Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

brain-function

Report finds only 35% of Canadian youth get the physical activity recommended for brain health

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Get­ting kids out­side and active could help with brain health: Par­tic­i­paction report (The Globe and Mail):

“The phys­i­cal ben­e­fits of kids lead­ing an active lifestyle, includ­ing bet­ter heart health and a decreased risk of devel­op­ing Type 2 dia­betes, are well known. But a grow­ing body of research sug­gests there are sig­nif­i­cant men­tal ben­e­fits as well, whether it’s low­er­ing stress lev­els or help­ing to treat anx­i­ety and depres­sion. A new report released by Par­tic­i­paction on Tues­day draws atten­tion to this link, [Read more…] about Report finds only 35% of Cana­di­an youth get the phys­i­cal activ­i­ty rec­om­mend­ed for brain health

Wearable brain scanners to enable broader, easier, cheaper access to neuroimaging

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Cred­it: Uni­ver­si­ty of Not­ting­ham

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This Brain Scan­ner Is Way Small­er Than fMRI but Some­how 1,000% Creepi­er (Giz­mo­do):

“It may look like some­thing befit­ting Halloween’s Michael Myers, but the device pic­tured above is actu­al­ly a break­through in neuroscience—a portable, wear­able brain scan­ner that can mon­i­tor neur­al activ­i­ty while a per­son is mov­ing [Read more…] about Wear­able brain scan­ners to enable broad­er, eas­i­er, cheap­er access to neu­roimag­ing

Reinventing Brain Medicine, Pharma adopts Digital Therapeutics: Evidence-based videogames, smartphone apps, and sensors

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From app store to drug store, dig­i­tal health is redefin­ing pharma’s pipeline (STAT):

“The pitch­es always sound­ed promis­ing: A new soft­ware app could track glu­cose lev­els for peo­ple with dia­betes or soothe the brains of insom­ni­acs. Most phar­ma exec­u­tives would polite­ly smile and nod, but then park their mon­ey some­where else.

Not any­more. [Read more…] about Rein­vent­ing Brain Med­i­cine, Phar­ma adopts Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics: Evi­dence-based videogames, smart­phone apps, and sen­sors

Photobiomodulation: A new and promising way to enhance brain function

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As is increas­ing­ly evi­dent, there are mul­ti­ple meth­ods aimed at enhanc­ing brain func­tion.

Brain train­ing and mind­ful­ness prac­tices are com­mon­ly used. Sub­stance-based meth­ods are pop­u­lar too, includ­ing hal­lu­cino­gens in the form of plant extracts, and drugs. Same as tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) and tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion (TMS): All of these are promis­ing but have been chal­lenged — for exam­ple, the repro­ducibil­i­ty of elec­tri­cal-based stim­u­la­tion results is increas­ing­ly ques­tioned. [Read more…] about Pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion: A new and promis­ing way to enhance brain func­tion

Study combines neuroimaging with machine learning to predict, with 96% accuracy, whether high-risk 6‑month-old babies will develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by age 2

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Researchers use brain imag­ing and machine learn­ing to pre­dict which high-risk infants will devel­op autism. Cred­it: Car­oli­na Insti­tute for Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties.

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A Sin­gle Brain Scan Has Been Used to Accu­rate­ly Pre­dict Autism at Just 6 Months Old (Sci­ence alert)

“Researchers have used brain scans and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to spot dif­fer­ences in how key areas of infant brains syn­chro­nise, allow­ing them to accu­rate­ly pre­dict which babies would devel­op autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD) as a toddler…The research, led by sci­en­tists from the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na at  Chapel Hill and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, comes hot on the heels of an ear­li­er study that used two scans tak­en at 6 and 12 months to make a sim­i­lar pre­dic­tion.

Not only has this new method reduced the num­ber of scans required to make the [Read more…] about Study com­bines neu­roimag­ing with machine learn­ing to pre­dict, with 96% accu­ra­cy, whether high-risk 6‑month-old babies will devel­op autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD) by age 2

The future of EEG-based personal devices monitoring brain function: Key neurotechnology patent #26

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medical communication device
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 7,138,902

Today we high­light a very inter­est­ing 2006 patent assigned to Phillips and Accen­ture — who have been col­lab­o­rat­ing  to devel­op soft­ware for EEG-based oper­a­tion of home appli­ances to aid patients suf­fer­ing from neu­ro­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases such as ALS (amy­otroph­ic lat­er­al scle­ro­sis).

U.S. Patent No. 7,138,902: Per­son­al med­ical com­mu­ni­ca­tion device and sys­tem

  • Assignee(s): Phillips, Accen­ture
  • Inventor(s): Ray­mond J. Menard
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: EEG
  • Issue Date: Novem­ber 21, 2006

SharpBrains’ Take:

The ‘902 patent relates to tech­niques and sys­tems for per­son­al med­ical devices, evi­denc­ing the trend (as described in Back­ground of the Spec­i­fi­ca­tion) of the expan­sion of med­ical ser­vice deliv­ery from strict­ly with­in med­ical cen­ters into the homes and/or mobile lifestyles of patients. [Read more…] about The future of EEG-based per­son­al devices mon­i­tor­ing brain func­tion: Key neu­rotech­nol­o­gy patent #26