Welcome to the Ultimate Neuroscience Lab: Your Smartphone

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time six sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try resources plus a fun illusion.

#1. Top 10 Men­tal Health Inno­va­tions to Watch: Spe­cial SciAm/ WEF report

Hop­ing you enjoy the great series over at Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can and espe­cial­ly #7, titled Wel­come to the Ulti­mate Neu­ro­science Lab: Your Smart­phone, by Emory neu­roethi­cist Karen Rom­melfanger and our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez.

#2. Five thoughts to think about when think­ing about the speed of thought

The time it takes for all thoughts to occur is ulti­mate­ly shaped by the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the neu­rons and the net­works involved. Many things influ­ence the speed at which infor­ma­tion flows through the sys­tem, but three key fac­tors are: dis­tance, myeli­na­tion, complexity,

#3. Study: Self-guid­ed sleep app Sleepio, com­bined with stan­dard care for depres­sion and anx­i­ety, deliv­ers bet­ter out­comes than stan­dard care alone

“This eval­u­a­tion revealed sig­nif­i­cant val­ue in intro­duc­ing an evi­dence-based dig­i­tal sleep inter­ven­tion at scale with­in a clin­i­cal men­tal health ser­vice,” researchers from Big Health and Oxford Health NHS Foun­da­tion Trust conclude.

#4. On uncer­tain­ty, stress, emo­tion reg­u­la­tion, and carpe diem

“These find­ings from three stud­ies with diverse sam­ples and method­olo­gies under­score an upside to the specter of uncer­tain­ty: it can cause peo­ple to savor the pos­i­tives of the present.”

#5. Study finds ADHD is asso­ci­at­ed with dementia

“Specif­i­cal­ly, par­ents of an ADHD child have a 34% high­er risk of demen­tia and 55% high­er risk of Alzheimer’s, the results showed. Grand­par­ents have about an 11% increased risk of either condition.”

#6. Study: Few­er than 1% of geri­atric patients with cog­ni­tive com­plaints met Aduhelm research tri­al cri­te­ria. What can we expect about its real-world safety?

As the researchers point out, “It is thus clear how the result­ing gap between the research and “real world” fields is mas­sive.” We do have the impres­sion that the Aduhelm FDA saga is far from over.

#7. Quick brain teas­er: What do you see? And, can you unsee it?

Have a minute? Give it a try :-)

Wish­ing you and yours a hap­py and healthy month of October,

The Sharp­Brains Team