SPOTLIGHT

The T. Boone Pickens Foundation focuses grants to organizations that operate in its core giving categories (see "About TBPF"). The current partner spotlight is the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas, a world-class brain research institute home to some of the most brilliant and innovative neuroscientific thinkers around.

The Center, founded in 1999 by Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D., searches for ways to promote brain health fitness across the entire human lifespan, encompassing every age, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic group. The Foundation has awarded $250,000 to the Center to support an initiative that focuses on adolescent reasoning and critical thinking skills, which have stagnated across America in recent decades. The Center for BrainHealth's Teen Reasoning Initiative research study assesses and trains reasoning skills in public middle school students. Higher order thinking skills are trained through a unique program called Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Training, or SMART.

"I'm drawn to the Center's research on brain health because it involves a critical component of quality of life, no matter what your age," says Pickens, whose previous gifts to the center total $11 million. "The work these researchers are doing is fascinating. Engaging the mind in adolescence is critical to the development of next generation of thinkers and innovators."

Center for BrainHealth researchers are on a quest to solve the pervasive crisis in teen reasoning. Developed by cognitive neuroscientists, Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman and Dr. Jacquelyn Gamino, SMART trains students to think strategically, enabling deeper understanding, abstraction of meaning, and creativity. The brain goes through extensive changes during the early the teenage years, making adolescence an optimal time to train reasoning and higher-order thinking skills.

Life-improving studies at the Center for BrainHealth have followed a unique horizontal approach across all brain conditions. The combination of leading researchers from across the country, outside-the-box research ideas, sophisticated technology, sensitive diagnostic measures, and a dedication to interdisciplinary research makes the Center for BrainHealth a nurturing environment in which to expand a comprehensive and collaborative approach to brain study.

"The generous contributions and magnanimous support from the T. Boone Pickens Foundation has been instrumental in making our vision of life improving brain research a reality," said Dr. Sandra Chapman. "Mr. Pickens has always been dedicated to increasing our nation's productivity and building a strong economy. One way to do that is through building healthy minds."

Thus far, more than 4,000 students have undergone strategic learning assessments and more than 2,000 students in 7th and 8th grade have undergone SMART training. Initial results show dramatic reasoning skill improvement as well as improved Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) scores and academic achievement in students who receive the SMART training. TAKS scores for Math, Science, Reading, and Social Studies improved after SMART.

For more information on the Center for BrainHealth or the adolescent initiative, visit www.centerforbrainhealth.org.