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brain-stimulation

Trend: Rethinking (and treating) chronic pain as a brain disease

December 27, 2018 by SharpBrains

Can stim­u­lat­ing the brain treat chron­ic pain? (Sci­ence Daily):

“We’ve pub­lished numer­ous brain stim­u­la­tion papers over sev­er­al years, and we always learn some­thing impor­tant,” said senior author Flavio Frohlich, PhD, direc­tor of the Car­oli­na Cen­ter for Neu­rostim­u­la­tion and asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try. “But this is the first time we’ve stud­ied chron­ic pain, and this is the only time all three ele­ments of a study lined up per­fect­ly. We suc­cess­ful­ly tar­get­ed a spe­cif­ic brain region, we enhanced or restored that region’s activ­i­ty, and we cor­re­lat­ed that enhance­ment with a sig­nif­i­cant decrease in symp­toms” Keep on reading

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain-disease, brain-stimulation, chronic pain, disability, nonpharmacological

FDA clears deep transcranial magnetic stimulation device to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder

September 14, 2018 by SharpBrains

Brain­sWay’s Brain Stim­u­la­tion Device Receives FDA Approval to Treat Obses­sive-Com­pul­sive Dis­or­der (IEEE Spectrum):

“In 2013, Jerusalem-based Brain­sWay began mar­ket­ing a new type of brain stim­u­la­tion device that uses mag­net­ic puls­es to treat major depres­sive disorder.

Now, thanks to pos­i­tive results in a study of 100 patients, the com­pa­ny has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) to mar­ket the device for a sec­ond psy­chi­atric condition—obsessive-compulsive dis­or­der (OCD) [Read more…] about FDA clears deep tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion device to treat obses­sive-com­pul­sive disorder

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain-stimulation, BrainsWay, deep transcranial magnetic stimulation, Deep-TMS, device, FDA, Major Depressive Disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation

Update: Study finds continued birth of new neurons (neurogenesis) well into our 70s

April 25, 2018 by SharpBrains

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Time for Sharp­Brains eNewslet­ter, bring­ing you the lat­est in in brain health and men­tal health research, tools and thinking.

Also, a quick heads-up for those based in the UK: the Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Cen­tre for Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy will host a keynote by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez in Lon­don on Wednes­day, May 30th, titled Why the Future of Brain Enhance­ment & Men­tal Health is Dig­i­tal & Per­va­sive (free; requires reg­is­tra­tion). Oth­er upcom­ing events here.

New research:

  • Study finds con­tin­ued birth of new neu­rons (neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis) well into our 70s
  • The more hours you sit per day, the small­er your medi­al tem­po­ral lobe (MTL) seems to become, brain scans show
  • Study com­bines MRI brain scans with sta­tis­tics to bet­ter pre­dict cog­ni­tive prob­lems after stroke

New tools:

  • Med­i­ta­tion app Calm said to be rais­ing $25M to become the “Nike of the mind”
  • Mind­strong Health iden­ti­fies dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers of cog­ni­tive func­tion using smart­phone data
  • Wear­able brain scan­ners to enable broad­er, eas­i­er, cheap­er access to neuroimaging

New thinking:

  • Com­bin­ing brain stim­u­la­tion with cog­ni­tive train­ing to enhance atten­tion and memory
  • Evi­dence review finds that com­put­er-based cog­ni­tive train­ing can sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve mem­o­ry in patients with mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS)
  • Despite grow­ing evi­dence against sup­ple­ments mak­ing brain/ mem­o­ry improve­ment claims, sales keep growing

 

Final­ly, please Save the Date for the sec­ond edi­tion of the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test on Decem­ber 5th, 2018. Giv­en the suc­cess of the inau­gur­al event last year (details here), the 2018 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit will host a sec­ond con­test for 12 star­tups to pitch their inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to all Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants and to dis­tin­guished Judges –our very own “Sharp Tank.”

Have a great month of May,

The Sharp­Brains Team

–- Mem­bers of the Brain­no­va­tions Judg­ing Panel

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: app, brain, Brain-health, brain-scans, brain-stimulation, Brainnovations, cognitive, Cognitive-Training, meditation, Mental-Health, Neurogenesis, Neurotechnology, smartphone

Research trend: Combining brain stimulation with cognitive training to enhance attention and memory

April 2, 2018 by Tessa Abagis

In 47 CE, Scri­bo­nius Largus, court physi­cian to the Roman emper­or Claudius, described in his Com­po­si­tiones a method for treat­ing chron­ic migraines: place tor­pe­do fish on the scalps of patients to ease their pain with elec­tric shocks. Largus was on the right path; our brains are com­prised of elec­tri­cal sig­nals that influ­ence how brain cells com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er and in turn affect cog­ni­tive process­es such as mem­o­ry, emo­tion and attention.

The sci­ence of brain stim­u­la­tion – alter­ing elec­tri­cal sig­nals in the brain – has, need­less to say, changed in the past 2,000 years. Today we have a hand­ful of [Read more…] about Research trend: Com­bin­ing brain stim­u­la­tion with cog­ni­tive train­ing to enhance atten­tion and memory

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain-stimulation, cognition, cognitive-skills, Cognitive-Training, improve-cognition, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation, working-memory-training

Important insights on the growing home use of tDCS brain stimulation: older-than-expected users, positive self-reported results for treatment of depression but negative for self-enhancement, and a couple areas of concern (severe burns, frequency)

January 18, 2018 by Alvaro Fernandez

Dr. Brent Williams is wear­ing a home­made tDCS device while his wife Madge is sport­ing a com­mer­cial mod­el. Pho­to by Kevin Liles/kevindliles.com

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At the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit last month, researcher and sci­ence writer Dr. Anna Wexler dis­cussed some fas­ci­nat­ing insights from her sur­vey of 339 home (or “do-it-your­self”) users of tDCS (tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion) devices.

The sur­vey results have just been pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Cog­ni­tive Enhance­ment (details below), and pro­vide a use­ful win­dow into who pur­chas­es tDCS devices and why, how they use them and what results they see. [Read more…] about Impor­tant insights on the grow­ing home use of tDCS brain stim­u­la­tion: old­er-than-expect­ed users, pos­i­tive self-report­ed results for treat­ment of depres­sion but neg­a­tive for self-enhance­ment, and a cou­ple areas of con­cern (severe burns, frequency)

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: brain-stimulation, Consumer neurotechnology, Direct-to-consumer neuroscience, do it yourself, Neuroethics, non-invasive, tDCS, Transcranial-direct-current-stimulation

What are the most promising lifestyle and tech options to harness lifelong neuroplasticity?

December 22, 2017 by SharpBrains

What are the most promis­ing lifestyle and tech options to har­ness life­long neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, and what are key road­blocks ahead? (record­ing requires reg­is­tra­tion; view slid­edeck above or Here)

  • Dr. Álvaro Pas­cual-Leone, Direc­tor of the Beren­son-Allen Cen­ter for Non­in­va­sive Brain Stim­u­la­tion at Beth Israel Dea­coness Med­ical Center
  • Dr. David Bartrés-Faz, Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor of the Barcelona Brain Health Ini­tia­tive (BBHI)
  • Dr. Simone Schurle, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor for Respon­sive Bio­med­ical Sys­tems at the Swiss Fed­er­al Insti­tute of Technology
  • Chaired by: Dr. David Bach, Founder and Pres­i­dent of the Platy­pus Institute

Slid­edeck above sup­port­ed ses­sion held dur­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th).

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Barcelona Brain Health Initiative, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, brain-stimulation, lifelong, Lifelong Neuroplasticity, lifestyle, neuroplasticity, noninvasive, Platypus Institute, technology

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