Larry began to experience symptoms in September of 2007, including fasciculations that became more and more severe, difficulty manipulating his fingers especially when it was cold, and trouble with fine motor skills for tasks such as buttoning his shirt, tying his shoes, or snapping his fingers.  After working as a steel fabricator and crane operator for 35 years, Larry attributed his symptoms to “arthritis.”  However, over the next 2  1/2 years it became gradually more difficult to lift heavy objects, to do intricate work with his fingers such as threading a needle, and it eventually became difficult to write.  By the middle of 2009,   Larry began to notice muscle atrophy in his hands and forearms.  In March 25, 2010, after several EMGs and MRIs, Larry was given the devastating diagnosis of ALS.  

By Scott Barry Kaufman | April 15, 2015

One minute we’re being told that brain training makes you smarter, and the next minute we’re told it’s all bogus. Confused? I don’t blame you. The research literature on brain training is confusing and even sometimes contradictory. This is the way of science. I believe, however, that there is hope in making sense of things if the field and the media can move beyond broad conclusions to look at more nuanced effects.

In his recent New Yorker piece, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gareth Cook concluded that working memory training will not make you smarter. According to Gareth, “Playing the games makes you better at the game, in other words, but not at anything anyone might care about in real life.” But is this really the most informative conclusion we can draw from the data?

When she was just 15, Meg was involved in a devastating car accident where she sustained a traumatic brain injury. With shortened school days and impaired performance defining her new reality, Meg felt desperate to find a way to reclaim the life she once knew and to help others in her situation, leading her to begin a career as a physical therapy assistant at the very same clinic she completed her rehabilitation.  After just a week of treatment her movements developed fluidity and by the second week her ability to concentrate on the tone dramatically improved. Meg’s sense of balance and physical coordination returned to her by her sixth session. At 21 years old, Meg has done more than simply achieve her goal of regaining the life she thought she lost in her car accident- she’s been able to create a fuller, more satisfying life, one in which she helps others achieve the freedom of thought and movement she feared she lost forever.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  So, without further ado, below I unveil the following pictorial representation that captures, in my professional opinion, “what is happening under the hood” with Interactive Metronome (IM) technology, particularly as it relates to improved attention, focus, and thinking efficiency. 

I receive many interesting scientific articles on the importance of timing in the brain for cognitive, academic, and motor skills...so many it is hard to keep up.  There appears to be keen interest by researchers around the globe re:  the timing mechanisms of the brain and how better or worse timing influences a whole host of abilities in children and adults.  There are many studies exploring the differences between individuals who participate in musical training or synchronized metronome tapping and those that do not, in particular how they differ in academic performance & development.  In this recent study at Ben- Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), researchers concluded that 1st through 3rd grade students who clapped to songs demonstrated fewer developmental learning problems and were better integrated socially than children who did not. 

A few interesting video gems for your viewing.

First, forget multitasking and try mono-tasking.  Focus on just one thing...it may be beneficial.

Just in time for holiday shopping—some educational materials to help children learn more about their brains and brain fitness.

I believe that children should be taught, at an appropriate level with engaging media, to understand important concepts about their brains and learning. If you are a parent, educator, or therapist who wants to teach children information that will allow them to better understand themselves and empower their thinking (how they can control and modify their minds and behavior; a Growth Mindset), it is nice to know that a variety of groups have recently developed engaging books, videos and apps regarding the human brain and brain training or plasticity.  I recently discovered two sources of material that are worth attention.

The Adventures of Ned the Neuron is a free iPad app.  This well constructed app is 34 full color pages of material.  

As noted in the latest IM-HOME post, the annual IM conference was viewed as a huge success.  I was fortunate to be the invited keynote speaker.  The title of my address was “I think…therefore IM.”  As noted in the most recent IM-HOME post, the IM staff is busy editing the video of all presentations, including my address.  I am anxious for the final edited videos to be announced.

In early posts at the IM-HOME blog, I described the initial stages of my interest in the IM technology.  One of the primary keys to my interest was the stunning fact that IM has been reported to improve a variety of different human performance outcomes in vastly different domains.  These included stroke rehabilitation, golf swing, reading achievement, and ADHD.  I have written that for this to be plausible, IM must be impacting some form of brain-based domain-general (jack-of-all-trades) mechanism.  

I just learned that the following article is soon to be published (click here for journal info)

This is the second peer-reviewed article to demonstrate a significant positive impact of Interactive Metronome (IM) training on certain reading behaviors in a study with both experimental and control groups.  The other study was one I was involved with (Taub, McGrew, & Keith, 2007; the abstract is presented below).  You can access that complete 2007 manuscript at the Brain Clock blog.

In a couple of weeks I will be the keynote speaker at the annual Interactive Metronome Professional Conference in San Antonio, TX.  I will speak for approximately 1.5 hours and have much to share.  At this time I thought I would give a small preview (aka, a “tease”) of some of the content I will be presenting.  I have recorded a very brief video (6.5 minutes) where I explain some of the key concepts I will be describing (and expanding on) during my presentation.  I hope you enjoy.  This is a self-made video with an iPhone (on a tripod pointed at my computer as I go thru PowerPoint slides)—so be gentle.

IM-HOME readers may have wondered why I have been MIA from the IM-HOME blog. I simply have been swamped this summer.  I have been very busy accumulating the latest brain network research—research that has direct relevance to understanding how IM improves focus, controlled attention, working memory, and executive functions.  The problem has been that the research literature has been exploding at such a rate that I can barely keep up with reading it—let alone write about it.

But…I now have a goal to start blogging (again) on a regular basis.

First, I want to thank IM for the advance press regarding my IM Keynote in October.  The pressure is on.

Check out the Time Docs Blog post on the Aurora Shooting as it relates to a victim who suffered a brain injury

The law of individual differences is the only proven law in psychology.  This law has resulted in decades of research regarding theories and models of intelligence and individual differences in intelligence.  Within the past two decades a general consensus has emerged from the psychometric intelligence research that the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of intelligenceis the most empirically supported taxonomy for understanding the structure of human intelligence.

[Note – this is the first in a series of posts intended to present an integration of intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, and applied neuroscience research with the goal to advance a set of hypotheses or model(s) that explain how the Interactive Metronome® (IM) technology results in improved cognitive functioning—specifically focus or controlled attention]

Jim Cassily was the inventor of the patented technology behind Interactive Metronome®.  Through a serendipitous set of events I recently learned about the early days of his development of the original “time machine.”  The purpose of this post is to share a portion of Jim Cassily’s role in the IM story.  I give special thanks to Jim’s wife, Katie, who has graciously supplied me with original documents, pictures, and anecdotes regarding Jim’s passion for sharing the technology he developed to improve the lives of others.  I consider it an honor to amplify a portion of Jim’s legacy via efforts to share information regarding the brain-based mechanisms involved in the IM neurotechnology (see Brain Clock blog). 

I have been blogging about brain-clock research at my home base (Brain Clock Blog) for many years and more recently have been blogging at the IM-Home website and blog. A problem with sharing information via blogging is that we bloggers make desired connections via hyperlinks. We insert them so the reader will read prior posts for related or background information. Often readers don’t want to take the time to bounce back and forth between linked stories...

Many of you are already familiar with Dr Kevin McGrew. You’ve read his intriguing and elucidating blog posts and you know he is affectionately referred to as The Time Doc because of his incessant interest (et..em, obsession ☺) with any and all things related to mental timing. You may also know that his unique curiosity has lead to a vast collection of literature contained at one of his many blogs, The Brain Clock Blog. Dr McGrew’s singular effort to bring together and collectively analyze the existing literature has contributed greatly to our understanding of the role of temporal processing in various human abilities and medical conditions and how interventions like the Interactive Metronome may be improving the resolution, synchronicity, and performance of our internal clock...

Cognitive psychologists theorize that the faster we are able to process information (or think), the more intelligent we are, and the more readily we can learn and demonstrate what we’ve learned. There are many recent studies that support this view, including this one published in the journal Intelligence. Each individual is born with a certain amount of resources for attending to and processing information. How well a person allocates those resources appears to be a major factor in determining intelligence. Taub et al (2007) demonstrated that Interactive Metronome (IM) training has a significant positive effect on reading achievement (affecting 4 of 5 critical pre-reading skills) in elementary school students. They proposed that IM training was primarily improving “processing [thinking] speed,” which in turn improved the students’ ability to allocate resources for attending and holding information in working memory … all essential for fluent reading.

Ben-Shakhar, G. and Sheffer, L. (2001). The relationship between the ability to divide attention and standard
 measures of general cognitive abilities. Intelligence, 29: 293-306.
Taub. G., McGrew, K.S., and Keith, T.Z. (2007). Improvement in interval timing tracking and effects on reading
 achievement. Psychology in the Schools, 44(8), 849-863.