big data

Rationality doesn’t equal efficiency: Cellphone data shows how we navigate cities

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The paths peo­ple take are record­ed by their cell­phones. Anony­mous data from thou­sands of phones shows the paths peo­ple take in Boston (above) and San Fran­cis­co (below). Car­lo Rat­ti, CC BY-ND

Think of your morn­ing walk to work, school or your favorite cof­fee shop. Are you tak­ing the short­est pos­si­ble route to your des­ti­na­tion? Accord­ing to big data research that my col­leagues and I con­duct­ed, the answer is no: People’s brains are not wired for opti­mal navigation.

Instead of cal­cu­lat­ing the short­est path, peo­ple try to point straight toward their des­ti­na­tions – we call it the “pointi­est path” – even if it is not the most effi­cient way to walk. [Read more…] about Ratio­nal­i­ty doesn’t equal effi­cien­cy: Cell­phone data shows how we nav­i­gate cities

Reading Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to modernize psychiatry

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The Rise of Big Data Psy­chi­a­try (The Wall Street Journal):

As a physi­cian, I need to fig­ure out three things when a new patient walks into my office: what their life is typ­i­cal­ly like, what has changed that made them seek treat­ment and what I can do to help them. It’s a com­plex prob­lem, and most fields of med­i­cine approach it by tak­ing mea­sure­ments. If I were a car­di­ol­o­gist eval­u­at­ing a patient’s chest pain, for instance, I would speak with the patient, but then I would lis­ten to their heart and mea­sure their pulse and blood pres­sure. I might order an elec­tro­car­dio­gram or a car­diac stress test, tools that weren’t avail­able a cen­tu­ry ago.

Because I’m a psy­chi­a­trist, how­ev­er, I eval­u­ate patients in pre­cise­ly the same way that my pre­de­ces­sors did in 1920: I ask them to tell me what’s wrong, and while they’re talk­ing I care­ful­ly observe their speech and behav­ior. But psy­chi­a­try has remained large­ly immune to mea­sure­ment. At no point in the exam­i­na­tion do I gath­er numer­i­cal data about the patient’s life or behav­ior, even though tools for tak­ing such mea­sure­ments already exist. In fact, you like­ly are car­ry­ing one around in your pock­et right now. Keep read­ing essay HERE, adapt­ed from the new book Read­ing Our Minds: The Rise of Big Data Psy­chi­a­try by psy­chi­a­trist Daniel Bar­ron. [Read more…] about Read­ing Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to mod­ern­ize psychiatry

What’s normal? When it comes to the brain, it’s hard to say, and that’s why we need to study global neurodiversity

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In a small vil­lage in India—a place so remote it has no elec­tric­i­ty, no telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem, and no cars or buses—a research work­er pre­pares to place an EEG head­set on a female villager’s head. The woman, who earns $3.75 a day labor­ing in a near­by rice pad­dy and who has nev­er ven­tured out­side her vil­lage, eyes the futur­is­tic device with trepidation.

“Is it going to hurt my head?” she asks.

Sathish, the research work­er, has heard this ques­tion before. In fact, he’s heard sev­er­al sim­i­lar queries from anx­ious vil­lagers who have got­ten scared when they saw the brainwear.

“Will it give me a headache?”

“Is it going to give me an elec­tric shock?”

He assures the woman the head­set is pain­less and explains that all she has to do is sit qui­et­ly and allow her mind to wan­der. Sathish gen­tly adjusts an array of elec­trodes on the woman’s head and [Read more…] about What’s nor­mal? When it comes to the brain, it’s hard to say, and that’s why we need to study glob­al neurodiversity

U.S. Army develops novel way to analyze brain imaging data and shape emerging non-invasive neurotechnology

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Aggre­gate dis­tri­b­u­tion of cor­ti­cal brain-wave activ­i­ty, orga­nized by stan­dard fre­quen­cy bands, across a range of depths. Cred­it: U.S. Army

Army devel­ops big data approach to neu­ro­science (press release):

“A big data approach to neu­ro­science promis­es to sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve our under­stand­ing of the rela­tion­ship between brain activ­i­ty and performance.

To date, there have been rel­a­tive­ly few attempts to use a big-data approach with­in the emerg­ing field of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy. [Read more…] about U.S. Army devel­ops nov­el way to ana­lyze brain imag­ing data and shape emerg­ing non-inva­sive neurotechnology

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) shares discussion paper to help empower 8 billion minds via the ethical adoption of digital mental health and neurotech

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Tech­nol­o­gy has much to offer in terms of pro­vid­ing and improv­ing access to bet­ter men­tal health care. Why, then, has more not been done to take advan­tage of these tools?

The newest dis­cus­sion paper from #NAM­Per­spec­tives, [Read more…] about The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine (NAM) shares dis­cus­sion paper to help empow­er 8 bil­lion minds via the eth­i­cal adop­tion of dig­i­tal men­tal health and neurotech

Top Brainnovations harnessing Big Data: WEKIT, Sapien Labs, MyndYou

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Top Brain­no­va­tion har­ness­ing Big Data (full record­ing requires reg­is­tra­tion; view slid­edeck above or Here). The three Final­ists were:

  • WEKIT — Wear­able Expe­ri­ence for Knowl­edge Inten­sive Train­ing – pitch by Paul Lefrere, Inno­va­tion Lead
  • Sapi­en Labs (WINNER) – pitch by Tara Thi­a­gara­jan, Founder & Chief Scientist
  • Myn­dY­ou – pitch by Shi­ra Yama Nir, Project Manager
  • Judged by: Bill Tuck­er, Senior Advi­sor to the K12 Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram at the Bill & Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion; Eduar­do Briceño, CEO and Co-founder of Mind­set Works; John Cam­mack, Angel Investor; Neil Alli­son, Direc­tor of Busi­ness Mod­el Inno­va­tion at Pear­son North America

This slid­edeck sup­port­ed the ses­sion held dur­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th). All ses­sion record­ings avail­able for pur­chase (50+ Speak­ers, 15+ Hours, $150).