Study shows the power of electroencephalography and machine learning to help predict response to psychotherapy (or lack thereof) in patients with PTSD

By SharpBrains | May 2, 2023

A fas­ci­nat­ing study just pub­lished in Nature Men­tal Health aimed at help­ing pre­dict the out­comes of psy­chother­a­py for patients with Post-Trau­­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (PTSD) using Machine Learn­ing (ML) and elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) data. PTSD is a men­tal health con­di­tion trig­gered by expe­ri­enc­ing or wit­ness­ing a trau­mat­ic event; two evi­­dence-based treatments–Prolonged Expo­sure (PE) and Cog­ni­tive Pro­cess­ing Ther­a­py (CPT)–are…

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On the 7 Habits of Highly Stress-Resilient Minds, cognitive screenings, anti-amyloid drugs, and more

By SharpBrains | April 27, 2023

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, this time cov­er­ing the lat­est devel­op­ments in stress research, med­i­ta­tion, vir­tu­al real­i­ty, anti-amy­loid drugs, cog­ni­tive screen­ings, and more. #1. The 7 Habits of High­ly Stress-Resilient Minds “Any­thing worth doing will have aspects of stress woven through: chal­lenge, dis­com­fort, risk. We can’t change that. But what we can change is…

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Pilot program by IU and Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative to test AI-powered cognitive screening at scale

By SharpBrains | April 11, 2023

How AI, Dig­i­tal Screen­ing Tools Can Help Flag Ear­ly Cog­ni­tive Decline (Health IT Ana­lyt­ics): Ear­ly diag­no­sis of Alzheimer’s and oth­er demen­tias remains at the fore­front of efforts to min­i­mize the impact of these neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. But chal­lenges such as increased life expectan­cy and the risks of aging, along with com­plex­i­ties in diag­no­sis and treat­ment resulting…

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Pear Therapeutics loses 97% of its market capitalization since 2021, explores strategic alternatives

By SharpBrains | March 29, 2023

Pear Ther­a­peu­tics explor­ing sale, oth­er ‘strate­gic alter­na­tives’ (Mobi­Health News): Pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics com­pa­ny Pear Ther­a­peu­tics is explor­ing “strate­gic alter­na­tives,” includ­ing a pos­si­ble com­pa­ny sale, merg­er or acqui­si­tion. In a press release, the com­pa­ny said it hired a finan­cial advi­sor to look into actions that could “max­i­mize share­hold­er val­ue.” That includes a poten­tial sale, M&A, divestiture…

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Ten resources, brain teasers and illusions to celebrate Brain Awareness Week 2023

By SharpBrains | March 15, 2023

We invite you to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week (March 13–19th, 2023) by learn­ing more about that key yet often-over­looked organ and by putting it to good use via some fun brain teasers and illu­sions :-) Can you con­nect these pairs of words? Try these quick teasers to chal­lenge your work­ing mem­o­ry Three clas­sic opti­cal illu­sions, explained Test…

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CMS: anti-amyloid drug Leqembi (lecanemab) doesn’t meet the “reasonable and necessary” standard required for wider Medicare coverage

By SharpBrains | February 28, 2023

CMS Sticks to Sharply Lim­it­ed Cov­er­age of New Alzheimer’s Drug, Leqem­bi (Man­aged Health­care Exec­u­tive): For now, CMS (Note: Cen­ters for Medicare & Med­ic­aid Ser­vices) is stick­ing to the cov­er­age deci­sion it made for Aduhelm (adu­canum­ab) and apply­ing it Leqem­bi (lecanemab). The deci­sion lim­its Medicare cov­er­age of the two Alzheimer disease’s drugs to Medicare ben­e­fi­cia­ries who…

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