Studies find growing evidence linking weight, physical activity, neuroplasticity and depression

Being over­weight can cause depres­sion — and exer­cise is an anti­dote, dual stud­ies con­firm (Run­ner’s World): A large-scale study from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Exeter has found ‘robust evi­dence’ that being over­weight hikes up your risk of devel­op­ing depres­sion – but as fresh evi­dence con­firms, log­ging your morn­ing miles is one of the most effec­tive ways to…

Read More

Reinventing depression treatment via transcranial magnetic brain stimulation (TMS)

___ Stan­ford researchers devise treat­ment that relieved depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in small study (press release): “A new form of mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion rapid­ly relieved symp­toms of severe depres­sion in 90% of par­tic­i­pants in a small study con­duct­ed by researchers at the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine … In tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion, elec­tric currents…

Read More

Photobiomodulation: A new and promising way to enhance brain function

___ As is increas­ing­ly evi­dent, there are mul­ti­ple meth­ods aimed at enhanc­ing brain func­tion. Brain train­ing and mind­ful­ness prac­tices are com­mon­ly used. Sub­­s­tance-based meth­ods are pop­u­lar too, includ­ing hal­lu­cino­gens in the form of plant extracts, and drugs. Same as tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) and tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion (TMS): All of these are promis­ing but…

Read More

Enabling deep, focused transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS): Key neurotechnology patent #34

magnetic stimulation

Today we are shar­ing a key 2009 patent, assigned to Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, that enables the stim­u­la­tion of deep­er struc­tures of the brain with­out over­whelm­ing super­fi­cial struc­tures that are not the focus of treat­ment. (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing a foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patent a day, from old­er to new­er by issue date) U.S. Patent No. 7,520,848: Robot­ic appa­ra­tus for…

Read More

The future of personalized brain stimulation via enhanced cognitive-emotive profiles: Key neurotechnology patent #31

cognitive-emotive profiles

Today we high­light a fas­ci­nat­ing 2008 patent describ­ing how to com­bine a num­ber of neu­rotech­nolo­gies (EEG feed­back, TMS brain stim­u­la­tion, monitoring/ train­ing soft­ware) to help “upgrade” one’s cog­ni­­tive-emo­­tive pro­file. U.S. Patent No. 7,460,903: Method and sys­tem for a real time adap­tive sys­tem for effect­ing changes in cog­ni­­tive-emo­­tive pro­files Inventor(s): Jaime A. Pine­da, Bren­dan Z. Alli­son Technology…

Read More

The state and future of robotics applied to Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): Key Neurotech Patent #25

apparatus

Today we are shar­ing a key 2006 patent assigned to The Regents of The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, the NIH, and the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Ser­vices. (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing a foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patent a day, from old­er to new­er by issue date) U.S. Patent No. 7,087,008: Appa­ra­tus and meth­ods for deliv­ery of transcranial…

Read More