adhd

From “Eminence-based” to Evidence-based cognitive & mental healthcare: Time for quality and accountability

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news, two excel­lent new books and a few fun brain teasers.

#1. From “Emi­nence-based” to Evi­dence-based men­tal health­care: Time to focus on qual­i­ty and accountability

“The real chal­lenge is not find­ing a ther­a­pist, it’s find­ing a ther­a­pist who knows how to pro­vide the treat­ments that work. In the ear­ly 2000s, Myr­na Weiss­man was try­ing to under­stand why so few ther­a­pists use sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based treat­ments. She found that over 60 per­cent of pro­fes­sion­al schools of psy­chol­o­gy and master’s lev­el social work pro­grams did not include any super­vised train­ing for any sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based ther­a­py … In con­trast to evi­dence-based care, I call this “emi­nence-based care.” — Dr. Thomas Insel in his excel­lent new book

#2. Anoth­er great new book to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2022

“Spain played a unique role in Cajal’s discoveries—that is, in the pro­gres­sion of neu­ro­science. The coun­try was not a hotbed of sci­en­tif­ic research. Lack­ing men­tors, Cajal near­ly aban­doned his efforts. But work­ing inde­pen­dent­ly may have forged his auton­o­my and freed him from the influ­ence of tra­di­tion­al the­o­ries. He also longed to dis­prove the stereo­types about Spain. “One could admit that Spain pro­duces some genius artist, such as a long-haired poet or ges­tic­u­lat­ing dancer of either sex,” Cajal lat­er wrote, “but the idea that a true man of sci­ence would emerge from there was con­sid­ered absurd.” — Fas­ci­nat­ing insights into the “father of mod­ern neuroscience”

#3. UT-Dal­las Brain­Health presents vir­tu­al talks with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and San­jay Gup­ta next month (April 21th and 26th; both 8:00 – 9:00 PM EDT/ Mia­mi time)

We believe some of you may be interested 🙂

#4. Cana­di­an study finds causal link between time play­ing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symp­toms at age 13

“After con­trol­ling for sex, socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, and ADHD symp­toms at age 12, the week­ly amount video game play report­ed at age 12 pre­dict­ed high­er lev­els of self-report­ed ADHD symp­toms at age 13 … The mag­ni­tude of the effect was not large, but it was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant. In con­trast, high­er lev­els of ADHD symp­toms at age 12 did not pre­dict an increase in video game play one year later.”

#5. From for­est bathing to urban parks: How nature helps pro­tect our well-being dur­ing a pandemic

“Whether we gar­den, have a view of nature out our win­dow, vis­it near­by parks, or even just watch a nature video, we can help our­selves deal with the stress­es and strains of COVID iso­la­tion by giv­ing our­selves and our kids a dose of “Vit­a­min N.”

#6. A con­ver­sa­tion at the fron­tier of dig­i­tal health inno­va­tion, FDA reg­u­la­tions, and cog­ni­tive health

Good to see rec­og­nized the need for “reim­burse­ment inno­va­tion” for emerg­ing dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers & ther­a­peu­tics — the FDA does have both sticks and car­rots to leverage

#7. New DARPA ini­tia­tive aims to har­ness cog­ni­tive sci­ence, sen­sors and machine learn­ing to detect ear­ly brain signs of depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sui­ci­dal ideation

“NEAT is a proof-of-con­cept effort attempt­ing to devel­op a new tool for men­tal and behav­ioral health screen­ing that moves us beyond his­tor­i­cal and cur­rent meth­ods of ques­tions and con­scious­ly fil­tered respons­es … If suc­cess­ful, NEAT will not only sig­nif­i­cant­ly aug­ment behav­ioral health screen­ing, but it could also serve as a new way to assess ulti­mate treat­ment effi­ca­cy, since patients will often tell their clin­i­cians what they think the clin­i­cian wants to hear rather than how they are tru­ly feel­ing.” — Greg Witkop, pro­gram man­ag­er in DARPA’s Defense Sci­ences Office

#8. Sep­a­rat­ing brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becom­ing more urgent by the day

Would you trust claims in A or B or neither?

Final­ly, here’s a selec­tion of fun brain teasers that read­ers have enjoyed the most this year so far:

#9. Where’s the baby?

#10. Can you con­nect these pairs of words?

#11. Want to test your stress level?

#12. Which way is the bus head­ing?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing April … and let’s get some Vit­a­min N (and D) this weekend!

The Sharp­Brains Team

Separating brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becoming more urgent by the day

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A) New video game com­pa­ny aims to devel­op ther­a­peu­tic games (The Verge):

Video game-based tools can help with con­di­tions like depres­sion and ADHD, research shows. Deep­Well Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics plans to build on those stud­ies. “There was an amaz­ing amount of sci­ence that had already been done,” Dou­glas says. “We start­ed to rec­og­nize exact­ly how ther­a­peu­tic these games already were.” [Read more…] about Sep­a­rat­ing brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becom­ing more urgent by the day

Canadian study finds causal link between time playing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symptoms at age 13

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Recent stud­ies have linked screen time — includ­ing video game play — to con­cern­ing out­comes in chil­dren, includ­ing low self-esteem, low life sat­is­fac­tion, and depres­sive symp­toms. Screen time has also been found to be cor­re­lat­ed with symp­toms of ADHD in chil­dren and ado­les­cents, even when ear­li­er atten­tion dif­fi­cul­ties are tak­en into account.

These find­ings sug­gest that exces­sive video game play may be a risk fac­tor for the devel­op­ment of ADHD symp­toms. Oth­er research sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reverse cau­sa­tion, i.e., that ADHD symp­toms pre­dicts the devel­op­ment of exces­sive video game play. [Read more…] about Cana­di­an study finds causal link between time play­ing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symp­toms at age 13

Digital therapeutics pioneer Akili Interactive plans to go public in mid-2022 at a $1B valuation

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Pal­i­hapi­tiya-Led SPAC to Merge With Akili in $1 Bil­lion Deal (Bloomberg):

Akili Inter­ac­tive, a start­up that has devel­oped a video game to help treat atten­tion-deficit dis­or­ders in kids, has agreed to go pub­lic through a merg­er with one of Chamath Palihapitiya’s blank-check companies.

The deal, which con­firms a Bloomberg News report, val­ues the com­bined enti­ty at about $1 bil­lion, Akili and Social Cap­i­tal Suvret­ta Hold­ings Corp. I said in a state­ment seen by Bloomberg. It will pro­vide as much as $412 mil­lion in gross cash pro­ceeds, the com­pa­nies said. [Read more…] about Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pio­neer Akili Inter­ac­tive plans to go pub­lic in mid-2022 at a $1B valuation

Welcome to the Ultimate Neuroscience Lab: Your Smartphone

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time six sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try resources plus a fun illusion.

#1. Top 10 Men­tal Health Inno­va­tions to Watch: Spe­cial SciAm/ WEF report

Hop­ing you enjoy the great series over at Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can and espe­cial­ly #7, titled Wel­come to the Ulti­mate Neu­ro­science Lab: Your Smart­phone, by Emory neu­roethi­cist Karen Rom­melfanger and our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez.

#2. Five thoughts to think about when think­ing about the speed of thought

The time it takes for all thoughts to occur is ulti­mate­ly shaped by the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the neu­rons and the net­works involved. Many things influ­ence the speed at which infor­ma­tion flows through the sys­tem, but three key fac­tors are: dis­tance, myeli­na­tion, complexity,

#3. Study: Self-guid­ed sleep app Sleepio, com­bined with stan­dard care for depres­sion and anx­i­ety, deliv­ers bet­ter out­comes than stan­dard care alone

“This eval­u­a­tion revealed sig­nif­i­cant val­ue in intro­duc­ing an evi­dence-based dig­i­tal sleep inter­ven­tion at scale with­in a clin­i­cal men­tal health ser­vice,” researchers from Big Health and Oxford Health NHS Foun­da­tion Trust conclude.

#4. On uncer­tain­ty, stress, emo­tion reg­u­la­tion, and carpe diem

“These find­ings from three stud­ies with diverse sam­ples and method­olo­gies under­score an upside to the specter of uncer­tain­ty: it can cause peo­ple to savor the pos­i­tives of the present.”

#5. Study finds ADHD is asso­ci­at­ed with dementia

“Specif­i­cal­ly, par­ents of an ADHD child have a 34% high­er risk of demen­tia and 55% high­er risk of Alzheimer’s, the results showed. Grand­par­ents have about an 11% increased risk of either condition.”

#6. Study: Few­er than 1% of geri­atric patients with cog­ni­tive com­plaints met Aduhelm research tri­al cri­te­ria. What can we expect about its real-world safety?

As the researchers point out, “It is thus clear how the result­ing gap between the research and “real world” fields is mas­sive.” We do have the impres­sion that the Aduhelm FDA saga is far from over.

#7. Quick brain teas­er: What do you see? And, can you unsee it?

Have a minute? Give it a try 🙂

 

Wish­ing you and yours a hap­py and healthy month of October,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Study finds ADHD is associated with dementia

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Multi­gen­er­a­tional Study Finds Links Between ADHD, Demen­tia Risk (Health Day):

Atten­tion-deficit/hy­per­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD) appears to be some­how linked to risk of demen­tia and Alzheimer’s dis­ease, a new multi­gen­er­a­tional study has found.

Par­ents and grand­par­ents of peo­ple with ADHD have a high­er risk of Alzheimer’s and demen­tia than peo­ple with no ADHD in their fam­i­ly, Swedish researchers said.

Specif­i­cal­ly, par­ents of an ADHD child have a 34% high­er risk of demen­tia and 55% high­er risk of Alzheimer’s, the results showed. Grand­par­ents have about an 11% increased risk of either con­di­tion. [Read more…] about Study finds ADHD is asso­ci­at­ed with dementia