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Altoida raises further $14 million to “democratize digital cognitive assessment at scale” via augmented reality (AR) and AI

April 6, 2022 by SharpBrains

Altoi­da snags Mer­ck KGaA-led $14M fund­ing round for Alzheimer’s diag­nos­tic app (Fierce Biotech):

The $14 mil­lion top-up came from a mix of old and new investors, co-led by White­cap Ven­ture Part­ners and Mer­ck KGaA’s cor­po­rate VC arm, M Ven­tures, which also led the ini­tial tranche of series A financ­ing … The new­ly upsized fund­ing will help Altoi­da add to its work­force, pay for intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ings and con­tin­ue devel­op­ing its tech plat­form to assess neu­ro­log­i­cal func­tion. [Read more…] about Altoi­da rais­es fur­ther $14 mil­lion to “democ­ra­tize dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive assess­ment at scale” via aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) and AI

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Altoida, assessment, brain health, cognitive decline, digital cognitive assessment, eye-tracking, hand and gait errors, M Ventures, Merck, neurocognitive, neurocognitive assessment, neurological function, pupil dilation

UT-Dallas BrainHealth presents virtual talks with Alvaro Fernandez and Sanjay Gupta next month

March 28, 2022 by UT Dallas

Each month, the most fas­ci­nat­ing speak­ers par­tic­i­pate in inter­ac­tive con­ver­sa­tions about the lat­est advances in brain health sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and real-world application.

All talks are vir­tu­al and free of charge. Reg­is­ter for the sea­son and attend as many talks as you like.

» Learn More & Reg­is­ter HERE

NAVIGATING THE DIGITAL BRAIN HEALTH MARKET
with Alvaro Fernandez

April 21, 2022 | 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT

Mr. Fer­nan­dez, named a Young Glob­al Leader, runs Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm track­ing applied neu­ro­science will present the lat­est trends in dig­i­tal brain health and soci­ety’s march toward per­va­sive neurotechnology.

He is the edi­tor-in-chief of sem­i­nal mar­ket reports on Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy and Dig­i­tal Brain Health, and co-author of the books The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness and El Cere­bro Que Cura.

KEEP SHARP
with San­jay Gup­ta, MD

April 26, 2022 | 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT

San­jay Gup­ta – neu­ro­sur­geon, med­ical reporter and author – is a lead­ing voice on health, well­ness and active liv­ing, and a trust­ed resource for expert advice on how to stay healthy and safe dur­ing the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the coun­try’s pre­mier nar­ra­tor of health, he makes impor­tant sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments relat­able. He will share insights from his recent NY Times best-sell­er Keep Sharp: Build a Bet­ter Brain at Any Age.

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: alvaro-fernandez, Applied Neuroscience, brain health, Brain-Fitness, digital brain health, Pervasive Neurotechnology, real-world application, Sanjay Gupta, science, technology

Update: Why MDMA-assisted psychotherapy may become an FDA-approved treatment for PTSD within 2 years

December 30, 2021 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, shar­ing impor­tant brain/ men­tal health news plus a few fun opti­cal illu­sions to tease and appre­ci­ate our unique human minds.

#1. Why MDMA-assist­ed psy­chother­a­py may become an FDA-approved treat­ment for PTSD with­in 2 years

“We are a phar­ma­cist and physi­cian team who inves­ti­gate the ben­e­fits and harms asso­ci­at­ed with sub­stances of abuse like bath salts, phenibut, cannabis and syn­thet­ic mar­i­jua­na. Through this work we have become intrigued about the ther­a­peu­tic poten­tial for some psy­che­del­ic drugs in the treat­ment of myr­i­ad psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, from PTSD to major depres­sion … It is impor­tant to state that using ecsta­sy or mol­ly prod­ucts from the street would not help PTSD symp­toms because the MDMA needs be used along with care­ful­ly craft­ed psy­chother­a­py in a safe, con­trolled envi­ron­ment. Ecsta­sy or mol­ly prod­ucts pur­chased illic­it­ly nev­er spec­i­fy the exact amount of MDMA they con­tain, so it is impos­si­ble to dose it prop­er­ly for PTSD. Tak­ing too much MDMA or exer­cis­ing while tak­ing MDMA can cause heart attacks, strokes, seizures and arrhyth­mias and can dam­age mus­cles and kidneys.”

#2. Ten insights on human well-being and poten­tial from two giants we sad­ly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi and Ed Diener

“Your well-being can change: One com­mon notion with­in psy­chol­o­gy before the pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy move­ment was that indi­vid­u­als had a set hap­pi­ness point, and that this point did not change dras­ti­cal­ly. So why both­er try­ing to improve it, right? Diener helped to change that nar­ra­tive by find­ing that cer­tain sig­nif­i­cant events did in fact change well-being per­ma­nent­ly. This sug­gests that inter­ven­tions can have a last­ing impact, and has paved the way for pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gists to focus on apply­ing their research to improve the human condition.”

#3. Com­plex occu­pa­tions help pro­tect our brains from aging-relat­ed cog­ni­tive decline

“ … dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive decline have been often observed in asso­ci­a­tion with edu­ca­tion or oth­er relat­ed to qual­i­ty of life. From our analy­sis it emerges that the type of work activ­i­ty also con­tributes to the dif­fer­ences in nor­mal and patho­log­i­cal cog­ni­tive aging”

#4. On brain fold­ing and fit­ting 86 bil­lion neu­rons inside our 1400 cc crania

“Under­stand­ing the mech­a­nisms behind brain fold­ing and con­nec­tiv­i­ty will pro­vide researchers with the knowl­edge foun­da­tion to uncov­er their role in devel­op­men­tal brain dis­or­ders. In the long term, clar­i­fy­ing the con­nec­tion between brain struc­ture and func­tion may lead to ear­ly diag­nos­tic tools for brain dis­eases … researchers like us have our work cut out for us as we con­tin­ue try­ing to deci­pher the mys­tery of the most com­plex known struc­ture in the universe.”

#5. Pear Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $175M and goes pub­lic via SPAC deal rais­ing the pro­file of pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal therapeutics

The Times They Are a‑Changin’ …

#6. Sol­era Health includes Gin­ger and eMind­ful to expand dig­i­tal men­tal health­care platform

“eMind­ful and Gin­ger join Solera’s curat­ed Men­tal and Behav­ioral Health Net­work, which already includ­ed lead­ing med­i­ta­tion, mind­ful­ness, and men­tal train­ing app, Head­space. Sol­era con­tin­ues to expand its suite of whole-per­son health solu­tions to sup­port health jour­neys across acu­ity lev­els and clin­i­cal personas.”

And here are two old­er posts which have remained among our Most Read in 2021:

#7. Eight Tips To Remem­ber What You Read

“Despite tele­vi­sion, cell phones, and Twit­ter, tra­di­tion­al read­ing is still an impor­tant skill. Whether it is school text­books, mag­a­zines, or reg­u­lar books, peo­ple still read, though not as much as they used to. One rea­son that many peo­ple don’t read much is that they don’t read well. For them, it is slow, hard work and they don’t remem­ber as much as they should … I sum­ma­rize below what I think it takes to read with good speed and comprehension.”

#8. Test your Brain with these 10 Opti­cal Illusions

One way to learn more about our visu­al sys­tem is to look at how we can trick it … give these ten illu­sions a try!

Wish­ing you and yours a Healthy & Pros­per­ous 2022,

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain folding, brain health, cognitive decline, digital therapeutics, eMindful, Ginger, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, meditation, mental health, mental training app, mindfulness, Pear Therapeutics, Solera Health, tease brain, tease your brain, well-being

On building better brains at any age, treating Depression vs. Dementia, emerging neurotechnologies, psychedelics, and more

May 28, 2021 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing eleven new research find­ings and inno­v­a­tive resources for life­long cog­ni­tive and brain health.

#1. Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

#2. Either way, the ear­li­er the bet­ter, but it’s nev­er too late: New book out­lines the five lifestyle pil­lars to “build a bet­ter brain at any age”

#3. “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…” Read­ing Our Minds: New book issues strong call to action to mod­ern­ize psychiatry

#4. Very time­ly effort by Well­come in the UK: Com­pre­hen­sive research review iden­ti­fies most promis­ing inter­ven­tions to boost work­place men­tal health

#5. “As we enter the sec­ond year of the pan­dem­ic, so many peo­ple are strug­gling and seek­ing men­tal health sup­port. Wysa is an exam­ple of how tech­nol­o­gy is help­ing mil­lions of peo­ple access every­day men­tal health sup­port and self-care tools with­out being gat­ed by a clin­i­cal diag­no­sis.” — Dr. Pankaj Jeth­wani, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent at W Health Ven­tures. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI)-enabled chat­bot Wysa rais­es $5.5M to broad­en access to men­tal health support

#6. Study: Social media and gen­er­al tech engage­ment not found to “fry” teenagers’ brains

#7. Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $160M in equi­ty and debt to trans­form cog­ni­tive health­care via pre­scrip­tion videogame treat­ments. A nice way to cel­e­brate Akil­i’s 10th anniver­sary … they are tar­get­ing ADHD first (now kids, lat­er teens and adults), to be fol­lowed by treat­ments for a range of cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders relat­ed to depres­sion, Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis, Autism, “Covid-Fog” and more.

#8. Study: High­er men­tal well­be­ing (in 2016) seen to low­er health­care costs (in 2017). We still have time to invest in pub­lic men­tal well­be­ing in 2021.

#9. Teladoc Health, hav­ing acquired Livon­go and myS­trength, launch­es inte­grat­ed men­tal health ser­vice for the work­place. “The announce­ment comes as more than half of peo­ple with men­tal health con­cerns report that they do not know where to start when get­ting care, high­light­ing the impor­tance of the dig­i­tal front door myS­trength Com­plete will pro­vide…” This is indeed a very com­mon pain point accord­ing to our own research, so good to see the quite com­pre­hen­sive & per­son­al­ized approach.

#10. Cumu­lus Neu­ro­science rais­es $8.3M to devel­op EEG-based wire­less ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ — Fas­ci­nat­ing to see the major role of the Demen­tia Dis­cov­ery Fund, in a bid to accel­er­ate clin­i­cal tri­als and poten­tial therapies.

#11. Last but not least, a very promis­ing clin­i­cal appli­ca­tion of psy­che­delics: Study finds MDMA-assist­ed ther­a­py to be safe and high­ly effec­tive to treat severe PTSD. “The Nature authors spec­u­late that MDMA-assist­ed ses­sions pro­duce a “win­dow of tol­er­ance,” in which patients are able to revis­it trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries, with less shame and anger, and with­out being over­whelmed by PTSD symptoms.”

Wish­ing you a healthy Memo­r­i­al Week­end and month of June,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain health, cognitive, cognitive healthcare, cognitive--disorders, cognitive-health, Cumulus Neuroscience, dementia, depression, mental health, neurotechnologies, psychedelics, psychiatry, Teladoc Health, videogame, workplace

New book outlines the five lifestyle pillars to “build a better brain at any age”

May 14, 2021 by Greater Good Science Center

Like many peo­ple over 60, I some­times lose my keys or for­get the names of favorite films. When I do, it makes me won­der: Is this the begin­ning of cog­ni­tive decline? Or, worse, am I fat­ed to fol­low in the foot­steps of my moth­er, who died of Lewy-body demen­tia in her 70s?

Accord­ing to neu­ro­sur­geon San­jay Gup­ta, CNN med­ical cor­re­spon­dent and author of the new book Keep Sharp: Build­ing a Bet­ter Brain at Any Age, the answer is no. For­get­ful­ness is nor­mal at all ages, and your genes don’t doom you to demen­tia. What’s impor­tant is tak­ing care of your brain in the best way pos­si­ble, he argues.

“You can affect your brain’s think­ing and mem­o­ry far more than you real­ize or appre­ci­ate, and the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple haven’t even begun to try,” he writes.

Gup­ta dis­tills results from hun­dreds of research stud­ies to help read­ers under­stand what’s known (and not known) [Read more…] about New book out­lines the five lifestyle pil­lars to “build a bet­ter brain at any age”

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: brain health, brain resiliency, Brain-Fitness, cognitive decline, cognitive strengths, cognitive-abilities, cognitive-capacities, cognitive-reserve, dementia, exercise, forgetfulness, keep sharp, Lifelong-learning, lifestyle, Mediterranean-like diet, memory lapses, Sanjay Gupta, sleep

On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

April 30, 2021 by SharpBrains

Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fitness.

#1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study 🙂

Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.”

#2. Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Lisa Gen­o­va, author of the beau­ti­ful nov­el Still Alice, releas­es non-fic­tion book on Mem­o­ry: “It is sober­ing to real­ize that three out of four pris­on­ers who are lat­er exon­er­at­ed through DNA evi­dence were ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. “You can be 100 per­cent con­fi­dent in your vivid mem­o­ry,” Gen­o­va writes, “and still be 100 per­cent wrong” … Gen­o­va assures her read­ers that only two per cent of Alzheimer’s cas­es are of the strict­ly inher­it­ed, ear­ly-onset kind. For most of us, our chances of devel­op­ing the dis­ease are high­ly amenable to interventions…”

#3. Time­ly tips for the week­end: Shape your envi­ron­ment, shape your mind

  • Sur­round your­self with nature
  • Cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for awe
  • Clear the clutter

#4. “For a mis­sion to suc­ceed, high men­tal and cog­ni­tive func­tion would be absolute­ly crit­i­cal; astro­nauts would be called on to per­form demand­ing tasks in a demand­ing envi­ron­ment. Los­ing 20 IQ points halfway to Mars is not an option … Stress—an emo­tion­al or men­tal state result­ing from tense or over­whelm­ing circumstances—and the body’s response to it, which involves mul­ti­ple sys­tems, from metab­o­lism to mus­cles to memory—may be the chief chal­lenge that astro­nauts face.” Next in NASA’s path to Mars: Over­com­ing astro­nauts’ cog­ni­tive and men­tal health challenges

#5. Study: Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion … mak­ing it more accu­rate (based on a cool opti­cal illusion)

#6. It’s good to have more tools in the neu­ro toolkit…assuming we use them wise­ly: Emerg­ing appli­ca­tions of tran­scra­nial Direct Cur­rent Stim­u­la­tion (tDCS): e‑sports skills train­ing, cog­ni­tive enhance­ment in old­er adults

#7. Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)

#8. Men­tal Health in the Dig­i­tal Age: From dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to per­son­al­ized men­tal health solu­tions: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics expands plat­form via part­ner­ships with Empat­i­ca, etec­tRx, Key­Wise, and Winterlight

#9. The award was won last year by Indi­an vil­lage teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale; who will be next? Final day to nom­i­nate teach­ers for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize 2021

#10. And last, but cer­tain­ly not least, let’s wel­come Men­tal Health Month (May) by appre­ci­at­ing our beau­ti­ful brains

Wish­ing you a men­tal­ly healthy and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, ADHD-Treatment, aging, Alzheimer’s, astronauts, beautiful brains, brain health, centenarians, cognitive decline, cognitive-function, cognitive-health, depression, digital health, digital therapeutics, IQ, MaRS, memory, Pear Therapeutics, Stress, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation

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