• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbot Wysa raises $5.5M to broaden access to mental health support

May 24, 2021 by SharpBrains

Wysa’s AI-Guid­ed Men­tal Health Plat­form Clos­es $5.5M Series A to Bridge the Gap in Employ­ee Men­tal Health (press release):

“Wysa, the lead­ing glob­al AI-pow­ered men­tal health plat­form, today, dur­ing Men­tal Health Aware­ness Month, announced a $5.5M Series A financ­ing round led by W Health Ven­tures, a Boston-based dig­i­tal health investor. Oth­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the round include the Google Assis­tant Invest­ment pro­gram, and exist­ing investors pi Ven­tures and Kae Cap­i­tal. Wysa will use this cap­i­tal to sup­port its offer­ing to employ­ers who want to expand their men­tal health ben­e­fits, as well as scale up Wysa’s sales team and ther­a­pist net­work. [Read more…] about Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M to broad­en access to men­tal health support

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI, cognitive restructuring, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, digital therapeutics, mental health benefits, mental health platform, mental healthcare, mindfulness, W Health Ventures, Wysa

The latest on Brain Health and Resilience, plus a few fun Brain Teasers

November 30, 2020 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and tips, com­bined with fun brain teasers.

#1. To cel­e­brate this quite-chal­leng­ing Thanks­giv­ing, here are five fun brain teasers that read­ers have enjoyed the most this year so far. It is always good to learn more about (and appre­ci­ate) that most pre­cious resource we all (yes, all) have up there! Five fun brain teasers to thank evo­lu­tion for our human brains and minds

#2. Want more? Ready, Set, Go! A few brain teasers to flex those cog­ni­tive muscles

#3. “[Breath­ing tech­niques] are allow­ing you to con­scious­ly take con­trol of your breath­ing so you can take con­trol of your ner­vous sys­tem so you can take con­trol of your anx­i­ety” — James Nestor, author of Breath: The New Sci­ence of a Lost Art. New book shares sci­ence and tech­niques to breathe bet­ter and pro­mote calm­ness not anxiety

#4. Voice does matter…especially in areas of poten­tial dis­agree­ment. To call, or to text, that is the (men­tal well-being) question

#5. Fas­ci­nat­ing research + inno­va­tion event brought by the Euro­pean Insti­tute of Inno­va­tion & Tech­nol­o­gy (EIT) and mul­ti­ple part­ners. Save the Date: Pro­mot­ing Brain Health for Life, Decem­ber 15–16th, online.

#6. “This isn’t a bat­tle between AI and doc­tors, it’s about how to opti­mize doc­tors’ abil­i­ty to deliv­er bet­ter care” — P. Murali Doraiswamy, direc­tor of the Neu­rocog­ni­tive Dis­or­ders Pro­gram at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty. Next: Ana­lyz­ing typ­ing speed, speech and sleep pat­terns to iden­ti­fy cog­ni­tive decline, demen­tia, Parkinson’s, and more

#7. Google’s X team shares 3 valu­able lessons learned from their ambi­tious and (for the time being) unsuc­cess­ful moon­shot: Alphabet’s X shares Amber EEG sys­tem to expand the quest for men­tal health biomarkers

#8. “An exer­cise pre­scrip­tion is an impor­tant treat­ment option and a great adjunct to med­ica­tions. The key is pre­scrib­ing phys­i­cal activ­i­ty in a way that the patient will com­ply and remain engaged with.” Debate: How should doc­tors pre­scribe exer­cise to ensure com­pli­ance and engagement?

#9. As the study authors note, “The expan­sion of women into the labor force in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry may have pro­vid­ed a new avenue of cog­ni­tive reserve for women via enhanced social stim­u­la­tion and cog­ni­tive engage­ment.” Study: Work in adult­hood seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly delay mem­o­ry decline after age 60, sup­port­ing the Cog­ni­tive Reserve theory

#10. “Through­out many sub­red­dits, we found sig­nif­i­cant increas­es in the use of tokens relat­ed to iso­la­tion (eg, “lone­ly,” “can’t see any­one,” “quar­an­tine”), eco­nom­ic stress (eg, “rent,” “debt,” “pay the bills”), and home (“fridge,” “pet,” “lease”), and a decrease in the lex­i­con relat­ed to motion (eg, “walk,” “vis­it,” “trav­el”).” Hope­ful­ly the promis­ing vac­cine news helps turn the tide; until then we need to pro­mote men­tal health & resilience hard. Using Red­dit as a pop­u­la­tion-lev­el “men­tal health track­er” dur­ing the COVID pandemic

#11. “BCI devices can be non-inva­sive devices that users wear, or they can be inva­sive devices, which are sur­gi­cal­ly implant­ed,” says Veljko Dublje­vi … “The inva­sive devices are more effi­cient, since they can read sig­nals direct­ly from the brain. How­ev­er, they also raise more eth­i­cal con­cerns. For exam­ple, inva­sive BCI tech­nolo­gies car­ry more asso­ci­at­ed risks such as surgery, infec­tion, and glial scar­ring — and inva­sive BCI devices would be more dif­fi­cult to replace as tech­nol­o­gy improves.” Stud­ies iden­ti­fy key eth­i­cal con­cerns raised by inva­sive and non-inva­sive neurotechnologies

#12. “(the app) uses the Watch’s sen­sors to track the heart rate and move­ment of users as they sleep. After estab­lish­ing a base­line pro­file for the patient with­in one or two nights’ sleep, the machine learn­ing algo­rithm spots heart rate or move­ment abnor­mal­i­ties pre­sum­ably caused by a night­mare. The appli­ca­tion then vibrates the smart­watch just enough to inter­rupt the wearer’s dream­ing, but not enough to wake them up or dis­rupt their cir­ca­di­an sleep cycle.” FDA grants clear­ance for Night­Ware app designed to reduce PTSD-relat­ed nightmares

 

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy December,

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain Teasers, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI, anxiety, BCI, biomarker, Brain Teasers, Breathing, cognitive engagement, cognitive-reserve, disorders, doctors, EIT, European Institute of Innovation & Technology, exercise, FDA, Google, mental health, Moonshot, neurocognitive, neuroscience, prescription, Reddit, resilience, sleep, smartwatch, Thanksgiving, voice

Upcoming: Virtual book tour to explore the frontier of Emotional Intelligence and Technology

March 24, 2020 by Rana el Kaliouby

__

Dear Sharp­Brains community,

I hope you’re stay­ing healthy and safe. As you may know, my mem­oir, Girl Decod­ed, pub­lished by Pen­guin Ran­dom House, comes out on April 21st. I’d planned numer­ous events across the U.S. and abroad to share my sto­ry with all of you. But, in light of the glob­al health cri­sis sur­round­ing COVID-19, every­thing is right­ful­ly canceled.

In this time when we need to social­ly dis­tance, I know I’m crav­ing human con­nec­tion more than ever. I still want to con­nect with you all on the themes dis­cussed in my book. [Read more…] about Upcom­ing: Vir­tu­al book tour to explore the fron­tier of Emo­tion­al Intel­li­gence and Technology

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI, book, brain-book, emotional-intelligence, entrepreneur, Girl Decoded, Rana el Kaliouby, scientist, technology

Fast Forward to 2040: How to prepare for the new era in brain enhancement that will change the way we think, work, and heal

March 19, 2020 by Tan Le

Decades from now when our aug­ment­ed brains have enhanced our cog­ni­tive func­tion and trans­formed near­ly every aspect of our lives, many of us will look back and won­der why we didn’t do more to pre­pare for these inevitable changes. Gov­ern­ment lead­ers may grap­ple with the run­away effects of AI and brain enhance­ment on geopol­i­tics. Com­pa­nies that fail to incor­po­rate neu­rotech­nolo­gies and BCI into their oper­a­tional flow could lose sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket share and be forced to scram­ble in an attempt to regain a foothold in an indus­try they once dominated.

Work­ers who don’t heed the warn­ings to re-skill or upskill may find them­selves out of a job as entire indus­tries dis­ap­pear. Grad­u­at­ing col­lege stu­dents may dis­cov­er their field of study is no longer rel­e­vant in the busi­ness world, leav­ing them unpre­pared for the chang­ing job mar­ket. Tech inno­va­tors could be caught up in fierce com­pe­ti­tion to snap up employ­ees from a very lim­it­ed tal­ent pool, dri­ving up the cost of inno­va­tion and ham­per­ing its devel­op­ment. And every­day cit­i­zens may be wrestling with the unex­pect­ed con­se­quences of unin­ten­tion­al­ly giv­ing away the rights to their neur­al data.

Rest assured, it doesn’t have to be this way. [Read more…] about Fast For­ward to 2040: How to pre­pare for the new era in brain enhance­ment that will change the way we think, work, and heal

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Peak Performance, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Adam Gazzaley, AI, book, brain, brain-enhancement, brainpower, cognitive, cognitive-function, Ed Boyden, Education & Lifelong Learning, enhance the brain, Fourth Industrial Revolution, heal, healthcare, human-brain, insurance, memory-boosting, Mindstrong, neuro-data, NeuroGeneration, neurotechnologies, Neurotechnology, non-invasive neurotechnologies, non-invasive neurotechnology, policymakers, retraining, STEAM, think, Tom Insel, WEF Future of Jobs, work

November 15–16th in Palo Alto, CA: Transformative Technology Conference & Expo 2019

October 30, 2019 by SharpBrains

_____

When: Novem­ber 15–16th, 2019

Where: Elks Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA 94306

What: The Trans­for­ma­tive Tech­nol­o­gy Con­fer­ence is an inspir­ing con­fer­ence focused on tech for men­tal health, emo­tion­al well­be­ing, and human flour­ish­ing, at the inter­sec­tion of neu­ro­science, psy­chol­o­gy, tech, entre­pre­neur­ship, and inno­va­tion. It fea­tures expo­nen­tial tech­nolo­gies like AI, AR/VR/XR, net­works and sen­sors, biotech, neu­ro­feed­back, robot­ics and more to build tech to enable human well­be­ing at scale. [Read more…] about Novem­ber 15–16th in Palo Alto, CA: Trans­for­ma­tive Tech­nol­o­gy Con­fer­ence & Expo 2019

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI, biotech, emotional wellbeing, human flourishing, mental health, Neurofeedback, robotics, sensors

The Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) announces six new ONtrepreneurs working at the frontier of applied neurotech

June 21, 2019 by SharpBrains

__________

Ontario Brain Insti­tute Deliv­ers Sig­nif­i­cant Boost to Ontario’s Neu­rotech Sec­tor (press release):

As part of its 2019 Neu­roTech Ontario Show­case, the Ontario Brain Insti­tute (OBI) today intro­duced the 2019 ONtre­pre­neurs – recip­i­ents of Canada’s sin­gle largest award for ear­ly-stage brain tech­nol­o­gy entre­pre­neurs … The suc­cess­ful 2019 ONtre­pre­neurs are: Israel Gasperin – Zen­trela, Joshua Lobo – Sta­bi­lo Med­ical, Zachary McMa­hon – LUCID, Maryam Nabavi – Vil­lage Tech­nolo­gies, Michael Philips – Vena Med­ical, and Alexan­der Theodor­ou – Ocuther­a­py. [Read more…] about The Ontario Brain Insti­tute (OBI) announces six new ONtre­pre­neurs work­ing at the fron­tier of applied neurotech

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AI, applied neurotech, biometrics, brain technology, entrepreneurs, neurotech, Ontario, Ontario Brain Institute, ONtrepreneurs

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 12,620 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy