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Brain/ Mental Health

Reminder: UT-Dallas BrainHealth presents virtual talks with Alvaro Fernandez (this Thursday, April 21st) and Sanjay Gupta (next Tuesday, April 26th)

April 19, 2022 by UT Dallas Leave a Comment

Each month, some of the most fas­ci­nat­ing speak­ers par­tic­i­pate in inter­ac­tive con­ver­sa­tions about the lat­est advances in brain health sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and real-world application.

All talks are vir­tu­al and free of charge. Reg­is­ter for the sea­son and attend as many talks as you like. [Read more…] about Reminder: UT-Dal­las Brain­Health presents vir­tu­al talks with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez (this Thurs­day, April 21st) and San­jay Gup­ta (next Tues­day, April 26th)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: alvaro-fernandez, Applied Neuroscience, brain health, Brain-Fitness, digital brain health, Pervasive Neurotechnology, real-world application, Sanjay Gupta, science, technology

Five ways to clear foggy brains and improve cognitive well-being

April 14, 2022 by Greater Good Science Center Leave a Comment

The oth­er day, my friend Kristi­na told me that one evening she unin­ten­tion­al­ly locked her hus­band in a down­stairs part of their house. She had known he was down there, but while dis­tract­ed­ly lock­ing the door for the night, for­got com­plete­ly. She didn’t real­ize what she’d done until she saw a text from her hus­band the next morn­ing ask­ing her to please let him out.

“I couldn’t believe I did that to him,” she says. “I was stunned and alarmed that I had no aware­ness, in the moment or after­ward, of what I had done.” [Read more…] about Five ways to clear fog­gy brains and improve cog­ni­tive well-being

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: cognition, cognitive challenge, cognitive well being, cognitive-functioning, exercise, foggy brains

Geisinger and Eisai to test real-world validity of AI-powered Passive Digital Marker (PDM) in detecting early cognitive impairment and dementia

April 12, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Research col­lab­o­ra­tion will test nov­el algorithm’s effec­tive­ness on Geisinger data (press release):

Geisinger and Eisai Inc. today announced a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort to study the poten­tial effec­tive­ness of an arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) tool in the detec­tion of cog­ni­tive impair­ment that could iden­ti­fy demen­tias, includ­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD). If effec­tive, the AI tool could poten­tial­ly be devel­oped to sup­port the ear­ly detec­tion and stag­ing of cog­ni­tive impair­ment and demen­tia, lead­ing to appro­pri­ate addi­tion­al test­ing for the clin­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal diag­no­sis and treat­ment of demen­tias such as AD. [Read more…] about Geisinger and Eisai to test real-world valid­i­ty of AI-pow­ered Pas­sive Dig­i­tal Mark­er (PDM) in detect­ing ear­ly cog­ni­tive impair­ment and dementia

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: algorithm, Alzheimer’s Disease, artificial intelligence, Cognitive-impairment, dementia, Eisai, electronic medical records, Geisinger, machine-learning, Passive Digital Marker

Altoida raises further $14 million to “democratize digital cognitive assessment at scale” via augmented reality (AR) and AI

April 6, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Altoi­da snags Mer­ck KGaA-led $14M fund­ing round for Alzheimer’s diag­nos­tic app (Fierce Biotech):

The $14 mil­lion top-up came from a mix of old and new investors, co-led by White­cap Ven­ture Part­ners and Mer­ck KGaA’s cor­po­rate VC arm, M Ven­tures, which also led the ini­tial tranche of series A financ­ing … The new­ly upsized fund­ing will help Altoi­da add to its work­force, pay for intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ings and con­tin­ue devel­op­ing its tech plat­form to assess neu­ro­log­i­cal func­tion. [Read more…] about Altoi­da rais­es fur­ther $14 mil­lion to “democ­ra­tize dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive assess­ment at scale” via aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) and AI

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Altoida, assessment, brain health, cognitive decline, digital cognitive assessment, eye-tracking, hand and gait errors, M Ventures, Merck, neurocognitive, neurocognitive assessment, neurological function, pupil dilation

Mapping ‘psychedelic trips’ in the brain to better direct their therapeutic effects

April 4, 2022 by The Conversation Leave a Comment

Image cred­it: Shutterstock

For the past sev­er­al decades, psy­che­delics have been wide­ly stig­ma­tized as dan­ger­ous ille­gal drugs. But a recent surge of aca­d­e­m­ic research into their use to treat psy­chi­atric con­di­tions is spurring a recent shift in pub­lic opinion.

Psy­che­delics are psy­chotrop­ic drugs: sub­stances that affect your men­tal state. Oth­er types of psy­chotrop­ics include anti­de­pres­sants and anti-anx­i­ety med­ica­tions. Psy­che­delics and oth­er types of hal­lu­cino­gens, how­ev­er, are unique in their abil­i­ty to tem­porar­i­ly induce intense hal­lu­ci­na­tions, emo­tions and dis­rup­tions of self-aware­ness. [Read more…] about Map­ping ‘psy­che­del­ic trips’ in the brain to bet­ter direct their ther­a­peu­tic effects

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: academic research, anxiety, artificial intelligence, brain regions, cognitive-flexibility, depression, psychedelics, psychiatric conditions, psychotropic drugs, therapeutic, treat psychiatric conditions

From “Eminence-based” to Evidence-based cognitive & mental healthcare: Time for quality and accountability

March 31, 2022 by SharpBrains Leave a Comment

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news, two excel­lent new books and a few fun brain teasers.

#1. From “Emi­nence-based” to Evi­dence-based men­tal health­care: Time to focus on qual­i­ty and accountability

“The real chal­lenge is not find­ing a ther­a­pist, it’s find­ing a ther­a­pist who knows how to pro­vide the treat­ments that work. In the ear­ly 2000s, Myr­na Weiss­man was try­ing to under­stand why so few ther­a­pists use sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based treat­ments. She found that over 60 per­cent of pro­fes­sion­al schools of psy­chol­o­gy and master’s lev­el social work pro­grams did not include any super­vised train­ing for any sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based ther­a­py … In con­trast to evi­dence-based care, I call this “emi­nence-based care.” — Dr. Thomas Insel in his excel­lent new book

#2. Anoth­er great new book to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2022

“Spain played a unique role in Cajal’s discoveries—that is, in the pro­gres­sion of neu­ro­science. The coun­try was not a hotbed of sci­en­tif­ic research. Lack­ing men­tors, Cajal near­ly aban­doned his efforts. But work­ing inde­pen­dent­ly may have forged his auton­o­my and freed him from the influ­ence of tra­di­tion­al the­o­ries. He also longed to dis­prove the stereo­types about Spain. “One could admit that Spain pro­duces some genius artist, such as a long-haired poet or ges­tic­u­lat­ing dancer of either sex,” Cajal lat­er wrote, “but the idea that a true man of sci­ence would emerge from there was con­sid­ered absurd.” — Fas­ci­nat­ing insights into the “father of mod­ern neuroscience”

#3. UT-Dal­las Brain­Health presents vir­tu­al talks with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and San­jay Gup­ta next month (April 21th and 26th; both 8:00 – 9:00 PM EDT/ Mia­mi time)

We believe some of you may be interested 🙂

#4. Cana­di­an study finds causal link between time play­ing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symp­toms at age 13

“After con­trol­ling for sex, socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, and ADHD symp­toms at age 12, the week­ly amount video game play report­ed at age 12 pre­dict­ed high­er lev­els of self-report­ed ADHD symp­toms at age 13 … The mag­ni­tude of the effect was not large, but it was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant. In con­trast, high­er lev­els of ADHD symp­toms at age 12 did not pre­dict an increase in video game play one year later.”

#5. From for­est bathing to urban parks: How nature helps pro­tect our well-being dur­ing a pandemic

“Whether we gar­den, have a view of nature out our win­dow, vis­it near­by parks, or even just watch a nature video, we can help our­selves deal with the stress­es and strains of COVID iso­la­tion by giv­ing our­selves and our kids a dose of “Vit­a­min N.”

#6. A con­ver­sa­tion at the fron­tier of dig­i­tal health inno­va­tion, FDA reg­u­la­tions, and cog­ni­tive health

Good to see rec­og­nized the need for “reim­burse­ment inno­va­tion” for emerg­ing dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers & ther­a­peu­tics — the FDA does have both sticks and car­rots to leverage

#7. New DARPA ini­tia­tive aims to har­ness cog­ni­tive sci­ence, sen­sors and machine learn­ing to detect ear­ly brain signs of depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sui­ci­dal ideation

“NEAT is a proof-of-con­cept effort attempt­ing to devel­op a new tool for men­tal and behav­ioral health screen­ing that moves us beyond his­tor­i­cal and cur­rent meth­ods of ques­tions and con­scious­ly fil­tered respons­es … If suc­cess­ful, NEAT will not only sig­nif­i­cant­ly aug­ment behav­ioral health screen­ing, but it could also serve as a new way to assess ulti­mate treat­ment effi­ca­cy, since patients will often tell their clin­i­cians what they think the clin­i­cian wants to hear rather than how they are tru­ly feel­ing.” — Greg Witkop, pro­gram man­ag­er in DARPA’s Defense Sci­ences Office

#8. Sep­a­rat­ing brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becom­ing more urgent by the day

Would you trust claims in A or B or neither?

Final­ly, here’s a selec­tion of fun brain teasers that read­ers have enjoyed the most this year so far:

#9. Where’s the baby?

#10. Can you con­nect these pairs of words?

#11. Want to test your stress level?

#12. Which way is the bus head­ing?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing April … and let’s get some Vit­a­min N (and D) this weekend!

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, SharpBrains Monthly eNewsletter, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, ADHD-symptoms, alvaro-fernandez, behavioral health screening, Brain Teasers, BrainHealth, Cajal, cognitive-abilities, DARPA, digital biomarkers, digital therapeutics, FDA, fun brain teasers, mental health screening, mental healthcare, NEAT, neuroscience, playing videogames, Sanjay Gupta, Spain, stimulating brain teasers, therapist, UT-Dallas

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