anxiety

Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use 🙂

#1. Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV)

“Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact of dif­fer­ent types of screen time (watch­ing, social­iz­ing, or gam­ing) on children’s intel­li­gence while con­trol­ling for the con­found­ing effects of genet­ic dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tion and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus … Broad­ly, our results are in line with research on the mal­leabil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties from envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, such as cog­ni­tive train­ing and the Fly­nn effect.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing! Hav­ing said that…

#2. Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

“Social inter­ac­tion is huge­ly impor­tant. One study found that the size of our social group is actu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the vol­ume of the orbitofrontal cor­tex (involved in social cog­ni­tion and emo­tion). But how many friends do we need? … It is hard to argue with the fact that humans are social ani­mals and gain enjoy­ment from con­nect­ing with oth­ers, what­ev­er age we are. But, as we are increas­ing­ly uncov­er­ing, it also cru­cial for the health of our cognition.”

#3. UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

“Some peo­ple do very well in train­ing, such as play­ing a video game, but they don’t show near trans­fer, per­haps because they are using high­ly spe­cif­ic strate­gies,” said first author Anja Pahor … “For these peo­ple, far trans­fer is unlike­ly. By bet­ter under­stand­ing why this type of mem­o­ry train­ing or ‘inter­ven­tion’ works for some peo­ple but not oth­ers, we can move for­ward with a new gen­er­a­tion of work­ing-mem­o­ry train­ing games or use approach­es that are more tai­lored to indi­vid­u­als’ needs”

#4. Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

“In our ongo­ing large-scale study (note: the one right above) we aim to recruit 30,000 adults who are moti­vat­ed and will­ing to help us bet­ter under­stand the fac­tors that under­lie learn­ing out­comes using a vari­ety of train­ing par­a­digms and out­come mea­sures. Our endeav­or will ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the per­son­al­iza­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing so that, hope­ful­ly, any­one who would like to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing will be able to choose the approach that may fit them best.” — researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Irvine/ Riverside

#5. Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

Esports are bor­row­ing a page from Pro Sports’ book … we would­n’t be sur­prised to see the inverse tak­ing place too in just a few years.

#6. Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

“For those with­out severe men­tal ill­ness, app-based ther­a­py may be help­ful in match­ing clients with a pro­fes­sion­al famil­iar with a range of prob­lems and stres­sors. This makes apps attrac­tive to those with anx­i­ety and mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion. They also appeal to peo­ple who wouldn’t ordi­nar­i­ly seek out office-based ther­a­py, but who want help with life issues such as mar­i­tal prob­lems and work-relat­ed stress.”

#7. AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

Let’s talk!

#8. And here’s the Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and fun summer!

AI-enabled chatbot Wysa receives FDA Breakthrough Device designation for patients with chronic pain, depression and anxiety

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AI Behav­ior Health Chat­bot App Fast-Tracked by FDA (Psy­chol­o­gy Today):

Recent­ly the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) grant­ed break­through device des­ig­na­tion to Wysa’s AI-based dig­i­tal men­tal health con­ver­sa­tion­al agent that deliv­ers cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) via a smart­phone to adults suf­fer­ing from depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and chron­ic mus­cu­loskele­tal pain [Read more…] about AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

How ’sleeping on it’ can help the prefrontal cortex regulate emotional responses, making us feel better in the morning

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Instead of lying awake wor­ry­ing, we’re often told to “sleep on it” when mak­ing deci­sions both big and small. And there’s actu­al­ly a sci­en­tif­ic basis for this advice. Sleep can influ­ence our response to emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions, and helps us to man­age our men­tal health.

To under­stand why sleep and emo­tions are so con­nect­ed, it’s impor­tant to first under­stand what hap­pens in the brain when we encounter some­thing emo­tive. [Read more…] about How ’sleep­ing on it’ can help the pre­frontal cor­tex reg­u­late emo­tion­al respons­es, mak­ing us feel bet­ter in the morning

Mapping ‘psychedelic trips’ in the brain to better direct their therapeutic effects

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Image cred­it: Shutterstock

For the past sev­er­al decades, psy­che­delics have been wide­ly stig­ma­tized as dan­ger­ous ille­gal drugs. But a recent surge of aca­d­e­m­ic research into their use to treat psy­chi­atric con­di­tions is spurring a recent shift in pub­lic opinion.

Psy­che­delics are psy­chotrop­ic drugs: sub­stances that affect your men­tal state. Oth­er types of psy­chotrop­ics include anti­de­pres­sants and anti-anx­i­ety med­ica­tions. Psy­che­delics and oth­er types of hal­lu­cino­gens, how­ev­er, are unique in their abil­i­ty to tem­porar­i­ly induce intense hal­lu­ci­na­tions, emo­tions and dis­rup­tions of self-aware­ness. [Read more…] about Map­ping ‘psy­che­del­ic trips’ in the brain to bet­ter direct their ther­a­peu­tic effects

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

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New Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence Tool to Shed Light on Men­tal Health (DARPA press release):

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 30,000 active duty mem­bers and vet­er­ans have tak­en their own lives – four times as many as those killed in post-911 mil­i­tary oper­a­tions. Cur­rent meth­ods to detect ear­ly signs of behav­ioral and men­tal health risk fac­tors rely on self-report­ing and screen­ing ques­tion­naires, which can’t reli­ably pre­dict sui­ci­dal­i­ty. Effec­tive behav­ioral health assess­ment is a mis­sion-crit­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty requir­ing nov­el tools to iden­ti­fy and help those at risk.

Today, DARPA announced the Neur­al Evi­dence Aggre­ga­tion Tool (NEAT) pro­gram. NEAT aims to devel­op a new cog­ni­tive sci­ence tool that iden­ti­fies peo­ple at risk of sui­cide by using pre­con­scious brain sig­nals rather than ask­ing ques­tions and wait­ing for con­scious­ly fil­tered respons­es. [Read more…] about New DARPA ini­tia­tive aims to har­ness cog­ni­tive sci­ence, sen­sors and machine learn­ing to detect ear­ly brain signs of depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sui­ci­dal ideation

The Do’s and Don’ts of Harnessing Technology (and Anxiety) for Good

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing impor­tant brain & men­tal health news plus a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills and more…

#1. Chal­lenge ahead: Har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for good men­tal health

“Tech­nol­o­gy can not only help us grow out of unhealthy habits, it is also pos­si­ble to expand human men­tal capac­i­ties … although it will be nec­es­sary to ana­lyze “the how and when” of these uses: they must be eth­i­cal­ly sound and ensure that results are ben­e­fi­cial to soci­ety.” — our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez, hop­ing you all agree 🙂

If you pre­fer to read the arti­cle in Span­ish: Cómo hac­er de la tec­nología un ali­a­do en el cuida­do de la salud mental

#2. On neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, young brains, and smartphones

“As with any tool, behav­ior, activ­i­ty, or tech­nol­o­gy, smart phones have the poten­tial to be either a use­ful and high­ly con­struc­tive asset or a destruc­tive and harm­ful diver­sion from life … What is the impact on brain devel­op­ment dur­ing the first 25 years of life when a sig­nif­i­cant part of each day is spent look­ing into a smart phone and the result­ing cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al experiences?”

#3. Explor­ing links between hear­ing loss, demen­tia and the ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ — plus the role of hear­ing aids

“Cer­tain types of demen­tia, par­tic­u­lar­ly vas­cu­lar demen­tia, are caused when there is less blood flow reach­ing the brain. This can dam­age our brain cells. Recent stud­ies have also shown that the parts of our brain that process sounds (our audi­to­ry sys­tem) have many blood ves­sels and are vul­ner­a­ble to dam­age … Anoth­er area of research is look­ing at whether hear­ing loss indi­rect­ly affects demen­tia risk by mak­ing it hard­er for peo­ple to stay con­nect­ed. Social iso­la­tion is anoth­er known risk fac­tor for dementia.”

#4. Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py (CCBT) may out­per­form Treat­ment as Usu­al (TAU) in help­ing patients reduce depres­sion, improve 6‑month remis­sion rates

“The find­ings of this ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­al sug­gest that CCBT with a mod­est amount of clin­i­cian sup­port has poten­tial for wider-spread imple­men­ta­tion as an effec­tive, accept­able, and effi­cient treat­ment for depres­sion in pri­ma­ry care.”

#6. Wear­able EEG mon­i­tor­ing start-up Epi­tel rais­es $12.5M to mar­ket seizure detec­tion system

“It is time that EEGs for the brain become as acces­si­ble as EKGs for the heart to patients through­out the coun­try. For too long essen­tial neu­ro­log­i­cal ser­vices have been inac­ces­si­ble to large parts of our pop­u­la­tion” — Dr. Chaud­ery, Prin­ci­pal at Genoa Ven­tures (co-lead investor)

#7. Otsu­ka and Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty start-up Jol­ly Good sign $43M deal to pro­mote Social Skills Train­ing (SST) ther­a­pies, help­ing schiz­o­phre­nia patients first

“The com­bi­na­tion of SST and a phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal reg­i­men has been proven in stud­ies to reduce the recur­rence of men­tal dis­or­ders, the com­pa­nies said. Their first joint­ly devel­oped pro­gram will be direct­ed toward schiz­o­phre­nia patients, and they’re pre­dict­ing that the immer­sive nature of Jol­ly Good’s VR will make the SST ther­a­py more engag­ing and effec­tive than stan­dard methods.”

#8. Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

“Most peo­ple have all heard of the fight-or-flight system—that’s the stress sys­tem, it makes your heart rate go up and you can run away real­ly fast. Well, peo­ple don’t real­ize that through evo­lu­tion in par­al­lel with the fight-or-flight sys­tem evolved an equal and oppo­site part of our ner­vous sys­tem that’s nick­named the “rest-and-digest” part of the ner­vous sys­tem, or parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem. It’s basi­cal­ly the de-stress­ing part of our ner­vous sys­tem. That is what we need to acti­vate to bring our­selves back to equi­lib­ri­um when we’re in a stress­ful state.”

 

Final­ly, as promised, a few fun brain teasers to test your rea­son­ing skills–and more. Enjoy!

#9. Test your mem­o­ry and rea­son­ing skills with these proverbs

#10. Brain teas­er: Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#11. Did you notice the jump? Good rea­son­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing often requires prop­er atten­tion to detail…

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and safe March,

The Sharp­Brains Team