Four leading pioneers of applied neuroplasticity helped us navigate best practices to harness most promising non-invasive neurotechnologies, such as cognitive training, mindfulness apps, EEG and virtual/ augmented reality. --Chair: Linda Raines, CEO of the Mental Health Association of Maryland --Dr. Michael Merzenich, winner of the 2016 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience --Dr. Judson Brewer, Founder & Research Lead of Claritas Mindsciences --Tan Le, CEO of Emotiv --Dr. Andrea Serino, Head of Neuroscience at MindMaze Learn more at sharpbrains.com

1. Master the digital toolkit to harness
lifelong neuroplasticity

2. Sponsors
Welcome to Day 2!

3. Master the digital toolkit to harness lifelong neuroplasticity
Chaired by: Linda Raines,
Chief Executive Officer,
Mental Health Association of Maryland
Dr. Michael Merzenich,
2016 Recipient of
Kavli Prize in Neuroscience
Dr. Judson Brewer,
Founder & Research Lead,
Claritas Mindsciences
Tan Le,
Chief Executive Office,
Emotiv
Dr. Andrea Serino,
Head of Neuroscience,
MindMaze

4. Dr. Michael M. Merzenich
Professor Emeritus, UCSF
Co-Founder, Scientific Learning Corporation
Director, Brain Plasticity Institute
CSO, Posit Science Corporation

5. EVERY physical and functional index of
health was DEGRADED in old vs young.
vs
We compared 17
(later 8 other)
aspects of brain
function and health
in very old VS
prime-of-life rats
and humans
de Villers-Sidani et al., PNAS 2010 Mishra, de Villers-Sidani et al., J Neurosci 2014
vs

6. REVERSED (rejuvenated) by training
1. Local and long-range myelination
2. Response powers (discharge magnitudes)
3. Response coordination in local networks is
4. Parvalbumin and somatostatin neuron numbers, morphologies
5. Pyramidal cell dendrites; thalamocortical axonal input arbors
6. Neuromodulatory expression of DA, ACh, NE, SE.
7. High-speed successive-signal processing
8. Topographical order is restored.
9. Cortical mini-column and column sizes, boundaries
10.Excitatory and inhibitory receptor subunits
11.Response selectivity (RF sizes); feature extraction
12.BDNF expression
13.Cortical ‘noise’
14.Distractor suppression
15.Successive-signal adaptation
16.Blood-brain barrier integrity
17.reactive hyperemia are rejuvenated.
de Villers-Sidani et al, 2010, PNAS
107:13900; Zhou et al, 2011, J
Neurosci 31:5625;de Villers-Sidani
& Merzenich,Prog Brain Res
191:119; Mishra, Merzenich et al,
2014, ms in review; Lin, Zhou et al,
2016, PNAS

7. Degraded in aging.
Rejuvenated by training.
YOUNG
OLD
OLD,
TRAINED
parvalbumin
Inhibitory
neurons
YOUNG
B
D
response
correlation
neurovascular unit integrity
(“blood-brain barrier”)
E
myelin basic proteinA
OLD TRAINEDOLDYOUNG
Cpost-excitatory inhibition
OLD
OLD,
TRAINED

8. Note that:
1) These rejuvenating physical and functional neurological
changes are coordinated, in what we interpret to be a new
‘blastic’ (growth) phase induced by this training.
2) This broad-scale ‘reversal’ (‘rejuvenation’) is achieved by
applying relatively simple form of intensive behavioral training
that engage both ’bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ brain-system
processes.
3) There is substantial generalization beyond directly trained
sensory-perceptual systems, for at least some aspects of these
physical and functional changes.
4) Although studies are less complete, we record at least many of
these changes after training animals that had a grossly
degraded and delayed ‘childhood development’.

9. You train it.
Nota bene: Of course neurological rejuvenation will only be
achieved with particular forms of training.
How do you turn an
old (or
developmentally
impaired) brain into a
(physically and
functionally) more
capable one?

10. How do you turn a brain in the prime of life into an old
one?
Just
add
noise.
Zhou et al,
2011, J
Neurosci
31:5625

11. Before
training
After
training
TRAINING on
BrainHQ.com’s
”Double Decision”
exercise.
Speeded multi-tasking (UFOV)
N=3854
performance
age
It’s
ALL
Plastic.

12. Major ’transferred’ benefits of a limited ‘dose’ of UFOV
training (a speeded divided attention task) in ACTIVE
(initial age circa 74)
1) Quicker reaction times and safer on-road driving (Roenker et al.,
2004).
2) Sustained safer and more confident driving; sustained mobility
(Edwards et al., 2009).
3) Sustained reduction in at-fault crashes (Ball et al., 2010).
4) Retained driving mobility up to ten years (Edwards, Myers et al.,
2009; Edwards, Delahunt et al., 2009; Ross et al., 2014, 2016).
5) Long-sustained improvements in everyday functional abilities
(Edwards et al., 2002; 2005; Ball et al., 2002; Lin et al., 2016).

13. Generalized benefits of a limited ’dose’ of
training on a divided-attention SOP task…
6) Prevention of MDD onset (Wolinsky et al., 2009; 2010).
7) Greater “internal locus of control”, better self-rated health,
improved quality of life over 5 years (Wolinsky et al., 2008; 2009;
2010).
8) Lower medical costs (Wolinsky et al., 2010).
9) More modest decline in everyday functional abilities across 10
years (Rebok et al., 2014).
10)Training-‘dose’-dependent protection against
dementia onset (Edwards, Unverzagt et al., 2016).

14. What changes, then, when the brain struggles in its old age?
Everything.
What can be reversed, by training?
Everything?
How difficult IS it, to reverse the course of change?
It’s easy.
CAN such training in humans delay/block the
progression to dementia/AD?
Apparently (and to us, unsurprisingly), yes.
This science provides a clear basis for
MANAGING brain health.

15. For further information,
references
BrainHQ.com
And that’s exactly
what we’re up to, at
..and Michael.Merzenich@positscience.com

16. Judson Brewer MD PhD
Director of Research
Center for Mindfulness
Associate Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry
Founder, Claritas Mindsciences
judson.brewer@umassmed.edu
Your addicted brain
(and how to change it)

20. (2016)

21. Why Diets Make Us Fat:
The Unintended
Consequences
of Our Obsession
with Weight Loss
Sandra Aamodt, Ph.D.

25. “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” (2013) NYTimes

28. Paying attention in the
present moment, on purpose,
non-judgmentally
“
“
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Full Catastrophe Living

29. The paradox of Mindfulness:
less is more
Pay attention, and everything else will
take care of itself (really).
Brewer Davis and Goldstein Mindfulness (2013)

30. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
End of Treatment 17 week follow-up
PointPrevalenceAbstinence(%)
MT FFS
Greater smoking abstinence with MT vs.
Freedom from Smoking
*p = .063
**p = .012
*
**
Brewer et al Drug and Alcohol Dependence (2011)

31. Working hypothesis
• Hypothesis: MT works by decoupling
craving and behavior (e.g. smoking)
• Prediction: should see dissociation
between craving and smoking
BEFORE they both subside
–i.e. should still have some craving,
but it is not coupled to smoking

32. Craving and cigarette use become
dissociated during treatment
Elwafi et al Drug and Alcohol Dependence (2013)

33. Thorndike 1898, Skinner, 1938, Zinser 1992, Piasecki 1997, Carter 1999, Lazev 1999, Cox 2001, Robinson 2003,
Bevins 2004, Baker 2004, Cook 2004, Olausson 2004, Shiffman 2004, Carter 2008, Perkins 2010

34. Eat Right Now®
• 28 days of training to break the
stress/emotional eating habit loop
• “Stress test”
– Differentiate hunger from stress,
boredom etc.
• In-the-moment exercises
• Online community
– Peer and expert support
www.goeatrightnow.com

35. What's most interesting to me, is how we
define the rewards. In the past, the reward of
eating right has been weight loss. But it was
more often than not short lived because I
hadn't made real process changes in my daily
life. Here it feels like the reward is defined
differently, and weight loss is a side effect.
The reward here is, for lack of a better
expression, a more balanced life or inner
peace.
“
“
Eat Right Now member

36. DAYDREAMING STRESS ADDICTION
The Underperformance Continuum

37. Default Mode Network (DMN)
Andrews-Hanna Neuron (2010)

38. Overlap between DMN and
Self-referential processing
Whitfield-Gabrieli Neuroimage (2011)

39. Decreased DMN activity during meditation in
experienced meditators
(all meditations, Experienced > Novice)
Posterior
Cingulate
Cortex
Brewer et al PNAS (2011)

40. Task of mindfulness training?
Don’t get caught up
in yourself!
(learn not to take things personally)

41. Real-time Neurofeeback
from the PCC

42. Novice
Getting in our
own way
Meditation

43. Run 1Expert Run 4

44. Novice Run 1 Run 2

45. Novice Run 3
Thinking about
the breath

46. Novice Run 3 Run 4
Thinking about
the breath
Feeling the
breath

47. “I worried that I wasn’t using the graph as an
object of meditation, so I tried, like, to look at
it harder or somehow pay attention more to it”
PCC Activation

48. “I noticed …that the more I
relaxed and stopped trying to
do anything, the bluer it went”
“Toward the middle I had some
thoughts which I don’t see on the
graph maybe because I let them
kind of flow by”
PCC Deactivation

50. Flow
a mental state
when a person is
fully immersed
in the present in
a feeling of
energized focus.

51. There was a sense of flow, being
with the breath…flow deepened in
the middle.
“ “
Experienced Meditator
Expert

53. + =CRAVING/ADDICTION
NEUROSCIENCE
WELLNESS
PLATFORM
NEW ERA IN CRAVING &
ADDITION TREATMENT
smoking eating
Scalable digital
wellness technology
ideally suited for
behavior change
Research on efficacy &
mechanism of mindfulness
for craving and addition
Powerful solutions for
conditions driving
almost half of US
healthcare costs
and
others
A New Era in Craving & Habit Change
Treatment

57. EMOTIV
Chief Executive Office

58. ELECTROENCEPHALOGRA
PHY (EEG)
➤ What is EEG?
➤ Ability to gather real-time, contextual information on
the brain
➤ Importance of spatial resolution:
Detecting activity across the main cortices of the brain is
crucial to obtaining high-quality data
➤ EMOTIV offers 2 mobile EEG systems which offers
whole brain sensing

60. EMOTIV
PLATFORM➤ The accuracy of our technology has been validated by
independent studies many times over. The graphs show a
direct comparison with a clinical grade system (titled
‘Research’) costing $60000 along side the EMOTIV EPOC at
$799 (titled ‘Gaming’)
➤ Over 1,600 research papers referencing the technology. More
than 70,000 users across 120 countries
➤ Analyzing over 6.1B data points to derive insights across a
range of performance metrics

61. YOUR BRAIN ON
NATURE
➤ National Geographic study to investigate how imagery
of different natural biomes, urban environments,
natural & pollution threats and computer-simulated
nature impacts the brain as measured by EEG.
➤ Nature promotes neural activity present during
relaxation but is different from relaxation states
achieved during mindfulness, suggesting a neural
marker for a relaxed attentive state. Exposure to nature
can improve executive function & attention while also
lowering physiological and cognitive stress.
➤ National Geographic Emerging Explorer Dan Raven-
Ellison walks across all of the UK’s 69 cities and 15
national parks to show why sustainable cities need wild
spaces as well as smart technology. With EPOC sensors
recording his brain activity while walking across 1500km
over several months, collecting data to help illustrate
how landscape influences our mood, health, and
happiness. Results at:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/cisco/results.html

62. MENTAL
PERFORMANCE
DURING DRIVING➤ EMOTIV is collaborating with INFINITI Middle East in an
innovative study to identify and measure the brain activity of
individuals driving the recently launched INFINITI Q50 Red Sport
400.
➤ In this study, customers around the region will have the
opportunity to drive the Q50 Red Sport 400 wearing the
EMOTIV Insight headsets that will measure their mental
performance indicators to characterize their driving experience.
The study aims to demonstrate how the changes in brain
activity when driving the powerful sports sedan can affect their
enjoyment, excitement, engagement and focus.

66. Multisensory integration of bodily signals
underlying embodiment:
virtual reality applications for research and
neurorehabilitation
Andrea Serino

69. The Rubber Hand Illusion, Botvinick & Cohen, Nature, 1998; Ehrsson et al., Science, 2004

70. The Full Body Illusion
The Full Body Illusion, Lenggenhager, et al., Science, 2007; Ehrsson et al., Science, 2007
Blanke, Nat Neuroscie Rev, 2012, Blanke, Slater, Serino, Neuron, 2015

71. A
Multisensoryfacilitation
B
DC
The experience of our self in space depends on the integration
of multisensory bodily signals in the
Peripersonal Space (PPS)
Rizzolatti et al., 1981; Graziano et al., 1994; Duhamel et al., 1998
Serino et al., Sci Rep, 2015; TICS, 2016; Givraz et al., under revision

72. PPS is plastic
Maravita & Iriki, Curr Bio, 2004 Canzoneri et al., Exp Br Res, 2013
Canzoneri et al., Sci Rep, 2013Serino et al., Psych Sci, 2007

73. PPS and bodily illusions
The Full Body Illusion, Lenggenhager, et al., Science, 2007; Ehrsson et al., Science, 2007
Blanke, Nat Neuroscie Rev, 2012, Blanke, Slater, Serino, Neuron, 2015

74. *"
*"
*"
30 cm! 60 cm! 90 cm! 120 cm! 150 cm! 180 cm!
*"
*"
15 cm! 30 cm! 45 cm! 60 cm! 75 cm! 90 cm!
Multisensoryfacilitation(ms) Measuring the PPS boundaries in humans
Canzoneri et al., PLoS One, 2012, Teneggi et al., Curr Biol, 2013, Serino et al., Sci Rep, 2015; Ferri et al., JN, 2016

75. PPS & self experience
Synchronous Condition
Asynchronous Condition
Physical
Body Virtual Body

76. Subjective reports of the Full body illusion

77. Front space
Looming Sound Direc on
Enlargement of PPS boundary
Synchronous
Asynchronous
Baseline
Noel et. al, Cognition, 2015

78. Synchronous Condition
Asynchronous Condition
Physical
Body Virtual BodySelf
Location
PPS & self experience

79. Back space
Looming Sound Direc on
Shrinkage of PPS boundary
Synchronous
Asynchronous
Baseline
Noel et. al, Cognition, 2015

80. Noel et. al, Cognition, 2015

81. Natural BSC
1. The Proprioceptive /
Vestibular Constraint
2. The Visual Constraint
3. The PPS Constraint 4. The Embodiment Constraint

82. HMD
Keypad
Stimulator
Chinrest
Neurotactile
stimulation
Illumination and virtual
stimuli as shown on HMD
Residual
Limb
Patient’s
prosthetic hand
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Subjectiveratings(0-100)
Proprioceptive DriftQuestionnaire data
Synchronous
Asynchronous
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
%phantommislocation
Synchronous
Asynchronous
Hand Object
** **
Rognini et. al, Lancet Neurology, under review
Clinical applications: 1. prostheses embodiment

83. Synchronous
Asynchronous
Real limb 35
37
39
41
43
45
47
49
1
PerceivedPhantom
length[cm]
*
35
37
39
41
43
45
47
49
1
During Stimulation
(patient 2)
PerceivedPhantom
length[cm]
*
A B
C
Moving
cursor
After Stimulation
(patient 2)
Rognini et. al, Lancet Neurology, under review

84. Solca et. al, Sci Trans Med, under review
Clinical applications: 2. pain
Complex regional pain syndrome

85. Solca et. al, Sci Trans Med, under review

86. NEUROGOGGLESTM

87. Andrea Serino
andrea.serino@epfl.ch
google: Serino TEDx
Thanks for you attention

88. Q&A

89. Thank you to all Participants!

90. Sponsors
Thank you to all Speakers & Sponsors!

91. To learn more, visit sharpbrains.com