200 Experts to Discuss and Shape the Future of Brain Health, Gathered Around a Virtual Table

Speakers @ 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit

“It is exciting to imagine the possibilities at the intersection of digital health and neuroplasticity,” says Alvaro Fernandez, Summit’s producer. “We are proud to offer this unique virtual and global forum to help the field move forward"

Washington, DC (PRWEB) October 27, 2014

The 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tual Sum­mit will fea­ture over 40 of the world’s top sci­en­tists and inno­va­tors work­ing on ways to enhance brain fitness via neuroscience-based inno­va­tion.

Indi­vid­u­als and insti­tu­tions world­wide are expected to spend over $1.3 bil­lion in 2014 in web-based, mobile and biometrics-based solu­tions to assess and enhance brain func­tion. Growth is poised to con­tinue, fueled by major gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives such as the White House BRAIN ini­tia­tive, emerg­ing mobile and non-invasive neu­rotech­nolo­gies, and by con­sumer and patient demands for self-driven, proac­tive brain care. For exam­ple, 83% of sur­veyed early-adopters agree that “adults of all ages should take charge of their own brain fit­ness, with­out wait­ing for their doc­tors to tell them to” and “would per­son­ally take a brief assess­ment every year as an annual men­tal check-up.”

How are inno­va­tors in sci­ence, indus­try and prac­tice har­ness­ing the oppor­tu­nity at hand and shap­ing the future of brain fit­ness for max­i­mum social ben­e­fit?

“It is exciting to imagine the possibilities at the intersection of brain health, digital health, and neuroplasticity,” says Alvaro Fernandez, CEO of SharpBrains and Summit’s producer. “We are proud to offer this unique virtual and global forum to help the field move forward.”

A few exam­ples of the rich dis­cus­sions to take place at the SharpBrains Sum­mit:

• A Call to Action: Improv­ing brain & men­tal health via dig­i­tal plat­forms, neu­ro­plas­tic­ity research and the White House BRAIN initiative
• Har­ness­ing big data and videogames to deliver per­son­al­ized cog­ni­tive training
• Scal­ing up med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness via well­ness pro­grams and biofeed­back sensors
• Max­i­miz­ing the peak per­for­mance of astro­nauts, leaders…and every­one else
• Best prac­tices to assess and enhance brain func­tion via mobile devices and wearables
• Inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships to improve life­long brain health and customer/ patient satisfaction
• How can front-line pro­fes­sion­als incor­po­rate the emerg­ing brain health toolkit to their practices?
• What’s next: The future of non-invasive neurotechnology

The Speaker Roster includes:

• 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
• Rajiv Pant, Chief Tech­nol­ogy Offi­cer of The New York Times
• Dr. Susan Jew­ell, Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tional Space Med­i­cine Consortium
• Dr. Michael Weiner, Lead Sci­en­tific Inves­ti­ga­tor of the Brain Health Registry
• Dr. Joe Hardy, ‎VP of R&D at Lumos Labs
• Zack Lynch, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Neu­rotech­nol­ogy Indus­try Organization
• Bill Pren­ovitz, Global Prod­uct and Ser­vice Man­age­ment at Philips Healthcare’s Aging-in-Place Program
• Ariel Garten, CEO of InteraXon
• Dr. Cather­ine Madi­son, Direc­tor of the Ray Dolby Brain Health Cen­ter at Cal­i­for­nia Pacific Med­ical Center
• Eliz­a­beth Frates, Direc­tor of Med­ical Stu­dent Edu­ca­tion at the Insti­tute of Lifestyle Medicine
• Bar­bara Van Amburg, Chief Nurs­ing Offi­cer at Kaiser Per­ma­nente Red­wood City
• Kate Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter at Wal­ter Reed National Mil­i­tary Med­ical Center
• Dr. Michael O’Donnell, Editor-In-Chief of the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Health Promotion
• Dr. Dou­glass Ziedo­nis, Pro­fes­sor and Chair of the Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try at UMass Med­ical School
• Dr. Robert Bilder, Chief of Med­ical Psychology-Neuropsychology at UCLA Semel Insti­tute for Neuroscience
• Dr. Bruce Cuth­bert, Direc­tor of Adult Trans­la­tional Research and Treat­ment Devel­op­ment at the NIMH

Summit Sponsors include The About My Brain Institute, The Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion (ARPF), The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, Baycrest, Dig­i­tal Arte­facts, HeartMath, Peak, Rosetta Stone, and Sleep Genius.

To Learn More about the Summit Agenda: http://sharpbrains.com/summit-2014/agenda/

About SharpBrains:

Sharp­Brains is an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm tracking health and well-being applications of brain science, with special emphasis on non-invasive neurotechnology and the growing needs of an aging population. The company maintains a biannual state-of-the market report series, produces an annual global and virtual professional conference, and maintains a consumer-facing guide, The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness. SharpBrains.com, the company's edu­ca­tional blog, is one of the most pop­u­lar brain & innovation blogs. To learn more about SharpBrains' work, visit http://sharpbrains.com/