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Brain/ Mental Health

Alto Neuroscience raises $60M (equity + credit) to help fix the “trial and error” approach to psychiatric medication

January 31, 2023 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Alto Neu­ro­science bags $25M for four Phase II drugs (End­points News):

Anoth­er $25 mil­lion is flow­ing the way of a Cal­i­for­nia biotech attempt­ing to fix the “tri­al and error” sys­tem in neu­ro­science drug R&D.

Alto Neu­ro­science picked up the cap­i­tal from Alpha Wave Ven­tures via an exten­sion to its Series B, bring­ing total equi­ty raised to $100 mil­lion since the startup’s 2019 found­ing. [Read more…] about Alto Neu­ro­science rais­es $60M (equi­ty + cred­it) to help fix the “tri­al and error” approach to psy­chi­atric medication

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Alpha Wave Ventures, Alto Neuroscience, behavioral task measurements, cognition, depression meds, EEG activity, emotion, Genetics, K2 HealthVentures, neuroscience, sleep

The European Society for Brain Stimulation opposes EU reclassification of TMS and tDCS, claiming a flawed safety assessment

January 24, 2023 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Man­i­festo: Oppo­si­tion to EU Reclas­si­fi­ca­tion of TMS and tDCS equip­ment to Class III devices based on flawed evi­dence (Euro­pean Soci­ety for Brain Stimulation):

It has recent­ly come to our atten­tion that the EU has reclas­si­fied the NIBS equip­ments includ­ing rTMS and tDCS, as Class III devices, the cat­e­go­ry of high­est risk, sim­i­lar to inva­sive treat­ments, such as deep-brain stim­u­la­tion implants. This reclas­si­fi­ca­tion has a major impact on our field, not only for man­u­fac­tur­ers, but also for researchers, clin­i­cians and patients and we judge this reclas­si­fi­ca­tion a mis­take. First, the evi­den­tial basis for this change is a flawed assess­ment of the safe­ty lit­er­a­ture. Sec­ond, the con­sul­ta­tion process has occurred with­out input from spe­cial­ists or stake­hold­ers pro­fes­sion­al­ly active in the field of NIBS. Nei­ther the ESBS nor Nation­al Soci­eties of Brain Stim­u­la­tion nor indi­vid­ual experts with­in the Euro­pean NIBS com­mu­ni­ty were con­sult­ed on this change. [Read more…] about The Euro­pean Soci­ety for Brain Stim­u­la­tion oppos­es EU reclas­si­fi­ca­tion of TMS and tDCS, claim­ing a flawed safe­ty assessment

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain stimulation, EU, European Society for Brain Stimulation, neurostimulation, rTMS, tDCS

Ballroom dancing can reduce aging-related brain atrophy in the hippocampus (and, more than treadmill walking!)

January 11, 2023 by The Conversation 2 Comments

Social ball­room danc­ing can improve cog­ni­tive func­tions and reduce brain atro­phy in old­er adults who are at increased risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. That’s the key find­ing of my team’s recent­ly pub­lished study in the Jour­nal of Aging and Phys­i­cal Activity.

In our study, we enrolled 25 adults over 65 years of age in either six months of twice-week­ly ball­room danc­ing class­es or six months of twice-week­ly tread­mill walk­ing class­es. None of them were engaged in for­mal danc­ing or oth­er exer­cise pro­grams. [Read more…] about Ball­room danc­ing can reduce aging-relat­ed brain atro­phy in the hip­pocam­pus (and, more than tread­mill walking!)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Alzheimer’s Disease, brain health, Brain-atrophy, cognition, cognitive-function, dancing, dementia, executive functioning, hippocampus, older-adults, processing-speed, social ballroom

Voice biomarker platform Sonde Health raises $19.25M to spread access to mental health monitoring and beyond

January 5, 2023 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Voice analy­sis plat­form Sonde Health rais­es $19.25M (Mobi­Health­News):

AI-enabled voice tech­nol­o­gy plat­form Sonde Health announced it raised $19.25 mil­lion in a Series B fund­ing round led by Part­ners Invest­ment, bring­ing its total raise to $35.25 mil­lion … Sonde Health uses patent­ed voice tech­nol­o­gy to detect var­i­ous health con­di­tions from bio­mark­ers in a per­son­’s voice, includ­ing ana­lyz­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry fit­ness and detect­ing depres­sion and anx­i­ety. [Read more…] about Voice bio­mark­er plat­form Sonde Health rais­es $19.25M to spread access to men­tal health mon­i­tor­ing and beyond

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, biomarkers, depression, health monitoring, mental-fitness, Sonde Health, vocal biomarkers

The FDA ends precertification (Pre-Cert) pilot program, saying new authority required to regulate software as a medical device (SaMD)

December 20, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

FDA acknowl­edges short­com­ings of Pre-Cert pilot in report (Reg­u­la­to­ry Focus):

The US Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) said it needs addi­tion­al Con­gres­sion­al author­i­ty to move for­ward with its dig­i­tal health pre­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (Pre-Cert) pro­gram. While the idea has been wide­ly laud­ed by var­i­ous stake­hold­ers, at least one expert said he feels vin­di­cat­ed for warn­ing the agency ear­ly on that it lacked the legal author­i­ty to ful­ly imple­ment pathway.

In 2017, the FDA pro­posed the idea of a Pre-Cert pro­gram that would act as a new path­way for soft­ware as a med­ical device (SaMD) prod­ucts, through which the agency could green-light such prod­ucts based on how much reg­u­la­tors trust the man­u­fac­tur­er. The agency has been run­ning a pilot pro­gram to test the fea­si­bil­i­ty of the pro­gram, but in a new report, FDA con­cedes it does not have the legal author­i­ty need­ed to cre­ate the pro­gram as orig­i­nal­ly envi­sioned. [Read more…] about The FDA ends pre­cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (Pre-Cert) pilot pro­gram, say­ing new author­i­ty required to reg­u­late soft­ware as a med­ical device (SaMD)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: digital health, FDA, Pre-Cert, precertification, software as a medical device, US Food and Drug Administration

Study identifies cognitive benefits of ketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression

December 8, 2022 by The Conversation

Ket­a­mine mol­e­cules attach them­selves to NMDA neu­ronal recep­tors, which play an impor­tant role in brain plas­tic­i­ty and pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing. C22H31NO2, CC BY-SA

Which fac­tors deter­mine what we believe about our world, our­selves, our past, and our future? Cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science sug­gests that our beliefs are depen­dent on brain activ­i­ty, specif­i­cal­ly on the way our brains process sen­so­ry infor­ma­tion in order to make sense of our environment.

These beliefs (defined as prob­a­bil­i­ty esti­mates) are cen­tral to our brain’s pre­dic­tive pro­cess­ing func­tion, which enables it to pre­dict the prob­a­bilis­tic struc­ture of the world around us. These pre­dic­tions could even be the fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks of men­tal states, such as per­cep­tions and emotions.

Many psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, such as depres­sion and schiz­o­phre­nia, are char­ac­terised by irreg­u­lar beliefs whose ori­gins we still don’t ful­ly under­stand. But if we can iden­ti­fy the cere­bral sys­tems gov­ern­ing them, we could tar­get those very areas in a bid to alle­vi­ate the pain asso­ci­at­ed to these ill­ness­es. [Read more…] about Study iden­ti­fies cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits of ket­a­mine in patients with treat­ment-resis­tant depression

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: affective bias, antidepressants, augmented psychotherapy, brain-activity, Brain-Plasticity, Cognitive Neuroscience, depression, depressive beliefs, ketamine, NMDA, pharmacological, psilocybin, psychedelic medicine, psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia

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