On mental fitness beliefs, lifestyles and new tools like apps, digital therapeutics, virtual reality, “brain age gaps” and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun cou­ple of math brain teasers. #1. Study on the “ABCs of Men­tal Health” finds that sim­ply believ­ing you can improve men­tal well­be­ing helps actu­al­ly improve it Beliefs mat­ter. #2. “Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics” vs. “Men­tal health apps”: A growing…

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Study: Personalized, closed-loop neuromodulation can (one day) become a “pacemaker for the brain”

Treat­ing Severe Depres­sion with On-Demand Brain Stim­u­la­tion (UCSF press release): UCSF Health physi­cians have suc­cess­ful­ly treat­ed a patient with severe depres­sion by tap­ping into the spe­cif­ic brain cir­cuit involved in depres­sive brain pat­terns and reset­ting them using the equiv­a­lent of a pace­mak­er for the brain. “This study points the way to a new par­a­digm that is…

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The latest on Brain Health and Resilience, plus a few fun Brain Teasers

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing neu­ro­science find­ings and tips, com­bined with fun brain teasers. #1. To cel­e­brate this quite-chal­leng­ing Thanks­giv­ing, here are five fun brain teasers that read­ers have enjoyed the most this year so far. It is always good to learn more about (and appre­ci­ate) that most pre­cious resource…

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Alphabet’s X shares Amber EEG system to expand the quest for mental health biomarkers

Alphabet’s X details Project Amber, a quest for a sin­gle bio­mark­er for depres­sion that fell short of its goal (TechCrunch): Alphabet’s X (the Google-owner’s so-called “Moon­shot Fac­to­ry”) pub­lished a new blog post today about Project Amber, a project it’s been work­ing on over the past three years — the results of which it’s now making…

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