On neuroplasticity, cognition, aging, medication, Alzheimer’s, board games, brain teasers, and more

By SharpBrains | October 26, 2023

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing research find­ings on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, cog­ni­tion, aging, med­ica­tion, Alzheimer’s, board games, and more, plus some brain teasers to get you in great shape for Hal­loween. #1. Study: Play­ing board games like Chess, Mahjong, Go, helps slow cog­ni­tive decline as we age (but with clear dif­fer­ences in…

Read More

Study: Playing board games like Chess, Mahjong, Go, helps slow cognitive decline as we age (but with clear differences in neurobiology and improved function)

By SharpBrains | October 25, 2023 |

Play­ing Board Games May Slow Cog­ni­tive Decline, Improve QoL (Med­scape): Play­ing chess or oth­er board games slows cog­ni­tive decline and improves qual­i­ty of life in old­er patients, results of a new sys­tem­at­ic review sug­gest. … After search­ing the pub­lished lit­er­a­ture, Pozzi and his col­leagues select­ed 15 stud­ies for the review. The stud­ies assessed the impact…

Read More

Beyond the clinic: Can digital therapeutics (DTx) help boost mental health in the workforce at scale?

By SharpBrains | October 2, 2023

Hop­ing to Avoid Pear’s Fate, Behav­ioral Health-Focused DTx Com­pa­nies Look to Employ­er Mar­ket (Behav­ioral Health Busi­ness): The dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) indus­try is at a cross­roads after one of the most promi­nent com­pa­nies in the space, Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, filed for bank­rupt­cy ear­li­er this year. The tur­moil comes after DTx began catch­ing on in the behav­ioral health…

Read More

Four reasons to question “new generation” monoclonal antibody Alzheimer’s drugs such as aducanumab (Aduhelm), lecanemab (Leqembi), donanemab

By SharpBrains | September 25, 2023

New Alzheimer’s Drugs Don’t Deserve the Hype (Being Patient): A promi­nent child­hood mem­o­ry is of my grand­par­ents liv­ing with and then dying from demen­tia. As is uni­ver­sal with demen­tia, there was a dou­ble blow: watch­ing my grand­par­ents lose their iden­ti­ty and see­ing the suf­fer­ing of those clos­est to them.

Read More

“To do nothing is not an option”: The NHS Confederation releases digital mental health whitepaper

By SharpBrains | September 12, 2023

The NHS Con­fed­er­a­tion–the mem­ber­ship organ­i­sa­tion for health­care providers in Eng­land, Wales and North­ern Ire­land– has just released a quite com­pre­hen­site 45-page whitepa­per titled Max­imis­ing the poten­tial of dig­i­tal in men­tal health. Some of the high­lights: To do noth­ing is not an option. If we don’t make more progress we miss a key oppor­tu­ni­ty to make…

Read More