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Dur­ing Expo Day at the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (May 7–9th), select­ed Sum­mit Spon­sors and Part­ners had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to show­case their most promis­ing brain health & well­ness ini­tia­tives and solu­tions. We hope you enjoy their slid­edecks below! (and please remem­ber that the full record­ings are avail­able for pur­chase here)

8.30am. Dr. Hag­it Alon, VP Sci­en­tif­ic Affairs of Joy Ven­tures,  pre­sent­ed their “Neu­ro-Well­ness” phi­los­o­phy and approach to invest in sci­en­tif­ic research and in entre­pre­neurs: 

9.15am. Mar­cel Legrand, Chief Rev­enue Offi­cer of Total Brain, pro­vid­ed an overview of their new plat­form to bet­ter assess, under­stand and improve brain capac­i­ties:

10am. Dr. Lew Lim, Founder & CEO of Vielight, explored the lat­est on pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion and brain stim­u­la­tion: 

11am. Deb­bie Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of The Arrow­smith Pro­gram, dis­cussed plans to bet­ter equip 100+ schools help­ing stu­dents with spe­cial needs: 

11.45am. Xavier Louis, CEO of Peak, out­lined their plans to bring to mar­ket engag­ing, self-serve and evi­dence-based dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics:

12.30pm. Mel Barsky, Direc­tor at Cen­tre for Aging + Brain Health Inno­va­tion (CABHI), announced a new call for inno­va­tion where CABHI will be fund­ing nov­el ideas from point-of-care work­ers that can help to improve brain health in old­er adults:

1.15pm. Syd­ney Swaine-Simon, Co-Founder of Neu­rotechX, intro­duced new learn­ing resources and their grow­ing com­mu­ni­ty of neu­rotech experts, entre­pre­neurs, and enthu­si­asts: 

We hope you enjoy this slid­edeck sup­port­ing two ses­sions held at the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The Future of Brain Health (March 7–9th).  Full record­ings are avail­able for pur­chase here.

8–8.45am. Rethink­ing and Retool­ing Brain Health and Men­tal Health  

• Dr. Tom Insel, Co-founder and Pres­i­dent of Mind­strong Health and for­mer Direc­tor of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH)

9–10.30am. How to detect prob­lems ear­ly: Exam­ples in Alzheimer’s Dis­ease, Parkinson’s, anx­i­ety and PTSD

• Dr. Sri­jan Sen, Pro­fes­sor of Depres­sion and Neu­ro­sciences at Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan
• Jan Samzelius, Co-Founder and Chief Sci­en­tist of Neu­raMetrix
• Dr. Tony Chang, Asso­ciate at Mer­ck Ven­tures
• Chaired by: Dr. Dean­na Bel­sky, Asso­ciate at Dol­by Fam­i­ly Ven­tures

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For Ban­ner Health, one of the largest non-prof­it health sys­tem in the Unit­ed States, find­ing ways to make health care eas­i­er and bet­ter for our patients is at the root of every­thing we do. That’s why we are mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments into the dig­i­tal health and neu­rotech space, try­ing to answer some com­mon pain points.

Let me give you an exam­ple. Read the rest of this entry »

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The all-too-under­stand­able urge to buy a bet­ter brain (Vox):

“… unfor­tu­nate­ly, Bradley Coop­er is part­ly to blame for the boom of the edi­ble brain-improve­ment indus­try.

In 2011, he starred in Lim­it­less, a movie about a man who takes a spe­cial pill and becomes smarter and more capa­ble than any­one else on Earth. I’m jok­ing about the cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of this movie, but I’m also not. It was a wild card and an unex­pect­ed hit, and it main­streamed an idea that had already been tak­ing hold among Sil­i­con Val­ley bio­hack­ers and human opti­miza­tion zealots. Read the rest of this entry »

Empow­er­ing 8 Bil­lion Minds: Enabling Bet­ter Men­tal Health for All via the Eth­i­cal Adop­tion of Tech­nolo­gies from WEF GFC on Neu­rotech­nolo­gies on Vimeo.

A new report (opens PDF) cre­at­ed by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum Glob­al Future Coun­cil on Neu­rotech­nolo­gies, Empow­er­ing 8 Bil­lion Minds: Enabling Bet­ter Men­tal Health for All via the Eth­i­cal Adop­tion of Tech­nolo­gies, pro­pos­es a frame­work to address pri­va­cy, trust and gov­er­nance issues in the use of tech­nolo­gies for men­tal health­care.

Men­tal health dis­or­ders are among the lead­ing caus­es of mor­tal­i­ty and could cost the glob­al econ­o­my $16 tril­lion by 2030. By col­lect­ing and analysing data to inform treat­ment, it is eas­i­er for more peo­ple to access infor­ma­tion and engage with pro­fes­sion­als. While tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing smart­phones, wear­able sen­sors and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, are suc­cess­ful­ly meet­ing the cur­rent gaps in care, there are risks Read the rest of this entry »