I’m excit­ed to share that the upcom­ing 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit will fea­ture, on May 8th, a fas­ci­nat­ing pre­sen­ta­tion and dis­cus­sion with Dr. Mar­garet Mor­ris, who spent 13 years as a researcher at Intel and recent­ly wrote a very time­ly book — Left to Our Own Devices: Out­smart­ing Smart Tech­nol­o­gy to Reclaim Our Rela­tion­ships, Health, and Focus (MIT Press, 2018).

Please learn more about the fan­tas­tic Sum­mit Agen­da and con­sid­er join­ing us!

To bet­ter under­stand Dr. Mor­ris’ work and insights you can read this great book review over at Psy­chi­atric Times:

Mor­ris is a skill­ful sto­ry­teller and takes that chal­lenge to task. Across eight easy-to-read chap­ters, she illus­trates how peo­ple, most like­ly younger users, “hack” tech­nolo­gies to fos­ter con­nec­tion, mind­ful­ness, and well-being. The chap­ters are cen­tered around a col­lec­tion of per­son­al nar­ra­tives from peo­ple who per­son­al­ized their dig­i­tal devices and expe­ri­ence pos­i­tive results. Mor­ris records these sto­ries with a gen­tle, engag­ing, and upbeat tone that requires no for­mal back­ground in either men­tal health or tech­nol­o­gy … This book is a good read for today’s dig­i­tal health ini­tia­tives and for clin­i­cians hop­ing to keep up to date in cur­rent trends in men­tal health tech­nol­o­gy. It reminds us that putting a device in a patient’s hands will often lead to out­comes that we could nev­er have imag­ined. It also pokes holes in the once reign­ing view that robot­ics and chat­bots are dehu­man­iz­ing and anti­so­cial. If any­thing, the nar­ra­tives sug­gest that tech­nol­o­gy can help patients mon­i­tor their emo­tion­al states and improve shar­ing and con­nec­tions. The book under­scores how use­ful it is to study how patients use apps in real-world set­tings and to learn from their lived expe­ri­ences.

Your take?

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We are pleased to announce the pre­lim­i­nary Agen­da for the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (May 7–9th), includ­ing the first 20 con­firmed Speak­ers. Please con­sid­er join­ing us — the more the mer­ri­er to explore emerg­ing best prac­tices and to Shape the future of Brain Health!

Also, a quick reminder that the Brainnova­tions Pitch Con­test is open for sub­mis­sions till Fri­day, April 26th. If your com­pa­ny was found­ed no ear­li­er than 2013, please learn more and sub­mit an entry. Giv­en the great set of inno­va­tions dis­cussed dur­ing the first edi­tion of the con­test our world-class Judg­ing Pan­el and Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants can’t wait to hear from you!

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Learn More and Reg­is­ter HERE

10%-off pro­mo code for Sharp­Brains read­ers: sharp2019

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8 con­sumer-friend­ly dig­i­tal tools to sup­port behav­ioral health (mobi­health news):

“From vir­tu­al ther­a­py to mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion aids, there’s lit­tle short­age of dig­i­tal tools catch­ing investors’ eyes and break­ing into the crowd­ed behav­ioral health mar­ket. Although a num­ber of these ser­vices are posi­tion­ing their busi­ness to focus on pay­ers and employ­ers, many oth­ers are tak­ing their prod­ucts direct­ly to con­sumers via month­ly sub­scrip­tions, one-time retail pur­chas­es or out­right free down­loads.

Of course, hav­ing a wealth of options and vary­ing qual­i­ty of evi­dence can make select­ing the most effec­tive dig­i­tal tool quite a chal­lenge. Here, Mobi­Health­News has com­piled a selec­tion of eight such con­sumer-friend­ly behav­ioral health tools (Note: Basis, Calm, Sim­ple Habit, Woe­bot, Muse, Vida Health, Head­space, Able­To) that have recent­ly been mak­ing head­lines with new launch­es, fund­ing or major prod­uct updates.” Read the rest of this entry »

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FDA warns pub­lic not to use unap­proved or uncleared med­ical devices to help assess or diag­nose a con­cus­sion (news release):

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion is warn­ing the pub­lic not to use med­ical devices mar­ket­ed to con­sumers that claim to help assess, diag­nose or man­age head injury, includ­ing con­cus­sion, trau­mat­ic brain injury (TBI) or mild TBI. Read the rest of this entry »