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

By SharpBrains | January 26, 2022

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…

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Study shows promising results of EEG-based brain training in helping adults with ADHD

By SharpBrains | July 8, 2021

Man­ag­ing atten­tion deficit dis­or­der by train­ing the brain (Sci­enceDai­ly): Atten­tion Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty Dis­or­der (ADHD) affects about 7% of chil­dren, with a two out of three chance of per­sist­ing into adult­hood. This neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der is char­ac­terised by con­cen­tra­tion dif­fi­cul­ties, increased dis­tractibil­i­ty, impul­siv­i­ty and hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty. Today, ADHD is treat­ed with phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs that may have unwant­ed side…

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Akili Interactive Labs raises $160M in equity and debt to transform cognitive healthcare via prescription videogame treatments

By SharpBrains | May 26, 2021

Akili rais­es $110m to build its dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pipeline (phar­mafo­rum): Endeav­or­Rx became the first and so far only approved pre­scrip­tion video game treat­ment in the US when it was cleared by the FDA last year to treat atten­­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), and has also been giv­en a green light in Europe.

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Large study with twins highlights the limited role of genetics in mental health and the importance of effective early interventions for ADHD

By Dr. David Rabiner | November 28, 2018

___ Mul­ti­ple stud­ies have indi­cat­ed that, on aver­age, youth with ADHD have poor­er out­comes in young adult­hood in mul­ti­ple areas com­pared to their unaf­fect­ed peers. A lim­i­ta­tion of these stud­ies, how­ev­er, is that they have not typ­i­cal­ly dis­tin­guished between indi­vid­u­als whose ADHD per­sists into adult­hood from those where the con­di­tion remits.

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Think twice before taking Aderall for cognitive enhancement: It may actually impair working memory and other cognitive abilities

By SharpBrains | July 23, 2018

___ ADHD drugs do not improve cog­ni­tion in healthy col­lege stu­dents (Sci­enceDai­ly): “Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief across col­lege cam­pus­es, atten­tion deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD) med­ica­tions may fail to improve cog­ni­tion in healthy stu­dents and actu­al­ly can impair func­tion­ing, accord­ing to a study by researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rhode Island and Brown University.

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Brain training franchisor LearningRx settles FTC complaint about its marketing claims

By SharpBrains | May 24, 2016

Learn­ingRx To Pay $200K For Alleged­ly Unproven Claims That Brain Train­ing Can Improve Income, Treat Autism & ADHD (Con­sumerist): “The com­pa­ny behind the Learn­ingRX “brain train­ing” pro­gram has agreed to pay a $200,000 set­tle­ment and to stop mak­ing claims that its sys­tem is clin­i­cal­ly proven to treat seri­ous health con­di­tions, or that it can 

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