Dear Colleagues,

Please join us at the first ever ESCoNS Meeting (Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society), to be held September 19-20, 2011 at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, California.

The purpose of this first-in-kind research meeting is to:

• Bring together investigators in the basic and clinical sciences whose work focuses on improving neural system functioning through computerized training.
• Discuss ways in which this science informs treatment development for impaired neural systems in neurological and neuropsychiatric illness.
• Consider ways in which cognitive training approaches can make use of advances in entertainment software for the development of scalable therapeutic tools.

A secondary purpose of this meeting is to bring together scientists and interested members of the entertainment software industry to begin a conversation about innovative collaborations and possible new funding mechanisms to support the development of this emerging field.

Registration will be free for participants from academia, and breakfast and lunch will be provided for the two days of the meeting. This meeting is made possible by the generous support of the Rose Family Foundation.

We look forward to having you join us for state-of-the-art science, cutting-edge ideas for the development of human therapeutic tools, and lively cross-disciplinary discussions!

Sophia Vinogradov, MD
Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD
Mor Nahum, PhD
(Local Organizing Committee)

ESCoNS Scientific Steering Committee

Sophia Vinogradov, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, UCSF

Dr. Vinogradov performs behavioral, MEG, and fMRI studies of the effects of neuroplasticity-based cognitive training in schizophrenia.

Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry; Director, Neuroscience Imaging Center, UCSF

Dr. Gazzaley uses behavioral assessments, fMRI, EEG and TMS to study the neural mechanisms of memory and attention in aging and dementia, and to investigate training interventions to alleviate memory and attention deficits.

Daphne Bavelier, Ph.D., Professor, Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Centers for Visual Sciences, and Language Studies; Director, MindSpace Virtual Reality Laboratory, University of Rochester

Dr. Bavelier uses behavior, brain imaging, and eye tracking, to study how individuals learn and adapt to changes in experience, whether induced by nature (deafness) or training (playing video games).

Takeo Watanabe, Ph.D., Professor of Neuroscience, Boston University

Dr. Watanabe studies vision, aging, and various types of learning (visual and multisensory perceptual learning, categorization learning, implicit learning) using psychophysics, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and computational modeling.

Torkel Klingberg, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of cognitive neuroscience, the Stockholm Brain Institute, Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Dr. Klingberg studies the development and plasticity of working memory and attention, the neural basis for cognitive development during childhood, and training-induced plasticity of the brain, with a particular emphasis on the clinical disorder of ADD.

We look forward to seeing you September 19-20, 2011, in San Francisco.