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How do genet­ics impact ear­ly inter­ven­tion for demen­tia? (Med­ical News Bul­letin):

“Car­dio­vas­cu­lar and neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases, such as demen­tia, have been linked to dys­func­tion of a vari­a­tion of the apolipopro­tein E, or APOE, gene, called the APOE e4 allele…The Finnish Geri­atric Inter­ven­tion Study to Pre­vent Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment and Dis­abil­i­ty (FINGER) eval­u­at­ed whether the effec­tive­ness of lifestyle mod­i­fi­ca­tions for those at risk of Alzheimer’s dis­ease would be dif­fer­ent for those with or with­out the APOE e4 gene. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tech Watch­es You for Dig­i­tal Symp­toms of Brain Dis­or­ders (IEEE Spec­trum):

The med­ical pro­fes­sion­als tasked with car­ing for our minds don’t have an easy job. To diag­nose peo­ple with neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­eases, doc­tors can per­form brain scans, but such scans are expen­sive and the results are some­times inscrutable. The oth­er options include con­duct­ing time-­con­sum­ing cog­ni­tive tests, or rely­ing on doc­tors’ own sub­jec­tive analy­ses.

See­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty, a num­ber of star­tups have devised quan­ti­ta­tive meth­ods to diag­nose dis­eases or assess men­tal health while patients com­plete rou­tine activ­i­ties, like talk­ing on a smart­phone, typ­ing on a key­board, or scrolling through a web­site. Here are three com­pa­nies that say they can lift the “fin­ger­prints” of men­tal dis­or­ders from people’s mun­dane behav­iors.

Con­tin­ue read­ing arti­cle to get a good update on Mind­strong Health, Neu­raMetrix and Win­terLight Labs. Read the rest of this entry »

Heads-up: the 2018 Hora­sis Glob­al Meet­ing will host a ses­sion on How Inno­va­tion Leads to New Health­care Real­i­ties, and our very own Alvaro Fer­nan­dez will dis­cuss the lat­est in neu­rotech­nol­o­gy, brain & men­tal health and also set the stage for the upcom­ing launch of the Por­tuguese edi­tionof The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age (also avail­able in Span­ish, Japan­ese and Pol­ish).

Descrip­tion: Inno­va­tion in health-care is advanc­ing glob­al­ly, offer­ing trans­for­ma­tive change. In an aging soci­ety we might con­sid­er bet­ter pal­lia­tive care most impor­tant – but are there oth­er areas that offer bet­ter prospects?  How may our plan­et and we become more resilient?

When: May 8th, 08.00–09.30

Read the rest of this entry »

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Music Acti­vates Regions of the Brain Spared by Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah):

“Ever get chills lis­ten­ing to a par­tic­u­lar­ly mov­ing piece of music? You can thank the salience net­work of the brain for that emo­tion­al joint. Sur­pris­ing­ly, this region also remains an island of remem­brance that is spared from the rav­ages of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah Health are look­ing to this region of the brain to devel­op music-based treat­ments to help alle­vi­ate anx­i­ety in patients with demen­tia. Their research Read the rest of this entry »

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Brain-Zap­ping Work­out Tech Is Com­ing to an Equinox Near You (Giz­mo­do):

“Ath­letes are gen­er­al­ly will­ing to enter­tain any sci­en­tif­ic-sound­ing trend that promis­es an edge. For ref­er­ence: Michael Phelps and cup­ping or Shaquille O’Neal’s ener­gy-enhanc­ing bracelets.

Which is prob­a­bly why Equinox jumped at the chance to offer Halo Neuroscience’s brain-zap­ping, sup­pos­ed­ly per­for­mance-enhanc­ing head­sets as part of its advanced per­son­al train­ing pro­gram at 22 of its fit­ness clubs around the U.S., Read the rest of this entry »