly distinct, appear close together, and

are presented on a simple background.

Examples Hawk Eye

Visual Sweeps

Visual Sweeps. You watch two spatial frequency sweeps (movements of bars) and determine whether each one swept

inward or outward. It might not be obvious, but when broken down to its

most basic parts, everything in our visual world is constructed of the basic visual

information—color, luminance, orientation, spatial frequency—contained in these sweeps. If we can help our brains effortlessly identify these sweeps at very rapid speeds, we’ll improve visual acuity

overall.

Sound Sweeps

Sound Sweeps. You have to listen to frequency sweeps—sounds

that begin low and rise upward or begin high and fall downward—and identify whether they go up

(“weep”) or down (“woop”).

Eye for Detail

Eye for Detail is designed to exercise your ability to make saccades quickly, and to

notice subtle details with each one. In Eye for Detail, a series of 3 to 5 images briefly appear one at a time in different positions

on the screen. Of the pictures, some match precisely, while others are similar but not the same. Your job is to identify where the identical images appeared. As you improve, the images flash by more

quickly.

Fine Tuning

Fine Tuning. The goal of Fine Tuning is to give your neurons exercise turning on and off at

appropriate times, so they can clearly perceive, transmit, and

represent each consonant sound when they are used in

combination with a vowel sound.

MEMORY

The process in which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.

To-Do List Training

To-Do List Training. In To-Do List Training, your brain hears a set of

instructions, then uses its memory of those instructions to

follow them in order. The instructions get longer and more

complex over time at the task, making greater demands of your

working memory systems.

Memory Grid

Memory Grid. In Memory Grid your job is to match cards representing

syllables together. But why, you might wonder, did our scientists pick those

particular syllables to match? And why do they sound a little unusual?

It’s because Memory Grid doesn’t just challenge your brain to match more

and more syllables. It is also designed to target memory by sharpening

auditory processing.

Scene Crasher

Scene Crasher is designed to challenge your ability to hold the details of a scene

in your working memory. In scientific terms, it’s a “delayed-recognition span”

exercise. In the exercise, you’ll see several items (such as sheep or keys) flash on

screen. After they disappear, they reappear—but with one additional item. Your task is to remember the scene from the first flash well enough to spot what

changed when it reappears.

Rhythm Recall

Rhythm Recall. In the exercise, you hear a brief melody. You also see a

representation of the timing of the notes. Then you are challenged to repeat the

timing sequence by pressing your keyboard buttons. (Although you hear a

melody it isn’t a factor in the task; it’s the rhythm of the notes you are asked to

repeat.) Responding correctly requires that your brain translate what you hear

and see into a clear mental model, then in turn translate that into precise action.

Syllable Stacks

Syllable Stacks is a “serial memory-span” exercise. It sharpens working memory by

requiring the brain to remember more and more pieces of information, even as those pieces of information get more similar (so

easier for your brain to confuse). In Syllable Stacks, you listen to a series of

syllables and then repeat them in order. The exercise changes in these ways over time to add an extra challenge for your

brain.

Hear, Hear

Hear, Hear. In Hear, Hear you are asked to remember

a target sound and determine whether a set of

similar sounds presented contain the target.

Mind's Eye. In Mind’s Eye, you are asked to remember a target image and determine whether a set of similar images presented

contain the target image.

Examples Mind's Eye

PEOPLE SKILLS

According to the Portland Business Journal, people skills are described as: understanding ourselves and moderating our responses. Talking effectively and empathizing accurately. Building relationships of trust, respect and productive

interactions.

Recognition

Recognition. To recognize faces, the brain follows a visual stream. It starts with basic visual information (which you can exercise

in many of our other exercises, such as Visual Sweeps). It ends in the “fusiform face area,” a part of the brain that many scientists believe is dedicated to facial recognition. Recognition is designed to

exercise the fusiform face area. It does so by quickly showing a face, then asking you to identify who you saw from a selection

of faces.

In the Know

In the Know exercises your memory for auditory details like these. It builds on other BrainHQ listening exercises such

as Memory Grid, Syllable Stacks, and To-Do List Training by extending memory demands to the common, real-world

scenario of the complex conversational narrative. The listener must sharply focus on increasingly more difficult and elusive

details of longer and longer narratives, and record them accurately in memory across

relatively long spans of time.

Face to Face

Face to Face. In Face to Face, a face shows briefly on screen. You decide what expression you think it shows.

Then you see a set of faces and choose the one showing the same

expression as the first face you saw. For instance, if you think the first person looked angry, you find the

person who looks angry in the second set and choose him or her.

Face Facts

Face Facts is designed to challenge your ability to remember names,

faces, and facts about other people. The exercise gets harder in two ways:

As you improve, the number of people you are introduced to

increases. In later levels, the names and facts are more similar, making it

harder to keep them straight.

INTELLIGENCE

Intelligence has been defined in many different ways including one's capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotional knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem

solving.

Card Shark

Card Shark. In the Card Shark exercise, you will be presented with playing cards that are added one at a time to a sequence. Once presented, the card is turned over. Your task is to decide if the current card matches the card presented a specific

number of steps back in the sequence. For example, in the first level,

you will decide if the current card matches the one presented just before it. In later levels, you will decide if the current card

matches one presented further back in the sequence.

Juggle Factor

Juggle Factor. In Juggle Factor, you are presented with a sequence of numbers

that are placed within moving circles. Your task is to reconstruct the sequence in the right order and in the right locations. The

number of items in the sequence grows as you improve at the task. As you progress

through training, the moving object trajectories become more complex and

the speed increases.

Auditory Ace

Auditory Ace. In Auditory Ace you will be presented with auditory information about

playing cards. The information is presented one card at a time. Your task is to decide if the current card information matches the card information presented a specific number of

steps back in the sequence. For example, in the first level you will decide if the current card information matches the card information

presented just before it. In later levels you will decide if the current card information matches the information presented further back in the

sequence.

Mind Bender. In the exercise you’ll be presented with two rules. For example, the rule might be “If you see two digits, select the higher number. If you see two number words, select the lower

number.” You will then see two digits (such as “6” and “10”) or two number words (such as “seven” and “one”). As quickly as possible, you must choose the correct answer based on the rules. After you

make your selection or after the response window lapses, you will see another pair of digits or number words.

Mind Bender Samples mind bending rules

NAVIGATION

The process or activity of accurately ascertaining one's position and planning and following a route.

Right Turn

Right Turn. In the exercise, two images are placed side by side. One of the images is rotated relative to

the other. Your task is to decide if the images are the same or if they are mirror images of each other. This

requires you to rotate the images in your mind so you can quickly

compare them to one another and make a decision.

True North

True North is a brain training exercise that helps you practice holding this kind of information in your head as you follow increasingly complex instructions while simultaneously keeping track of ever-

changing cardinal directions. This kind of mental mapping is not just useful when you are literally following directions and trying to get from point A to point B. It

also helps improve your memory for multi-tasking and can boost your short-term

memory skills in other situations.

Mental Map

Mental Map. In Mental Map you have to remember the relative location of objects in a grid and then reconstruct the grid from

memory after it has been rotated, flipped, or translated (moved up,

down, right, or left).

Optic Flow

Optic Flow requires you to make rapid visual discriminations in the center of your gaze while

staying alert to potential hazards in the periphery. The task takes place in different

navigation conditions including simulations of rain, fog, and night. In Optic Flow, you'll see a target shape on a sign. Vehicles and various roadside objects will approach at different

speeds, and your task is to select the one with the shape that matches the target. At any point

a hazard (tires, armadillos, birds, etc.) might enter the scene and you will need to click the

spacebar if it is on a path to hit your vehicle. As you identify the correct shape and avoid

hazards, the action will move faster and faster.

Credits

• File: Nicolas P. Rougier's rendering of the human brain.png. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: The Earth seen from Apollo 17. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: Human Brain Lateral view. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: Complete neuron cell diagram en.svg. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: Connectome.jpg. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

• File:The Human Connectome.png. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

• File: Budapest Reference Connectome.png. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: SharpBrains.com Trajectoria Salud Cerebral_web

• File: Cave 3 is the largest and the most well-maintained cave out of the four rock-cut caves in Badami, Karnataka, India. This cave is dedicated to God Vishnu. This is a view of the "Verandah". Sandip Dey, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: Software-tools.jpg Created: 22 March 2016. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

Credits (cont.)

• File: Brain Fitness by Jeremy McCarthy on April 25, 2011 in- See more at: http://psychologyofwellbeing.com/201104/exercise-and-the-brain.html/brain-fitness#sthash.hqu1bcuC.dpuf

• File: This image is a work of an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

• File: Wiki Wordplay solution.png. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: Wii Games Summer 2010 - Mario's Kid Zone (4975313325).jpg. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• File: Most recent and most controversial land speculation in Hawaii centers on this area near Kamuela - NARA - 554169.jpg Wikimedia Commons

• File: The art of life is the perspective we need to see beauty, our focus shall always be on the side of the explorer! Enjoy the discoveries ahead! ) (4731493155).jpg. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

• [1] http://sharpbrains.com/resources/3-brain-training-vs-mental-activity/brief-history-of-brain-training-soft ware/

• File: Randomized control trial of reading program. JPG From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

• File: Little girl with dog Wellcome L0041340.jpg. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

• File: All visual aids, pictures, images and explanations of Computerized Brain Training Programs are from BrainHQ Posit Science.