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In neu­ro­feed­back treat­ment for ADHD, indi­vid­u­als learn to alter their typ­i­cal pat­tern of brain­wave activ­i­ty, i.e., EEG activ­i­ty, to one that is con­sis­tent with a focused and atten­tive state.

This is done by col­lect­ing EEG data from indi­vid­u­als as they focus on stim­uli pre­sent­ed on a com­put­er screen. Their abil­i­ty to con­trol the stim­uli, e.g., keep­ing the smile on a smi­ley face keep­ing a video play­ing, depends on their main­tain­ing an EEG state that reflects focused atten­tion.

Over time, most indi­vid­u­als bet­ter at this. Sup­port­ers of neu­ro­feed­back argue that learn­ing to alter EEG activ­i­ty and focus bet­ter dur­ing train­ing even­tu­al­ly gen­er­al­izes to real-world tasks that require strong atten­tion skills, e.g., read­ing, home­work, etc.

Although many experts remain skep­ti­cal of this approach, despite numer­ous sup­port­ive stud­ies, a recent­ly pub­lished meta-analy­sis of neu­ro­feed­back treat­ment pro­vides impor­tant new sup­port. Read the rest of this entry »

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Dear read­er,

Time for Sharp­Brains e-newslet­ter.

It’s been a busy month, once again bring­ing to the fore­front the lim­i­ta­tions of our cur­rent health­care sys­tem and, on the pos­i­tive side, the grow­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve Brain Health and Men­tal Health for all, if we pay atten­tion to (and act on) lat­est research, think­ing and tools.

New research:

• When Health­care ignores Men­tal Health: 200 com­mon pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions increase depres­sion risk
• Report finds only 35% of Cana­di­an youth get the phys­i­cal activ­i­ty rec­om­mend­ed for brain health
• Study finds train­ing-induced neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty even in patients with chron­ic trau­mat­ic brain injury (TBI)

New thinking:

• Want to feel more Calm, get some Head­space, and prac­tice Mind­ful­ness Dai­ly?
• (Slid­edeck) Why the Future of Brain Enhance­ment and Men­tal Health is Dig­i­tal and Per­va­sive
• Study finds the lim­its of putting one­self in another’s shoes (instead, ask and lis­ten)

New tools:

• Sleep-focused neu­rotech firm Dreem rais­es $35M from John­son&John­son Inno­va­tion and Bpifrance
• FDA clears Mind­Maze GO neu­rore­ha­bil­i­ta­tion plat­form, eas­ing access to con­tin­ued out­pa­tient ther­a­py
• From Angry Birds to brain map­ping: The Gam­i­fi­ca­tion of Neu­ro­science

Final­ly, we invite you to tease your mind with these four opti­cal illu­sions. Sur­pris­ing, aren’t they?

Have a great month of July,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Dreem Announces $35 Mil­lion Financ­ing from lead investors John­son & John­son Inno­va­tion and Bpifrance (press release):

“Dreem, a neu­rotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny, today announced the clos­ing of a new round of fund­ing, rais­ing $35 mil­lion USD to rapid­ly accel­er­ate prod­uct devel­op­ment, invest in strate­gic research and devel­op­ment, and advance the future of sleep tech­nol­o­gy. Last year, Dreem intro­duced a com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion to address a suite of sleep prob­lems and Read the rest of this entry »

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Let me ask again…want to feel more Calm, get some Head­space, and prac­tice Mind­ful­ness Dai­ly?

There are apps for that—hundreds of them, besides the three I just men­tioned.

These apps make a promise: Rather than invest­ing count­less hours and dol­lars in mind­ful­ness class­es or mind­ful­ness-based ther­a­py, we can choose to med­i­tate from the com­fort of our smart­phones. Users are flock­ing to mind­ful­ness apps in hopes of cul­ti­vat­ing kind atten­tion to their own thoughts and feel­ings, and of reap­ing the men­tal and phys­i­cal ben­e­fits that go along with mind­ful­ness.

But do they work? What does sci­ence say about mind­ful­ness apps? Read the rest of this entry »

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Get­ting kids out­side and active could help with brain health: Par­tic­i­paction report (The Globe and Mail):

“The phys­i­cal ben­e­fits of kids lead­ing an active lifestyle, includ­ing bet­ter heart health and a decreased risk of devel­op­ing Type 2 dia­betes, are well known. But a grow­ing body of research sug­gests there are sig­nif­i­cant men­tal ben­e­fits as well, whether it’s low­er­ing stress lev­els or help­ing to treat anx­i­ety and depres­sion. A new report released by Par­tic­i­paction on Tues­day draws atten­tion to this link, Read the rest of this entry »