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Brain/ Mental Health

On mental fitness beliefs, lifestyles and new tools like apps, digital therapeutics, virtual reality, “brain age gaps” and more

May 31, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun cou­ple of math brain teasers.

#1. Study on the “ABCs of Men­tal Health” finds that sim­ply believ­ing you can improve men­tal well­be­ing helps actu­al­ly improve it

Beliefs mat­ter.

#2. “Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics” vs. “Men­tal health apps”: A grow­ing debate on stan­dards, reg­u­la­tion and efficacy

Def­i­n­i­tions matter.

#3. How ’sleep­ing on it’ can help the pre­frontal cor­tex reg­u­late emo­tion­al respons­es, mak­ing us feel bet­ter in the morning

Sleep mat­ters.

#4. NICE in the UK issues rec­om­men­da­tion for Sleepio app, the dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py for insom­nia by Big Health

Inno­va­tion mat­ters: “At a price of £45 per per­son, Sleepio is cost sav­ing com­pared with usu­al treat­ment in pri­ma­ry care. This is based on an analy­sis of pri­ma­ry care resource use data before and after Sleepio was intro­duced in 9 GP prac­tices. Health­care costs were low­er at 1 year, most­ly because of few­er GP appoint­ments and sleep­ing pills prescribed.”

#5. New book pro­vides prac­ti­cal guid­ance for women (and men) to rebal­ance our lifestyles and build Cog­ni­tive Reserve

Lifestyle mat­ters: “The more com­plex our lives are, the more we need sim­ple things that can ground us and help us to be more resilient – to rebal­ance and rebal­ance and rebal­ance again. Build­ing the men­tal mus­cles to find bal­ance when one gets off bal­ance is a crit­i­cal skill thrive and to build cog­ni­tive reserve in our fast-chang­ing times. As our month­ly gath­er­ings showed us over the years, prac­tic­ing rebal­ance in good com­pa­ny not only rein­forces neur­al path­ways and capa­bil­i­ties but also strength­ens the bonds of trust and con­fi­dence that are invalu­able to build a healthy envi­ron­ment to thrive in.”

#6. Study: Auto­mat­ed VR psy­chother­a­py can help reduce anx­i­ety and dis­tress, espe­cial­ly among those with psy­chosis and severe agoraphobia

One of the ben­e­fits of VR is that patients know they are in a sim­u­la­tion, which enables “psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tance from prob­lem­at­ic reac­tions,” the study authors wrote. “The process of find­ing the best uses and imple­men­ta­tion meth­ods of this immer­sive tech­nol­o­gy at scale in men­tal health is only beginning.”

#7. Fund­ing for dig­i­tal health start-ups, espe­cial­ly in men­tal health, fall sub­stan­tial­ly in Q1’22

“While all tech sec­tors received small­er fund­ing totals than the pre­vi­ous quar­ter, dig­i­tal health plunged much fur­ther than oth­ers did … investor inter­est in men­tal health tech wavered as the mar­ket and pub­lic com­pa­nies like Talk­space and Cere­bral come under scrutiny.”

#8. Deep learn­ing mod­el built on neu­roimag­ing data iden­ti­fies “Brain Age Gaps” as mark­ers of Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)

“The main find­ing of our study is that we could indeed find evi­dence that high brain age gap is behav­ing as an accel­er­at­ed brain aging bio­mark­er.” — Dr. David Jones, neu­rol­o­gist at Mayo Clinic

Final­ly, a cou­ple fun brain teasers to help you flex your math/ cog­ni­tive men­tal muscles:

#9. Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#10. Math brain teas­er requir­ing no math — just per­cep­tion and cognition

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing June!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: apps, biomarker, brain age gaps, brain aging biomarker, Brain Teasers, brain-aging, cognitive, digital health, digital therapeutics, mental health, mental muscles, mental-fitness, sleep, virtual-reality

How ’sleeping on it’ can help the prefrontal cortex regulate emotional responses, making us feel better in the morning

May 26, 2022 by The Conversation Leave a Comment

Instead of lying awake wor­ry­ing, we’re often told to “sleep on it” when mak­ing deci­sions both big and small. And there’s actu­al­ly a sci­en­tif­ic basis for this advice. Sleep can influ­ence our response to emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions, and helps us to man­age our men­tal health.

To under­stand why sleep and emo­tions are so con­nect­ed, it’s impor­tant to first under­stand what hap­pens in the brain when we encounter some­thing emo­tive. [Read more…] about How ’sleep­ing on it’ can help the pre­frontal cor­tex reg­u­late emo­tion­al respons­es, mak­ing us feel bet­ter in the morning

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: anxiety, brain, depression, Limbic-System, mental health, prefrontal-cortex, sleep on it, Stress

NICE in the UK issues recommendation for Sleepio app, the digital cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia by Big Health

May 24, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Sleepio becomes first dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to receive NICE guid­ance (Mobi­Health­News):

The Nation­al Insti­tute for Health and Care Excel­lence (NICE) has rec­om­mend­ed the Sleepio app as an effec­tive alter­na­tive to sleep­ing pills.

In its guid­ance, NICE states the app, cre­at­ed by dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (DTx) firm Big Health, is a safe and effec­tive treat­ment for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from insom­nia. [Read more…] about NICE in the UK issues rec­om­men­da­tion for Sleepio app, the dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py for insom­nia by Big Health

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: cognitive behavioural therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, digital cognitive behavioural therapy, insomnia symptoms, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NICE, Sleepio, Sleepio app, treating insomnia

Deep learning model built on neuroimaging data identifies “Brain Age Gaps” as markers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

May 19, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Brain Age Gap is a Com­pos­ite Bio­mark­er for Demen­tia Pathol­o­gy or Sever­i­ty (GEN):

Mayo Clin­ic sci­en­tists have devel­oped a com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el that pre­dicts brain age using a large col­lec­tion of neu­roimag­ing data obtained using FDG-PET (flu­o­rodeoxyglu­cose positron emis­sion tomog­ra­phy) and struc­tur­al MRI (mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing). The deep learn­ing-based mod­el tests the rela­tion­ship between brain age gaps in var­i­ous forms of demen­tia, includ­ing mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI), Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD), fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia (FTD), and Lewy body demen­tia (LBD), as well as in nor­mal brains.

[Read more…] about Deep learn­ing mod­el built on neu­roimag­ing data iden­ti­fies “Brain Age Gaps” as mark­ers of Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AD, AD biomarker, Alzheimer’s Disease, brain-aging, Cognitive-impairment, deep learning, disease, frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia, mild-cognitive-impairment, neurodegenerative, neurodegenerative disease

New book provides practical guidance for women (and men) to rebalance our lifestyles and build Cognitive Reserve

May 17, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

On one of our “walk and talks” around the lush trails of Rock Creek Park in DC sur­round­ed by bik­ers, run­ners, cars and the occa­sion­al deer, Wendy and Lisa talked about aging. Wendy’s moth­er, who had her chil­dren in her ear­ly 20s, was still join­ing the family’s gru­el­ing sum­mer hikes with her chil­dren and nine grand­chil­dren well into her 60s. Wendy mused about how much old­er she would be when their kids could have their own kids. It dawned on her that her health was not just a here and now issue, but an invest­ment in that future. We agreed to help each oth­er cul­ti­vate the habits and make time to build strength as well as reserves, both phys­i­cal and men­tal, for the long-term. Their goal: to enjoy being active in their 40s and 50s while also lay­ing the ground­work to con­tin­ue being active into their 60s, 70s, and beyond. [Read more…] about New book pro­vides prac­ti­cal guid­ance for women (and men) to rebal­ance our lifestyles and build Cog­ni­tive Reserve

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: book, Cognitive-impairment, cognitive-reserve, dementia, healthy-aging, lifelong, Lifelong Neuroplasticity, mental health, neuroplasticity, physical-health, Rebalance

Study on the “ABCs of Mental Health” finds that simply believing you can improve mental wellbeing helps actually improve it

May 12, 2022 by The Conversation Leave a Comment

The num­ber of peo­ple strug­gling with poor men­tal health and men­tal dis­or­ders has been ris­ing around the world over the past few decades. Those who are strug­gling are increas­ing­ly fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ties access­ing the kind of sup­port they need – leav­ing many wait­ing months for help, if they even qual­i­fy for treatment.

While it’s clear that more needs to be done to improve access to treat­ment, it doesn’t mean peo­ple inevitably have to strug­gle with their men­tal health as a result. In fact, there are many things peo­ple can do on their own to main­tain good men­tal health – and even pre­vent men­tal health prob­lems from devel­op­ing in the first place. Accord­ing to our recent research, one of the steps you can take to improve your men­tal well­be­ing may be as sim­ple as believ­ing that you can.

In our recent study, we asked 3,015 Dan­ish adults to fill out a sur­vey that asked ques­tions about men­tal health – such as whether they believe they can do some­thing to keep men­tal­ly healthy, whether they had done some­thing in the past two weeks to sup­port their men­tal health, and also whether they were cur­rent­ly strug­gling with a men­tal health prob­lem. We then assessed their lev­el of men­tal well­be­ing using the Short Warwick–Edinburgh Men­tal Well-being Scale, which is wide­ly used by health­care pro­fes­sion­als and researchers to mea­sure men­tal well­be­ing. [Read more…] about Study on the “ABCs of Men­tal Health” finds that sim­ply believ­ing you can improve men­tal well­be­ing helps actu­al­ly improve it

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: mental health, mental wellbeing, mental-disorders, mental-health-treatment, mind, treatment

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