Should doctors prescribe Leqembi (lecanemab) to women with early Alzheimer’s Disease? The evidence-based answer is probably No

By SharpBrains | June 28, 2023

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time a range of inter­ven­tions for brain/ cognitive/ men­tal health plus a few brain teasers to test our per­cep­tion and cog­ni­tive skills. #1. Should doc­tors pre­scribe lecanemab (Leqem­bi) to women? The answer, giv­en avail­able evi­dence, is prob­a­bly No Huge (and most­ly over­looked) red flag regard­ing newly…

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Smartphone-based cognitive behavioral therapy found to significantly decrease insomnia, substantially outperforming sleep education

By SharpBrains | May 17, 2023

Dig­i­tal Ther­a­py for Insom­nia More Effec­tive Than Sleep Edu­ca­tion, Study Finds (Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Man­aged Care): A smart­­phone-based, Chi­nese culture­–adapted dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py for insom­nia (DCBT‑I) appli­ca­tion improved insom­nia sever­i­ty com­pared with sleep edu­ca­tion, accord­ing to find­ings of a study pub­lished in JAMA Net­work Open. Researchers want­ed to study the effi­ca­cy of this DCBT‑I app compared…

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Study shows the power of electroencephalography and machine learning to help predict response to psychotherapy (or lack thereof) in patients with PTSD

By SharpBrains | May 2, 2023

A fas­ci­nat­ing study just pub­lished in Nature Men­tal Health aimed at help­ing pre­dict the out­comes of psy­chother­a­py for patients with Post-Trau­­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (PTSD) using Machine Learn­ing (ML) and elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) data. PTSD is a men­tal health con­di­tion trig­gered by expe­ri­enc­ing or wit­ness­ing a trau­mat­ic event; two evi­­dence-based treatments–Prolonged Expo­sure (PE) and Cog­ni­tive Pro­cess­ing Ther­a­py (CPT)–are…

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Pilot program by IU and Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative to test AI-powered cognitive screening at scale

By SharpBrains | April 11, 2023

How AI, Dig­i­tal Screen­ing Tools Can Help Flag Ear­ly Cog­ni­tive Decline (Health IT Ana­lyt­ics): Ear­ly diag­no­sis of Alzheimer’s and oth­er demen­tias remains at the fore­front of efforts to min­i­mize the impact of these neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. But chal­lenges such as increased life expectan­cy and the risks of aging, along with com­plex­i­ties in diag­no­sis and treat­ment resulting…

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Pear Therapeutics loses 97% of its market capitalization since 2021, explores strategic alternatives

By SharpBrains | March 29, 2023

Pear Ther­a­peu­tics explor­ing sale, oth­er ‘strate­gic alter­na­tives’ (Mobi­Health News): Pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics com­pa­ny Pear Ther­a­peu­tics is explor­ing “strate­gic alter­na­tives,” includ­ing a pos­si­ble com­pa­ny sale, merg­er or acqui­si­tion. In a press release, the com­pa­ny said it hired a finan­cial advi­sor to look into actions that could “max­i­mize share­hold­er val­ue.” That includes a poten­tial sale, M&A, divestiture…

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