Neuroimaging, big data and mental health: A survey of the land

Men­tal and degen­er­a­tive dis­or­ders are among the most cost­ly and com­mon caus­es of dis­abil­i­ty in soci­ety today. Because the brain is the most com­plex organ in the human body, diag­nos­ing and treat­ing prob­lems when things go wrong pos­es enor­mous chal­lenges. Even before the 1990s was des­ig­nat­ed the Decade of the Brain, the poten­tial of neuroimaging—the…

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On neurons, lifelong learning, meditation, humility, “empty brain calories” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 12 fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and open questions–and the beau­ti­ful image above. #1. “With this image I want to illus­trate the large advances made in imag­ing meth­ods over the past cen­tu­ry, allow­ing mod­ern neu­ro­sci­en­tists to look at neu­rons in ways that Cajal could have only dreamed of.” –…

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The FDA clears AppliedVR headset to help treat fibromyalgia and chronic pain

FDA Des­ig­nates First Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty Device for Chron­ic Pain (Pain News Net­work): Applied­VR, a Los Ange­les-based vir­tu­al real­i­ty com­pa­ny, has announced that its EaseVRx head­set has received Break­through Device Des­ig­na­tion from the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion for treat­ing fibromyal­gia and chron­ic intractable low back pain.

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Study: Self-driving cars will increase motion sickness…unless we retrain our brains to improve visuospatial skills

Is brain train­ing the cure for car sick­ness? (The Sun­day Times): RESEARCHERS from the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick think they’ve found the cure for motion sick­ness, a con­di­tion to which a third of peo­ple are high­ly sus­cep­ti­ble and from which any­one can suf­fer. The impli­ca­tions could be sig­nif­i­cant should ful­ly dri­ver­less vehi­cles become a real­i­ty, with passengers…

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Virtual-reality gaming + affordable biofeedback = Anxiety therapy for all?

Videogame Tech­nol­o­gy Could Bring Biofeed­back Ther­a­py to the Liv­ing Room (The Wall Street Jour­nal): For decades, use of biofeed­back to help suf­fer­ers of anx­i­ety, among oth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions, has large­ly been lim­it­ed to clin­i­cal set­tings with expensive—and some­what tedious—medical equip­ment. Now, with an assist from devel­op­ers of vir­­tu­al-real­i­­ty games, effec­tive ther­a­peu­tic biofeed­back is becom­ing more…

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Sports teams find creative ways to cross-train the brain off-field

__ HOW TO TRAIN THE BRAIN: COGNITIVE TRAINING IN LACROSSE (US Lacrosse Mag­a­zine): “Bon­nie Rosen has always been inter­est­ed in find­ing a train­ing method that extends beyond the lacrosse field. That pur­suit has tak­en her beyond the restraints of phys­i­cal train­ing in its entire­ty. The Tem­ple women’s lacrosse coach uses vir­tu­al real­i­ty technology 

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