behavioral

On Brain Awareness Week, mental health innovation, tDCS, biofeedback, psychedelics, and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, start­ing with some ideas to get in the mood for Brain Aware­ness Week next month (March 15–21st). May BAW 2021 be a hun­dred times more upbeat than last year’s…

#1. Sev­en brain teasers and a neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty pod­cast to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2021

#2. Imag­ine what this capa­bil­i­ty may mean just a few years from now. Should/ will Google alert Gmail users about their (future) cog­ni­tive sta­tus? Study: Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram iden­ti­fies lin­guis­tic mark­ers that pre­dict, with 70% accu­ra­cy, who gets Alzheimer’s Dis­ease years later

#3. Sim­i­lar to what hap­pened to Thync back in 2016, Halo Neu­ro­science strug­gled to com­mer­cial­ize tDCS as a non-med­ical device and the tech­nol­o­gy is being repur­posed for clin­i­cal use. Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion devel­op­er Halo Neu­ro­science clos­es its doors; Flow Neu­ro­science acquires assets

#4. Here you have a cou­ple recent meta-analy­ses sug­gest­ing a grow­ing adop­tion in the near future of web-based, and increas­ing­ly per­son­al­ized, inter­ven­tions. Grow­ing research points to expand­ing adop­tion of online cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­pies, both guid­ed and unguided

#5. “If there is any­thing we’ve seen out of this year, it’s real­ly become that fourth pil­lar of ben­e­fits for every employ­er out there. Every­one has med­ical, den­tal and vision. Men­tal health has now real­ly become that fourth pil­lar of ben­e­fits for all employ­ers.” — Alyson Wat­son, CEO and founder of Mod­ern Health. Four trends accel­er­at­ing men­tal health inno­va­tion in the COVID/ post-COVID era

#6. “Access to men­tal health­care is a human right that shouldn’t be buried by stig­ma, lack of access, or afford­abil­i­ty.” — Oliv­er Har­ri­son, CEO of Koa Health. Dig­i­tal men­tal health start-up Koa Health rais­es €30M to accel­er­ate growth in Europe and the US

#7. “Just as the viral pan­dem­ic has accel­er­at­ed vac­cine devel­op­ment, this glob­al cri­sis has brought togeth­er men­tal health experts from the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor around the world to address what is sure­ly a sec­ond pan­dem­ic trig­gered by loss, anx­i­ety, and social iso­la­tion” — Thomas Insel, MD, co-founder of Human­est Care. Sur­vey finds con­cerns AND hope to address grow­ing men­tal health needs due to the covid pandemic

#8. Can biofeed­back-based videogames help chil­dren bet­ter man­age stress? Mag­el­lan Health and Might­i­er secure $2 mil­lion NIMH grant to investigate

#9. “The Organ­i­sa­tion for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA) has reviewed almost 600 men­tal health apps … only 29.6% meet qual­i­ty thresh­olds” The land­scape of dig­i­tal men­tal health apps: huge unmet needs, qual­i­ty con­cerns, app stores asked to ensure transparency

#10. Final­ly, an idea out there worth explor­ing … Next: Psy­che­del­ic-assist­ed psychotherapy?

Have a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing month of March,

The Sharp­Brains Team

Large study finds positive yet mixed results from Akili’s digital therapeutic for kids with ADHD

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Full pub­li­ca­tion of piv­otal tri­al data out­lines Akil­i’s case for FDA reg­u­la­tion (Mobi­Health­News):

“A full tran­script of STARS-ADHD — the piv­otal tri­al of Akili Interactive’s video game-like pedi­atric atten­tion deficit treat­ment — has been pub­lished in The Lancet Dig­i­tal Health jour­nal, pro­vid­ing onlook­ers a clear view of data fuel­ing the dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic company’s pend­ing FDA sub­mis­sion [Read more…] about Large study finds pos­i­tive yet mixed results from Akili’s dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic for kids with ADHD

Growing concern (and hope) about astronauts’ cognitive health during spaceflight

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NASA astro­naut Scott Kel­ly checks out the Microsoft HoloLens aboard a space sta­tion on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2016. (Pho­to by NASA via Get­ty Images)

About the con­cern: Brain MRI scans may help NASA plan safer mis­sions to space (Health Imaging):

“Not a lot is known about cog­ni­tive impair­ment in humans dur­ing space­flight,” Don­na R. Roberts, MD, Med­ical Uni­ver­si­ty of South Carolina’s Depart­ment of Radi­ol­o­gy, said in a state­ment [Read more…] about Grow­ing con­cern (and hope) about astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive health dur­ing spaceflight

Apple/ Eli Lilly’s bet: Wearable and mobile consumer devices may well help us detect cognitive impairment and dementia

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Apple, Eli Lil­ly research whether devices can detect demen­tia signs (Health­care Dive):

“Demen­tia, which affects rough­ly 47 mil­lion peo­ple across the globe, costs $1 tril­lion world­wide, accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion. Ear­ly test­ing for the con­di­tion is spo­radic and, when con­duct­ed, it’s often not sen­si­tive enough to detect ear­ly stages of men­tal decline, cre­at­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for tech com­pa­nies like Apple to see whether they can turn a profit.

The “rich, lon­gi­tu­di­nal infor­ma­tion” from wear­able and mobile con­sumer devices can be [Read more…] about Apple/ Eli Lilly’s bet: Wear­able and mobile con­sumer devices may well help us detect cog­ni­tive impair­ment and dementia

From Mental Health to Behavioral Health…and back?

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Know Thy­self: Well-Being and Sub­jec­tive Expe­ri­ence (Cere­brum):

“Ancient Greek philoso­phers were fond of the apho­rism, “know thy­self,” inscribed above the entrance of one of the Tem­ples of Apol­lo at Del­phi. One expres­sion of this tra­di­tion, vari­ably attrib­uted to Socrates and Pla­to, is that “the unex­am­ined life is not worth liv­ing.” Anoth­er, attrib­uted to Aris­to­tle, is “to know thy­self is the begin­ning of wis­dom.” And, accord­ing to Socrates, the path to such self-knowl­edge is through inner reflec­tion, or what we now call introspection.

Thou­sands of years lat­er, pro­fes­sions arose to help peo­ple know them­selves bet­ter [Read more…] about From Men­tal Health to Behav­ioral Health…and back?

Update: New tools, research and insights to reinvent Brain Health and Mental Health in the Digital Age

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, explor­ing a range of tech­nolo­gies, sci­en­tif­ic find­ings and insights for brain health and men­tal health to bet­ter respond to the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges ahead.

Hap­py read­ing, and Hap­py Thanksgiving!

New tools:

New research:

New thinking:

Final­ly, we are delight­ed to announce five new excel­lent Speak­ers at the upcom­ing 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Rein­vent­ing Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 6–8, 2016):

  • Mary Stu­art, Senior Writer/Analyst at The MedTech Strategist
  • 2016sharpbrainssummit_logoDr. Andrea Seri­no, Head of Neu­ro­science at Mind­Maze
  • Lin­da Raines, CEO of the Men­tal Health Asso­ci­a­tion of Maryland
  • Karen Olsen, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for the Future of Pub­lic Education
  • David Coleiro, Part­ner at Strate­gic North

You can explore the Sum­mit Agen­da here, and Reg­is­ter here. Please con­sid­er join­ing us and help rein­vent brain health in the dig­i­tal age!

Thank­ful­ly,

The Sharp­Brains Team