Six Take-aways on Neuroplasticity and Cognitive training By: Dr. Son Preminger

From the BrainTech Israel 2013 Conference. Full stuff at the link.
http://sharpbrains.com/blog/2013/10/18/braintech-six-take-aways-on-neuroplasticity-and-cognitive-training/
Notice the word protocols in #2. What and where the hell are they? Send your doctor off immediately to find them.
Here are some of the main take-aways from the rich discussion:

1. Moti­va­tion seems to be crit­i­cal in any form of neuroplasticity-based ther­apy. Moti­va­tion as a dri­ver of repeated and inten­sive prac­tice as well as moti­va­tion and reward as enhancers and mod­u­la­tors of neu­ro­plas­tic­ity processes. The engag­ing and even addic­tive power of computer/video games was men­tioned as poten­tially ben­e­fi­cial dri­ver of moti­va­tion for cog­ni­tive train­ing. For exam­ple, in reha­bil­i­ta­tion cases where moti­va­tional processes are often impaired, treat­ing and train­ing moti­va­tional cir­cuits may be the first pri­or­ity as a gate­way to train­ing of other functions.
2. Brain plas­tic­ity may go both ways, thus cog­ni­tive train­ing can even be detri­men­tal if it is not designed and per­formed cor­rectly. There­fore peo­ple devel­op­ing and using cog­ni­tive meth­ods should be cau­tious and keep assess­ing the effect of their pro­to­cols on a reg­u­lar basis, and make sure that cog­ni­tive train­ing is per­son­ally adapted on a dynam­ics level.
3. There are sig­nif­i­cant gaps in the “sup­ply chain” process of trans­lat­ing sci­en­tific find­ings into valu­able solu­tions, espe­cially regard­ing clin­i­cally val­i­dated cog­ni­tive train­ing. We still see many chal­lenges in trans­form­ing research into clin­i­cal meth­ods, and in mak­ing sure clin­i­cal ther­a­pies trans­late into real-life improve­ments. The exam­ple of schiz­o­phre­nia was dis­cussed in depth, high­light­ing the dif­fi­culty to trans­fer psy­chother­apy, occu­pa­tional ther­apy and cog­ni­tive train­ing ben­e­fits into improve­ment in daily life.
4. We see poten­tial value in new tech­nolo­gies such as 3D motion sen­sors that enable nat­ural inter­ac­tion (Primesense/Kincet), afford­able VR solu­tions, and aug­mented real­ity solu­tions (Google Glass). They can help upgrade cog­ni­tive train­ing by mak­ing it more sim­i­lar to real-life form of inter­ac­tion and envi­ron­men­tal context.
5. Reha­bil­i­ta­tion processes that involve recruit­ment of new brain areas may ben­e­fit in the future from the pos­si­bil­ity of implant­ing cor­tex tis­sue and rewiring it by train­ing it to imple­ment impaired/new cog­ni­tive functions.
6. Finally, it is impor­tant to start defin­ing guide­lines for eth­i­cal issues, such as afford­abil­ity and access to cog­ni­tive train­ing by some pop­u­la­tions and not others.