Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

New book outlines the five lifestyle pillars to “build a better brain at any age”

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Like many peo­ple over 60, I some­times lose my keys or for­get the names of favorite films. When I do, it makes me won­der: Is this the begin­ning of cog­ni­tive decline? Or, worse, am I fat­ed to fol­low in the foot­steps of my moth­er, who died of Lewy-body demen­tia in her 70s?

Accord­ing to neu­ro­sur­geon San­jay Gup­ta, CNN med­ical cor­re­spon­dent and author of the new book Keep Sharp: Build­ing a Bet­ter Brain at Any Age, the answer is no. For­get­ful­ness is nor­mal at all ages, and your genes don’t doom you to demen­tia. What’s impor­tant is tak­ing care of your brain in the best way pos­si­ble, he argues.

“You can affect your brain’s think­ing and mem­o­ry far more than you real­ize or appre­ci­ate, and the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple haven’t even begun to try,” he writes.

Gup­ta dis­tills results from hun­dreds of research stud­ies to help read­ers under­stand what’s known (and not known) [Read more…] about New book out­lines the five lifestyle pil­lars to “build a bet­ter brain at any age”

Comprehensive research review identifies most promising interventions to boost workplace mental health

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Image: Ellice Weaver/Wellcome

Why an evi­dence-dri­ven approach is the best way for busi­ness­es to sup­port work­place men­tal health (World Eco­nom­ic Forum):

Men­tal health has nev­er been high­er on the agen­da for busi­ness­es. It is easy to see why, as even pri­or to COVID-19, anx­i­ety and depres­sion were esti­mat­ed to cost the glob­al econ­o­my over $1 tril­lion every year in lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. The exo­dus from offices in 2020 has pre­sent­ed fur­ther chal­lenges and raised big ques­tions about future ways of work­ing … The absence of a deep and robust evi­dence base for approach­es to sup­port­ing work­place men­tal health is a prob­lem and can lead to well-inten­tioned busi­ness­es mak­ing crit­i­cal and sen­si­tive deci­sions in the dark. At best, such inter­ven­tions are work­ing and we just don’t know why or, at worst, they could be caus­ing harm to workforces…

[Read more…] about Com­pre­hen­sive research review iden­ti­fies most promis­ing inter­ven­tions to boost work­place men­tal health

Study: Social media and general tech engagement not found to “fry” teenagers’ brains

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Lit­tle to no increase in asso­ci­a­tion between ado­les­cents’ men­tal health prob­lems and dig­i­tal tech (Sci­ence Daily):

With the explo­sion in dig­i­tal enter­tain­ment options over the past sev­er­al decades and the more recent restric­tions on out­door and in-per­son social activ­i­ties, par­ents may wor­ry that exces­sive engage­ment with dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy could have long-term effects on their chil­dren’s men­tal health.

A new study pub­lished in the jour­nal Clin­i­cal Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence, how­ev­er, found lit­tle evi­dence for an increased asso­ci­a­tion between ado­les­cents’ tech­nol­o­gy engage­ment and men­tal health prob­lems over the past 30 years. The data did not con­sis­tent­ly sup­port the sug­ges­tion that the tech­nolo­gies we wor­ry about most (e.g., smart­phones) are becom­ing more harm­ful… [Read more…] about Study: Social media and gen­er­al tech engage­ment not found to “fry” teenagers’ brains

Study: Higher mental wellbeing (in 2016) seen to lower healthcare costs (in 2017)

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There are many rea­sons why men­tal well­be­ing is impor­tant. Not only is it pro­tec­tive against phys­i­cal ill­ness­es and linked to greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, but the men­tal well­be­ing of a pop­u­la­tion is essen­tial for a country’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty, long-term growth and development.

But despite the clear ben­e­fits, gov­ern­ments tend to focus pub­lic spend­ing on treat­ing and pre­vent­ing dis­ease, and pro­vid­ing care for those who are ill. While this is impor­tant and should con­tin­ue to be pri­ori­tised, such strate­gies alone won’t increase lev­els of men­tal well­be­ing overall.

Not only would enhanc­ing men­tal well­be­ing across all seg­ments of the pop­u­la­tion lead to bet­ter health on aver­age, it would also be ben­e­fi­cial from an eco­nom­ic per­spec­tive. [Read more…] about Study: High­er men­tal well­be­ing (in 2016) seen to low­er health­care costs (in 2017)

Cumulus Neuroscience raises $8.3M to develop EEG-based wireless ‘Fitbit for the brain’

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Belfast-based Cumu­lus rais­es €6.9m for its ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ (The Irish Times):

… For­mer­ly known as Brain­Wave­Bank, the com­pa­ny has devel­oped a wire­less elec­troen­cephalo­gram (EEG) head­set and pro­pri­etary soft­ware plat­form that use advanced ana­lyt­ics and machine learn­ing to mea­sure cog­ni­tive fitness.

“This fund­ing will allow us to build on the ground-break­ing advances we have made in remote, fre­quent mon­i­tor­ing of brain activ­i­ty and cog­ni­tive func­tion in the home, in part­ner­ship with lead­ing devel­op­ers of dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers,” said Mr Cun­ning­ham, the company’s chief exec­u­tive. [Read more…] about Cumu­lus Neu­ro­science rais­es $8.3M to devel­op EEG-based wire­less ‘Fit­bit for the brain’

Reading Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to modernize psychiatry

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The Rise of Big Data Psy­chi­a­try (The Wall Street Journal):

As a physi­cian, I need to fig­ure out three things when a new patient walks into my office: what their life is typ­i­cal­ly like, what has changed that made them seek treat­ment and what I can do to help them. It’s a com­plex prob­lem, and most fields of med­i­cine approach it by tak­ing mea­sure­ments. If I were a car­di­ol­o­gist eval­u­at­ing a patient’s chest pain, for instance, I would speak with the patient, but then I would lis­ten to their heart and mea­sure their pulse and blood pres­sure. I might order an elec­tro­car­dio­gram or a car­diac stress test, tools that weren’t avail­able a cen­tu­ry ago.

Because I’m a psy­chi­a­trist, how­ev­er, I eval­u­ate patients in pre­cise­ly the same way that my pre­de­ces­sors did in 1920: I ask them to tell me what’s wrong, and while they’re talk­ing I care­ful­ly observe their speech and behav­ior. But psy­chi­a­try has remained large­ly immune to mea­sure­ment. At no point in the exam­i­na­tion do I gath­er numer­i­cal data about the patient’s life or behav­ior, even though tools for tak­ing such mea­sure­ments already exist. In fact, you like­ly are car­ry­ing one around in your pock­et right now. Keep read­ing essay HERE, adapt­ed from the new book Read­ing Our Minds: The Rise of Big Data Psy­chi­a­try by psy­chi­a­trist Daniel Bar­ron. [Read more…] about Read­ing Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to mod­ern­ize psychiatry