Update: Moderate lifetime drinking may lead to lower Alzheimer-related beta amyloid deposits in the brain

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter.

#1. First of all, it’s not all bad news this month. Study finds that mod­er­ate life­time drink­ing may lead to low­er Alzheimer-relat­ed beta amy­loid deposits in the brain

#2. And, talk about per­son­al­ized med­i­cine! This fas­ci­nat­ing study show­ing how brain imag­ing (fMRI) + machine learn­ing + inten­sive, non-inva­sive neu­rostim­u­la­tion = tar­get­ed treat­ments that can max­i­mize effi­ca­cy and min­i­mize side effects: Rein­vent­ing depres­sion treat­ment via tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic brain stim­u­la­tion (TMS)

#3. Also, not a minute too soon … Med­i­ta­tion apps have gone main­stream in the covid-19 era and Dig­i­tal health start-ups raised a record $3.1 bil­lion in Q1; focus will like­ly evolve from providers to con­sumers and employers

#4. Fyi, a very time­ly vir­tu­al event com­ing Tues­day April 28th, online: Explore strate­gies and tools to boost men­tal well­be­ing dur­ing (and after) Covid-19

#6. Net net, now is the time for indi­vid­ual and col­lec­tive action to shift to a health­i­er “new nor­mal” for all: 3 ways to pro­tect your men­tal health dur­ing –and after– COVID-19 (in Span­ish: Tres hábitos de higiene men­tal para vencer al COVID-19 y crear un futuro más salud­able). Want more? Enjoy these Three tips for wise minds to calm coro­n­avirus anxiety

#7. A small but impor­tant study for that hope­ful near future when uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges reopen their doors: Study finds mixed results of Adder­all as cog­ni­tive enhancer (seems to boost emo­tion more than cognition)

#8. But, first things first. “The Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” reached #1 on the pop charts in 1977. Maybe it was the beat, maybe it was John Travolta’s danc­ing. Or maybe it’s that the Gibb broth­ers’ cen­tral lyric is quite lit­er­al­ly always play­ing in our head. Keep­ing us safe —that is, “stayin’ alive ”— is the pri­ma­ry mis­sion of the brain”

• Explor­ing the human brain and how it responds to stress (1/3)
• On World Health Day 2020, let’s dis­cuss the stress response and the Gen­er­al Adap­ta­tion Syn­drome (2/3)
• The frontal lobes, the lit­tle brain down under and “Stayin’ Alive” (3/3)

Enough with coro­n­avirus out­break. Any­thing else going on? Yes!

#9. The Right to Per­son­al Iden­ti­ty. The Right to Free Will. The Right to Men­tal Pri­va­cy. The Right to Equal Access to Men­tal Aug­men­ta­tion. The Right to Pro­tec­tion from Algo­rith­mic Bias. Will these five Neu­roR­ights help har­ness emerg­ing neu­rotech­nolo­gies for the com­mon good?

#10. “Today, the sci­en­tif­ic inves­ti­ga­tion of tran­scen­dent expe­ri­ences is, in my view, one of the most excit­ing fron­tiers in the sci­ence of well-being.” Tran­scend­ing Maslow’s famous “hier­ar­chy of needs” through Maslow’s own research on Peak Experiences

#11. You CAN have your cake and eat it too: Here’s a brain teas­er to stim­u­late your men­tal imagery, spa­tial rota­tion … and appetite

#12. Ques­tion: My first thought after con­grat­u­lat­ing myself on being so clever about some­thing? Tease your brain with these eight fun rid­dles…

Wish­ing you and yours a great month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team