Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

anger

On cognitive reframing and biases, stress, mental health tech, Aduhelm backlash, Britney Spears, and more

by

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time nine sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try devel­op­ments to help pro­mote life­long brain and men­tal health.

#1. To low­er stress lev­els and improve prob­lem-solv­ing, prac­tice cog­ni­tive refram­ing instead of venting

“… vent­ing like­ly doesn’t soothe anger as much as aug­ment it. That’s because encour­ag­ing peo­ple to act out their anger makes them relive it in their bod­ies, strength­en­ing the neur­al path­ways for anger and mak­ing it eas­i­er to get angry the next time around. Stud­ies on vent­ing anger (with­out effec­tive feed­back), whether online or ver­bal­ly, have also found it to be gen­er­al­ly unhelp­ful … To get out of that, you can ask the per­son to step back and help you reframe your expe­ri­ence by ask­ing, “How should I think about this dif­fer­ent­ly?” or “What should I do in this situation?”

#2. Head­space and Gin­ger merge to expand and scale up dig­i­tal men­tal health

“The new com­pa­ny would find it push­ing well beyond its cur­rent mind­ful­ness focus to, “pro­vide the full spec­trum of proven, effec­tive vir­tu­al sup­port – from mind­ful­ness and med­i­ta­tion, to text-based behav­ioral health coach­ing, to video-based ther­a­py and psy­chi­a­try – for all types of patient populations.”

Ambi­tious move!

#3. How to read, under­stand and write great med­ical research

12 good tips for stu­dents and every­one else

#4. Vet­er­ans Affairs won’t cov­er Biogen’s new “Alzheimer’s drug” giv­en con­cerns over safe­ty and lack of evidence

Their inde­pen­dent review con­cludes that “giv­en the lack of evi­dence of a robust and mean­ing­ful clin­i­cal ben­e­fit and the known safe­ty sig­nal, we rec­om­mend against offer­ing this agent to patients with Alzheimer’s demen­tia (mild or oth­er­wise) or mild cog­ni­tive impairment.”

#5. Alzheimer’s & Demen­tia researchers chal­lenge FDA’s approval of Aduhelm giv­en lack of evi­dence for beta-amy­loid as a marker

A strong call to “learn how this reg­u­la­to­ry fail­ure occurred and to ensure that it doesn’t occur again”

#6. Debunk­ing four myths about deci­sion-mak­ing capac­i­ty to keep Brit­ney Spears and oth­ers safe

Address­ing the ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sy about con­ser­va­tor­ships, a USC Pro­fes­sor of Law, Psy­chol­o­gy, and Psy­chi­a­try shares a great arti­cle to debunk these all-too-com­mon myths

#7. Study exam­ines com­mon cog­ni­tive bias­es (have you tried this brain teas­er?) and ways to mit­i­gate them

If you have not encoun­tered the “Lin­da brain teas­er” before, please give it a try! If you have, you’ll enjoy the new paper titled Tver­sky and Kahneman’s Cog­ni­tive Illu­sions: Who Can Solve Them, and Why?

#8. Inte­grat­ing music, move­ment and stroke reha­bil­i­ta­tion, MedRhythms rais­es $25M to devel­op and com­mer­cial­ize dig­i­tal therapeutic

Fas­ci­nat­ing approach to gait training.

#9. Neu­rotech start-up Paradromics rais­es $20M to address brain-relat­ed dis­or­ders via next-gen brain-com­put­er interfaces

Neu­ralink vs. Paradromics vs. non-inva­sive plat­forms — quite a stim­u­lat­ing space to track

 

Wish­ing you and yours a hap­py and healthy back-to-school and month of September,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Study: Meditation practice, both formal and informal, helps develop equanimity over time

by

We are liv­ing through a time of uncer­tain­ty, a sky-high pile of ques­tion marks. It has become increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to make plans because the state of our world today is so volatile due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Some peo­ple are adapt­ing to their homes becom­ing their offices indef­i­nite­ly, or in dan­ger of los­ing their jobs, while oth­ers long to embrace loved ones they are stuck six feet away from. [Read more…] about Study: Med­i­ta­tion prac­tice, both for­mal and infor­mal, helps devel­op equa­nim­i­ty over time

Three key insights to celebrate the holidays meaningfully

by

___

There is plen­ty of evi­dence to con­vince us that social con­nec­tion is key to well-being. But rela­tion­ships are com­pli­cat­ed, bring­ing good and bad into our lives. 

Let us share a few key insights from sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished in 2018 on top­ics rel­e­vant to lead­ing a mean­ing­ful life. They won’t solve all of our social problems—but we hope they will help you to bet­ter under­stand your­self and the peo­ple around you.

Keep on reading!

New book on how “Forest Bathing” can promote physical and mental health

by

– The Kumano Kodo trail in Japan

“Nature deficit dis­or­der” is a mod­ern afflic­tion. With more peo­ple liv­ing in cities, work­ing in high-rise office build­ings, and becom­ing addict­ed to their innu­mer­able elec­tron­ic devices, many of us are indeed expe­ri­enc­ing a nature deficit. This is true for chil­dren and adults alike.

In his new book, For­est Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Hap­pi­ness, Japan­ese med­ical doc­tor and researcher Qing Li presents some sober­ing sta­tis­tics: By 2050, accord­ing to the Unit­ed Nations Pop­u­la­tion Divi­sion, three quar­ters of the world’s peo­ple will live in cities. Even now, the aver­age Amer­i­can spends 93 per­cent of the time indoors, and [Read more…] about New book on how “For­est Bathing” can pro­mote phys­i­cal and men­tal health

Neuropsychologist Amy Serin, Co-Founder of Brainnovations Winner The Touchpoint Solution, would like to see everyone avoid the detrimental effects of an overactive stress response

by

Dr. Serin, what sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test?

It was great that at least one of the judges had already pur­chased and start­ed using our prod­uct so we could delve into the nuances of our tech­nol­o­gy quick­ly. And I was thrilled that all judges saw the pos­si­bil­i­ties to cre­ate sig­nif­i­cant glob­al impact.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind Touch­Points?

Too many peo­ple suf­fer too much stress, often lead­ing to sleep­less­ness, crav­ings, anger, poor focus, poor per­for­mance, and feel­ing over­whelmed. Touch­Points aim at reduc­ing stress by deliv­er­ing hap­tic microvi­bra­tions via wear­able devices worn on both sides of the body. The [Read more…] about Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Amy Serin, Co-Founder of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner The Touch­point Solu­tion, would like to see every­one avoid the detri­men­tal effects of an over­ac­tive stress response

Four “Inside Out” insights to discuss and improve our kids’ emotional lives (and our own)

by

Inside-Out.

Since its release in June, Inside Out has been applaud­ed by crit­ics, adored by audi­ences, and has become the like­ly front-run­ner for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Feature.

But per­haps its great­est achieve­ment has been this: It has moved view­ers young and old to take a look inside their own minds. [Read more…] about Four “Inside Out” insights to dis­cuss and improve our kids’ emo­tion­al lives (and our own)