Brain Teasers

On cognitive training, muscle mass, neurostimulation, brain teasers, apps, and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & inno­va­tion news and a few fun teasers to test your work­ing memory.

#1. Study: Build­ing mus­cle mass helps delay cog­ni­tive decline beyond the val­ue of exer­cise itself

“Teas­ing out exact­ly how mus­cle helps the brain remains a chal­lenge. There are plen­ty of indi­rect links … But Dr. Chevalier’s results sug­gest there may be more direct mech­a­nisms too. One pos­si­bil­i­ty is the role of myokines, a set of hor­mone-like mol­e­cules pro­duced by mus­cle cells that can trav­el to the brain and influ­ence mood, learn­ing and oth­er cog­ni­tive func­tions. Greater mus­cle mass may also help keep blood glu­cose lev­els in check, pro­tect­ing the brain from damage.”

#2. Clin­i­cians and aca­d­e­mics should engage users when review­ing apps, study finds

“More than half of the app rat­ings showed dis­agree­ment between par­tic­i­pants and pro­fes­sion­als … Par­tic­i­pants par­tic­u­lar­ly val­ued cer­tain aspects of men­tal health apps, which appear to be over­looked by pro­fes­sion­al review­ers. These includ­ed func­tions such as the abil­i­ty to track and mea­sure men­tal health and pro­vid­ing gen­er­al men­tal health edu­ca­tion. The cost of apps was among the most impor­tant fac­tors for participants.”

#3. Com­bined tDCS neu­rostim­u­la­tion and cog­ni­tive train­ing found to improve work­ing mem­o­ry among old­er adults–especially those with low­er start­ing capacity

“… indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics influ­enced the out­come of com­bined cog­ni­tive train­ing and tDCS reg­i­mens, with the inter­ven­tion selec­tive­ly ben­e­fit­ing old-old adults with low­er work­ing mem­o­ry capac­i­ty. Future work should con­sid­er devel­op­ing indi­vid­u­al­ized treat­ments by con­sid­er­ing indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive profiles.”

#4. Head­space Health’s Leslie Witt on the future of men­tal health

“I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe in the pow­er of mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion tools, but they can’t serve all men­tal health needs. And par­tic­u­lar­ly when someone’s in a state of acute anx­i­ety, acute depres­sion, they need access to pro­fes­sion­al, human services…We are build­ing out what I often call the mid­dle piece, the bridge that exists between the self-serve con­tent in the Head­space app and the text-based coach­ing, telether­a­py and telepsy­chi­a­try of the Gin­ger service.”

#5. Study: Prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude helps low­er phys­i­o­log­i­cal stress lev­els of the “express­er” AND the “receiv­er”

“The impli­ca­tion here is that you should let your grat­i­tude out when you feel it … That’s not to say that you should go around and make up grat­i­tude expres­sions for no rea­son. But, when you gen­uine­ly feel grat­i­tude, you should express it.” — Christo­pher Oveis, Direc­tor of the Empa­thy & Emo­tion Lab at UCSD

#6. Tak­ing your brain vitals: Sto­ries from a tech­no-opti­mist invent­ing the future of human performance

“My vision for DANA has always been that every time you go to the doc­tor, in addi­tion to tak­ing your height, weight, blood pres­sure, and tem­per­a­ture, they will take your DANA brain vital. When mea­sur­ing your brain health becomes sec­ond nature—as com­mon as check­ing your blood pressure—it will empow­er every­one, no mat­ter their age, to spot changes soon­er and take action.” — Cori Lath­an, CEO of Anthro­Tron­ix, in her great new book.

#7. UK agen­cies to review and update reg­u­la­tion of dig­i­tal men­tal health tools

Time­ly and impor­tant work to be done by the Med­i­cines and Health­care prod­ucts Reg­u­la­to­ry Agency (MHRA) and the Nation­al Insti­tute for Health and Care Excel­lence (NICE).

#8. Last but not least, let us share a few quick brain teasers to exer­cise your work­ing mem­o­ry … enjoy!

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and warm month of November

Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain news and a few fun brain teasers to test your per­cep­tu­al and cog­ni­tive skills.

#1. Study: Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve helps delay mem­o­ry and think­ing decline regard­less of genet­ic or child­hood markers

“While our child­hood can influ­ence our mem­o­ry and think­ing skills lat­er in life, this research under­lines the mes­sage that it’s nev­er too late to take action to sup­port cog­ni­tive health.” — Dr Sara Imari­sio, Head of Strate­gic Ini­tia­tives at Alzheimer’s Research UK

#2. Ful­ly-auto­mat­ed analy­sis of voice recordings–from neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests–found to help dif­fer­en­ti­ate nor­mal cog­ni­tion from demen­tia and mild cog­ni­tive impairment

As the researchers point out, “The pro­posed approach offers a ful­ly auto­mat­ed iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of MCI and demen­tia based on a record­ed neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal test, pro­vid­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op a remote screen­ing tool that could be adapt­ed eas­i­ly to any language”

#3. Debunk­ing the “chem­i­cal imbal­ance” the­o­ry yet not throw­ing out the anti­de­pres­sant baby with the bathwater

“Depres­sion is usu­al­ly man­aged effec­tive­ly with anti­de­pres­sants or by talk­ing treat­ments, such as cog­ni­tive behav­iour ther­a­py, despite an incom­plete under­stand­ing of the con­di­tion and how these treat­ments work. We can­not know if treat­ments address the under­ly­ing prob­lem because we haven’t yet iden­ti­fied what that is. To imply that SSRI anti­de­pres­sants may not be worth­while is to mis­un­der­stand an evi­dence base that says the very opposite.”

#4. Q&A with researcher Robb Rut­ledge on men­tal health, expec­ta­tions, deci­sion-mak­ing and hol­i­day planning

“Recent events have a big­ger impact on hap­pi­ness than ear­li­er events, so it can be a good strat­e­gy to save a cou­ple things that have a chance of a big pos­i­tive sur­prise for the last few days of your trip. It could be a nov­el expe­ri­ence that a lot of peo­ple like but you’re not sure what to expect … It prob­a­bly isn’t anoth­er muse­um. Just make sure it’s not some­thing that could get rained out”

#5. How much should you trust Bet­ter­Help, Talk­space, Cere­bral and oth­er men­tal health start-ups tout­ed by celebrities?

“Many U.S. adults aren’t able to find help because of a short­age of ther­a­pists. Near­ly 40% are strug­gling with men­tal health or sub­stance abuse issues, accord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Prevention.
So mil­lions of peo­ple are turn­ing to online companies…”

#6. Dig­i­tal men­tal health inter­ven­tion by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) found to low­er anx­i­ety and depres­sion, with improve­ments main­tained at 3?month follow-up

As acknowl­edged “The main lim­i­ta­tion of the cur­rent tri­al is the high dropout rate”, but con­text is key: “Most dis­placed peo­ple with men­tal dis­or­ders in low- and mid­dle-income coun­tries do not receive effec­tive care, and their access to care has dete­ri­o­rat­ed dur­ing the Coro­n­avirus Dis­ease 2019 (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic”. — Inno­va­tion does­n’t need to be per­fect, just better/ cheaper/ more acces­si­ble than alternatives.

#7. Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pio­neer Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs goes pub­lic, rais­ing $150M+; trades down 49% first day

Quite dif­fi­cult mar­ket envi­ron­ment for an impor­tant evi­dence-based inno­va­tion — good news is they raised enough funds to test approach in the real world over the next 12–24 months. Let’s see!

#8. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) meets Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT): Wysa rais­es $20M to scale up men­tal health chatbot

“Typ­i­cal­ly, access to a men­tal health ser­vice is gat­ed. It is restrict­ed by some kind of diag­no­sis — say­ing only if you are severe enough you will be able to get to speak to a ther­a­pist because obvi­ous­ly ther­a­py is expen­sive and somebody’s got to pay for it” … the app offers “ear­ly engage­ment and a safe space where peo­ple can come in and anony­mous­ly just talk about what’s both­er­ing them.”

Final­ly, here are three quick brain teas­er games to test your per­cep­tu­al and cog­ni­tive skills. Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing month of September!

The Do’s and Don’ts of Harnessing Technology (and Anxiety) for Good

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills and more…

#1. Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health

“Tech­nol­o­gy can not only help us grow out of unhealthy habits, it is also pos­si­ble to expand human men­tal capac­i­ties … although it will be nec­es­sary to ana­lyze “the how and when” of these uses: they must be eth­i­cal­ly sound and ensure that results are ben­e­fi­cial to soci­ety.” — our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez, hop­ing you all agree 🙂

If you pre­fer to read the arti­cle in Span­ish: Cómo hac­er de la tec­nología un ali­a­do en el cuida­do de la salud mental

#2. On neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, young brains, and smartphones

“As with any tool, behav­ior, activ­i­ty, or tech­nol­o­gy, smart phones have the poten­tial to be either a use­ful and high­ly con­struc­tive asset or a destruc­tive and harm­ful diver­sion from life … What is the impact on brain devel­op­ment dur­ing the first 25 years of life when a sig­nif­i­cant part of each day is spent look­ing into a smart phone and the result­ing cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al experiences?”

#3. Explor­ing links between hear­ing loss, demen­tia and the ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ — plus the role of hear­ing aids

“Cer­tain types of demen­tia, par­tic­u­lar­ly vas­cu­lar demen­tia, are caused when there is less blood flow reach­ing the brain. This can dam­age our brain cells. Recent stud­ies have also shown that the parts of our brain that process sounds (our audi­to­ry sys­tem) have many blood ves­sels and are vul­ner­a­ble to dam­age … Anoth­er area of research is look­ing at whether hear­ing loss indi­rect­ly affects demen­tia risk by mak­ing it hard­er for peo­ple to stay con­nect­ed. Social iso­la­tion is anoth­er known risk fac­tor for dementia.”

#4. Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py (CCBT) may out­per­form Treat­ment as Usu­al (TAU) in help­ing patients reduce depres­sion, improve 6‑month remis­sion rates

“The find­ings of this ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­al sug­gest that CCBT with a mod­est amount of clin­i­cian sup­port has poten­tial for wider-spread imple­men­ta­tion as an effec­tive, accept­able, and effi­cient treat­ment for depres­sion in pri­ma­ry care.”

#6. Wear­able EEG mon­i­tor­ing start-up Epi­tel rais­es $12.5M to mar­ket seizure detec­tion system

“It is time that EEGs for the brain become as acces­si­ble as EKGs for the heart to patients through­out the coun­try. For too long essen­tial neu­ro­log­i­cal ser­vices have been inac­ces­si­ble to large parts of our pop­u­la­tion” — Dr. Chaud­ery, Prin­ci­pal at Genoa Ven­tures (co-lead investor)

#7. Otsu­ka and Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty start-up Jol­ly Good sign $43M deal to pro­mote Social Skills Train­ing (SST) ther­a­pies, help­ing schiz­o­phre­nia patients first

“The com­bi­na­tion of SST and a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­i­men has been proven in stud­ies to reduce the recur­rence of men­tal dis­or­ders, the com­pa­nies said. Their first joint­ly devel­oped pro­gram will be direct­ed toward schiz­o­phre­nia patients, and they’re pre­dict­ing that the immer­sive nature of Jol­ly Good’s VR will make the SST ther­a­py more engag­ing and effec­tive than stan­dard methods.”

#8. Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

“Most peo­ple have all heard of the fight-or-flight system—that’s the stress sys­tem, it makes your heart rate go up and you can run away real­ly fast. Well, peo­ple don’t real­ize that through evo­lu­tion in par­al­lel with the fight-or-flight sys­tem evolved an equal and oppo­site part of our ner­vous sys­tem that’s nick­named the “rest-and-digest” part of the ner­vous sys­tem, or parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. It’s basi­cal­ly the de-stress­ing part of our ner­vous sys­tem. That is what we need to acti­vate to bring our­selves back to equi­lib­ri­um when we’re in a stress­ful state.”

 

Final­ly, as promised, a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills–and more. Enjoy!

#9. Test your mem­o­ry and rea­son­ing skills with these proverbs

#10. Brain teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#11. Did you notice the jump? Good rea­son­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing often requires prop­er atten­tion to detail…

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and safe March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Let’s Thank our unique Human Brains and Minds with a few family-friendly riddles

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Q: What is a sure way of sus­tain­ing a friend­ly and socia­ble feel­ing towards the whole world?
A: Con­sort only with strangers.

Q: What beats regret­ting what you said?
A: Trea­sur­ing what you DIDN’T say.

Q: What does, “you must come and vis­it us some­time!” actu­al­ly mean?
A: Noth­ing at all. How­ev­er, if you take it seri­ous­ly, be ready for the what-are-you-doing-here welcome!

– Kei­th Per­reur-Lloyd is an Anglo-French com­pos­er and musi­cian cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Spain. You can learn more about his clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions here.

More fun ways to challenge our brains and minds:

Study examines common cognitive biases (have you tried this brain teaser?) and ways to mitigate them

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Pic: Get­ty Images

A fas­ci­nat­ing new study, Tver­sky and Kahneman’s Cog­ni­tive Illu­sions: Who Can Solve Them, and Why?, probes into the cog­ni­tive “heuris­tics and bias­es” researched by Daniel Kah­ne­man and Amos Tver­sky since the late 1960s.

If you have nev­er encoun­tered the “Lin­da brain teas­er” before, please give it a try:

Lin­da is 31 years old, sin­gle, out­spo­ken, and very bright. She majored in phi­los­o­phy. As a stu­dent, she was deeply con­cerned with issues of dis­crim­i­na­tion and social jus­tice, and also par­tic­i­pat­ed in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Which state­ment is more probable?

(a) Lin­da is a bank teller.

(b) Lin­da is a bank teller and is active in the fem­i­nist movement.

 

Quick! What’s your answer? [Read more…] about Study exam­ines com­mon cog­ni­tive bias­es (have you tried this brain teas­er?) and ways to mit­i­gate them