10 Must-Do Priorities to Reinvent Brain Health in the Digital Age

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To shape the strongest and most time­ly agen­da for the upcom­ing 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Decem­ber 6–8th), we asked our dis­tin­guished Steer­ing Com­mit­tee to dis­cuss key chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties to Rein­vent Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age.

A num­ber of high­ly stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tions led to the fol­low­ing ten pri­or­i­ties, which will serve as our guide to invite world-class experts and pio­neers to speak at the Sum­mit. Stay tuned!

• 1. Brain health for what:  How can we bet­ter link brain health and oth­er mean­ing­ful out­comes such as life­long learn­ing, work­place per­for­mance and resilience, gen­er­al hap­pi­ness and well-being?
• 2. Incor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ty into the brain health mix: What role should com­mu­ni­ty and fam­i­ly mem­bers play, and how can tech­nol­o­gy aid their efforts; for exam­ple by pro­vid­ing access to med­ical records and eas­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion with doc­tors and caregivers?
• 3. Expand mon­i­tor­ing of brain func­tion: How will we effec­tive­ly mon­i­tor (and self-mon­i­tor) brain func­tion and health? Giv­en strong agree­ment with “Doc­tors should mon­i­tor cog­ni­tive health sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly, espe­cial­ly when pre­scrib­ing new medica­ments,”  what role can phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and insur­ers play in mak­ing that happen?
• 4. Har­ness Big Data and machine learn­ing: What role can arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence play in brain health, and how will we mea­sure the brain health of AI-enhanced sys­tems? How can we use AI sym­bi­ot­i­cal­ly with the human part of the equation?
• 5. Accel­er­ate sci­en­tif­ic val­i­da­tion of dig­i­tal med­i­cine ini­tia­tives: What tech­niques and approach­es, beyond ran­dom­ized con­trolled tri­als, can help assess what works and what does­n’t, and accel­er­ate the inno­va­tion process and help ensure prop­er adoption?
• 6. Mas­ter­ing the dig­i­tal toolk­it: What are the Pros and Cons of the grow­ing range of non-inva­sive neurotechnologies–cognitive train­ing, med­i­ta­tion apps, virtual/ aug­ment­ed real­i­ty, EEG, tDCS, ultra­sound, and more.
• 7. Improve brain lit­er­a­cy: How are we going to edu­cate and empow­er every­one with essen­tial knowl­edge and best prac­tices, increas­ing the empha­sis on enhance­ment and prevention?
• 8. Per­son­al­ize brain health pre­ven­tion and treat­ments: What kind of one-time or on-going brain/ men­tal health assess­ment can help pin­point indi­vid­ual needs, and how can brain-com­put­er inter­ac­tions help cre­ate a bidi­rec­tion­al rela­tion­ship between a per­son and the sur­round­ing technology?
• 9. Invest in ear­ly brain devel­op­ment: How do we act on the research show­ing ear­ly child­hood inter­ven­tions improve brain health and alle­vi­ate down­stream soci­etal prob­lems? What  types of dig­i­tal expo­sures help, and which ones hurt?
• 10. Engage non-med­ical fund­ing sources: What is the most impor­tant (and well-fund­ed) “low-hang­ing-fruit” in edu­ca­tion, sports, the mil­i­tary, large cor­po­ra­tions, where brain health inno­va­tion should be part of the solu­tion, and how can scal­able, dig­i­tal tools become part of the con­ver­sa­tion and budgets?

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Nom­i­nate a great speak­er Here

Have a great month of September!