Non-invasive Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (TES) shows early promise to treat ADHD symptoms in children

Many chil­dren with ADHD ben­e­fit from med­ica­tion treat­ment, behav­ioral treat­ment, or their com­bi­na­tion, but oth­ers do not. In addi­tion, par­ents are often reluc­tant to start their child on med­ica­tion and high qual­i­ty behav­ioral treat­ments are not read­i­ly acces­si­ble in many areas. The long-term effi­ca­cy of these treat­ments is also less than desir­able. Thus, despite these…

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To do nothing is not an option”: The NHS Confederation releases digital mental health whitepaper

The NHS Con­fed­er­a­tion–the mem­ber­ship organ­i­sa­tion for health­care providers in Eng­land, Wales and North­ern Ire­land– has just released a quite com­pre­hen­site 45-page whitepa­per titled Max­imis­ing the poten­tial of dig­i­tal in men­tal health. Some of the high­lights: To do noth­ing is not an option. If we don’t make more progress we miss a key oppor­tu­ni­ty to make…

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Time for a universal “exercise prescription” for kids and adults to boost cognition and mental health?

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time a range of brain research find­ings, tools and con­tro­ver­sies plus some brain teasers to chal­lenge your (and our) work­ing mem­o­ry. #1. Major evi­dence review sup­ports an “exer­cise pre­scrip­tion” for most adults to boost men­tal health “High­er inten­si­ty phys­i­cal activ­i­ty was asso­ci­at­ed with greater improvements”…

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Neurotech, neuroethics and brain data in context: Are “neurorights” the way to mental privacy?

Neu­rotech­nolo­gies – devices that inter­act direct­ly with the brain or ner­vous sys­tem – were once dis­missed as the stuff of sci­ence fic­tion. Not any­more. Sev­er­al com­pa­nies are try­ing to devel­op brain-com­put­er inter­faces, or BCIs, in hopes of help­ing patients with severe paral­y­sis or oth­er neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders. Entre­pre­neur Elon Musk’s com­pa­ny Neu­ralink, for exam­ple, recent­ly received…

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Just-published Apple patent signals aim to measure brain activity using AirPods sensor system

Apple Invents a next-gen­er­a­­tion Air­Pods Sen­sor Sys­tem that could mea­sure Biosig­nals and Elec­tri­cal Activ­i­ty of a User’s brain (Patent­ly Apple): Today the US Patent & Trade­mark Office pub­lished a patent appli­ca­tion from Apple that relates to a next-gen­er­a­­tion of Air­Pods Sen­sor Sys­tem where­in the hous­ing and tips of Air­Pods could include a num­ber of active and…

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Virtual cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) accounts for over 30% of NHS mental health treatments — up from 10% in 2017

Con­cern as a third of NHS men­tal health treat­ments shift online (The Guardian): An Observ­er analy­sis of data from pri­vate providers, cross-checked against NHS fig­ures, reveals around one in three men­tal health treat­ments in Eng­land are deliv­ered online, up from one in five in 2019, and one in 10 in 2017. Patients with mild to…

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