Source: Express Scripts

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Express Scripts Launch­es First Dig­i­tal Health For­mu­la­ry for Apps & Devices (HIT Con­sul­tant):

“Start­ing in Jan­u­ary 2020, Express Scripts Dig­i­tal Health For­mu­la­ry will ini­tial­ly include 15 solu­tions for remote mon­i­tor­ing ser­vices and dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics that aid in the man­age­ment of eight of the country’s most com­mon chron­ic con­di­tions: dia­betes, pre­di­a­betes, hyper­ten­sion, asth­ma, pul­monary dis­ease, depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and insom­nia Read the rest of this entry »

– Mind­strong Health is apply­ing machine learn­ing meth­ods on human-smart­phone inter­ac­tions to iden­ti­fy dig­i­tal phe­no­typ­ing fea­tures that could be clin­i­cal­ly use­ful.

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Mind­strong Health Expands Exec­u­tive Team to Advance Tech­nol­o­gy for New Vir­tu­al Men­tal Health Care Mod­el (press release):

“Mind­strong Health, a health­care inno­va­tion com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to trans­form­ing men­tal health through inno­va­tions in dig­i­tal mea­sure­ment and vir­tu­al care mod­els, today announced the addi­tion of ten senior exec­u­tives to its lead­er­ship team includ­ing CEO Daniel Graf, who joined the com­pa­ny in Octo­ber 2019.”

On top of Mr. Graf, Mind­strong Health has also recruit­ed: Read the rest of this entry »

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Accord­ing to the adver­tis­ing hype, you too can enjoy incred­i­ble neur­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits in the com­fort of your own home by using a sim­ple elec­tri­cal device that offers tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS). For instance, three dif­fer­ent mod­els of tDCS devices sold online claim to improve mood, increase cre­ativ­i­ty, enhance mem­o­ry, accel­er­ate learn­ing, and com­bat pain and depres­sion. For the low, low price of between $99 and $189.95, you get a com­pact hand­held device with easy-to-use con­trols and two elec­tri­cal leads that end in small sponges. These sponges are dipped into saline solu­tion to make them cur­rent-car­ry­ing elec­trodes, then placed against your head. The web­sites typ­i­cal­ly show the sponges locat­ed on either side of the fore­head, but point out that they need to be placed else­where on the skull to acti­vate dif­fer­ent parts of the brain, depend­ing on the desired out­come.

Wher­ev­er you place the sponges, when you switch on the unit, you’re pump­ing elec­tric cur­rent into your brain, although not very much.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Just a heads-up about a great event lat­er this week in Dublin, Ire­land, for those work­ing on vir­tu­al and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty and health­care inno­va­tion.

When: Thu Dec 5, 2019 8:00 am — Fri Dec 6, 2019 5:00 pm.

Where: Dav­en­port Hotel

Featured sessions include:

Read the rest of this entry »

While the hip­pocam­pus tends to shrink with age, which con­tributes to cog­ni­tive decline, a recent study shows that this is not always the case (see all those blue lines), sug­gest­ing it can be pos­si­ble to main­tain hip­pocam­pus vol­ume and cog­ni­tive func­tion into our lat­er years.

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Time to wrap-up anoth­er stim­u­lat­ing month with Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time a range of promis­ing news for every­one with a (human) brain 🙂

New tech for brain health:

• Neu­ro­engi­neer­ing meets neu­roethics to address treat­ment-resis­tant depres­sion
• Study: Hear­ing aids may help old­er adults delay demen­tia, depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and falls
• Four guide­lines for smart use of smart­phones

New brain and mind research:

• Reminder: A brain-friend­ly lifestyle is the best approach to delay cog­ni­tive decline and demen­tia
• Study chal­lenges the “seduc­tive” amy­loid hypoth­e­sis of Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)
• Study finds a key ingre­di­ent in mind­ful­ness train­ing: Accep­tance (not acqui­es­cence)

New thinking to shape education and healthcare:

• What are the ethics of dis­cour­ag­ing much-need­ed inno­va­tion giv­en poten­tial pri­va­cy con­cerns?
• Help select the cam­paign stick­er for Brain Aware­ness Week 2020
• Sharp­Brains y El Cere­bro Que Cura se pre­sen­tan en Madrid
• Grow­ing con­cern and hope about astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive health dur­ing space­flight

Finally, a few riddles to tease your brain:

• Nine great rid­dles about Life and Death
• Sev­en sharp rid­dles to cel­e­brate Thanks­giv­ing in per­fect har­mo­ny

Have a great Thanks­giv­ing and Decem­ber,

The Sharp­Brains Team