Brain Teasers

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

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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 debate on stan­dards, reg­u­la­tion and efficacy

Def­i­n­i­tions matter.

#3. How ’sleep­ing on it’ can help the pre­frontal cor­tex reg­u­late emo­tion­al respons­es, mak­ing us feel bet­ter in the morning

Sleep mat­ters.

#4. NICE in the UK issues rec­om­men­da­tion for Sleepio app, the dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py for insom­nia by Big Health

Inno­va­tion mat­ters: “At a price of £45 per per­son, Sleepio is cost sav­ing com­pared with usu­al treat­ment in pri­ma­ry care. This is based on an analy­sis of pri­ma­ry care resource use data before and after Sleepio was intro­duced in 9 GP prac­tices. Health­care costs were low­er at 1 year, most­ly because of few­er GP appoint­ments and sleep­ing pills prescribed.”

#5. New book pro­vides prac­ti­cal guid­ance for women (and men) to rebal­ance our lifestyles and build Cog­ni­tive Reserve

Lifestyle mat­ters: “The more com­plex our lives are, the more we need sim­ple things that can ground us and help us to be more resilient – to rebal­ance and rebal­ance and rebal­ance again. Build­ing the men­tal mus­cles to find bal­ance when one gets off bal­ance is a crit­i­cal skill thrive and to build cog­ni­tive reserve in our fast-chang­ing times. As our month­ly gath­er­ings showed us over the years, prac­tic­ing rebal­ance in good com­pa­ny not only rein­forces neur­al path­ways and capa­bil­i­ties but also strength­ens the bonds of trust and con­fi­dence that are invalu­able to build a healthy envi­ron­ment to thrive in.”

#6. Study: Auto­mat­ed VR psy­chother­a­py can help reduce anx­i­ety and dis­tress, espe­cial­ly among those with psy­chosis and severe agoraphobia

One of the ben­e­fits of VR is that patients know they are in a sim­u­la­tion, which enables “psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­tance from prob­lem­at­ic reac­tions,” the study authors wrote. “The process of find­ing the best uses and imple­men­ta­tion meth­ods of this immer­sive tech­nol­o­gy at scale in men­tal health is only beginning.”

#7. Fund­ing for dig­i­tal health start-ups, espe­cial­ly in men­tal health, fall sub­stan­tial­ly in Q1’22

“While all tech sec­tors received small­er fund­ing totals than the pre­vi­ous quar­ter, dig­i­tal health plunged much fur­ther than oth­ers did … investor inter­est in men­tal health tech wavered as the mar­ket and pub­lic com­pa­nies like Talk­space and Cere­bral come under scrutiny.”

#8. Deep learn­ing mod­el built on neu­roimag­ing data iden­ti­fies “Brain Age Gaps” as mark­ers of Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)

“The main find­ing of our study is that we could indeed find evi­dence that high brain age gap is behav­ing as an accel­er­at­ed brain aging bio­mark­er.” — Dr. David Jones, neu­rol­o­gist at Mayo Clinic

Final­ly, a cou­ple fun brain teasers to help you flex your math/ cog­ni­tive men­tal muscles:

#9. Will you fin­ish your the­sis on time?

#10. Math brain teas­er requir­ing no math — just per­cep­tion and cognition

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing June!

From “Eminence-based” to Evidence-based cognitive & mental healthcare: Time for quality and accountability

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news, two excel­lent new books and a few fun brain teasers.

#1. From “Emi­nence-based” to Evi­dence-based men­tal health­care: Time to focus on qual­i­ty and accountability

“The real chal­lenge is not find­ing a ther­a­pist, it’s find­ing a ther­a­pist who knows how to pro­vide the treat­ments that work. In the ear­ly 2000s, Myr­na Weiss­man was try­ing to under­stand why so few ther­a­pists use sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based treat­ments. She found that over 60 per­cent of pro­fes­sion­al schools of psy­chol­o­gy and master’s lev­el social work pro­grams did not include any super­vised train­ing for any sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based ther­a­py … In con­trast to evi­dence-based care, I call this “emi­nence-based care.” — Dr. Thomas Insel in his excel­lent new book

#2. Anoth­er great new book to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2022

“Spain played a unique role in Cajal’s discoveries—that is, in the pro­gres­sion of neu­ro­science. The coun­try was not a hotbed of sci­en­tif­ic research. Lack­ing men­tors, Cajal near­ly aban­doned his efforts. But work­ing inde­pen­dent­ly may have forged his auton­o­my and freed him from the influ­ence of tra­di­tion­al the­o­ries. He also longed to dis­prove the stereo­types about Spain. “One could admit that Spain pro­duces some genius artist, such as a long-haired poet or ges­tic­u­lat­ing dancer of either sex,” Cajal lat­er wrote, “but the idea that a true man of sci­ence would emerge from there was con­sid­ered absurd.” — Fas­ci­nat­ing insights into the “father of mod­ern neuroscience”

#3. UT-Dal­las Brain­Health presents vir­tu­al talks with Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and San­jay Gup­ta next month (April 21th and 26th; both 8:00 – 9:00 PM EDT/ Mia­mi time)

We believe some of you may be interested 🙂

#4. Cana­di­an study finds causal link between time play­ing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symp­toms at age 13

“After con­trol­ling for sex, socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, and ADHD symp­toms at age 12, the week­ly amount video game play report­ed at age 12 pre­dict­ed high­er lev­els of self-report­ed ADHD symp­toms at age 13 … The mag­ni­tude of the effect was not large, but it was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant. In con­trast, high­er lev­els of ADHD symp­toms at age 12 did not pre­dict an increase in video game play one year later.”

#5. From for­est bathing to urban parks: How nature helps pro­tect our well-being dur­ing a pandemic

“Whether we gar­den, have a view of nature out our win­dow, vis­it near­by parks, or even just watch a nature video, we can help our­selves deal with the stress­es and strains of COVID iso­la­tion by giv­ing our­selves and our kids a dose of “Vit­a­min N.”

#6. A con­ver­sa­tion at the fron­tier of dig­i­tal health inno­va­tion, FDA reg­u­la­tions, and cog­ni­tive health

Good to see rec­og­nized the need for “reim­burse­ment inno­va­tion” for emerg­ing dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers & ther­a­peu­tics — the FDA does have both sticks and car­rots to leverage

#7. New DARPA ini­tia­tive aims to har­ness cog­ni­tive sci­ence, sen­sors and machine learn­ing to detect ear­ly brain signs of depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sui­ci­dal ideation

“NEAT is a proof-of-con­cept effort attempt­ing to devel­op a new tool for men­tal and behav­ioral health screen­ing that moves us beyond his­tor­i­cal and cur­rent meth­ods of ques­tions and con­scious­ly fil­tered respons­es … If suc­cess­ful, NEAT will not only sig­nif­i­cant­ly aug­ment behav­ioral health screen­ing, but it could also serve as a new way to assess ulti­mate treat­ment effi­ca­cy, since patients will often tell their clin­i­cians what they think the clin­i­cian wants to hear rather than how they are tru­ly feel­ing.” — Greg Witkop, pro­gram man­ag­er in DARPA’s Defense Sci­ences Office

#8. Sep­a­rat­ing brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becom­ing more urgent by the day

Would you trust claims in A or B or neither?

Final­ly, here’s a selec­tion of fun brain teasers that read­ers have enjoyed the most this year so far:

#9. Where’s the baby?

#10. Can you con­nect these pairs of words?

#11. Want to test your stress level?

#12. Which way is the bus head­ing?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and stim­u­lat­ing April … and let’s get some Vit­a­min N (and D) this weekend!

The Sharp­Brains Team

A great new book and five fun brain teasers to celebrate Brain Awareness Week 2022

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Neu­rons of the spinal cord and con­nec­tions as seen in a pho­tomi­cro­graph using a stain­ing method pio­neered by San­ti­a­go Ramón y Cajal. PHOTO: ALAMY

Brain Aware­ness Week 2022 just started!

Let’s cel­e­brate our human brains by learn­ing more about neu­ro­science pio­neer San­ti­a­go Ramón y Cajal via a great new book about his life and by chal­leng­ing our minds with a few fun brain teasers and illu­sions below ?

First, some fas­ci­nat­ing insights into the “father of mod­ern neu­ro­science” from a superb book review:

It was dur­ing a trip to Madrid for his exams that Cajal vis­it­ed a lab where he learned how to look at cells under a micro­scope. He fell in love. He had dreamed of explor­ing new worlds, Mr. Ehrlich tells us, “and he thought of micro­scop­ic anatomists as ‘Colum­bus­es.’ ” His ship was launched. Cajal spent hours alone, star­ing at cells and sketching.

Spain played a unique role in Cajal’s discoveries—that is, in the pro­gres­sion of neu­ro­science. The coun­try was not a hotbed of sci­en­tif­ic research. Lack­ing men­tors, Cajal near­ly aban­doned his efforts. But work­ing inde­pen­dent­ly may have forged his auton­o­my and freed him from the influ­ence of tra­di­tion­al the­o­ries. He also longed to dis­prove the stereo­types about Spain. “One could admit that Spain pro­duces some genius artist, such as a long-haired poet or ges­tic­u­lat­ing dancer of either sex,” Cajal lat­er wrote, “but the idea that a true man of sci­ence would emerge from there was con­sid­ered absurd.”

And here’s a selec­tion of five stim­u­lat­ing brain teasers that read­ers enjoyed the most so far in 2022:

  1. Where’s the baby?
  2. Please com­plete these proverbs to exer­cise your brain in famil­iar and nov­el ways
  3. Want to test your stress level?
  4. Which way is the bus head­ing?
  5. Can you con­nect these pairs of words?

About Brain Awareness Week:

Every March, Brain Aware­ness Week (BAW) unites the efforts of part­ner orga­ni­za­tions world­wide in a cel­e­bra­tion of the brain for peo­ple of all ages. Activ­i­ties are lim­it­ed only by the orga­niz­ers’ imag­i­na­tions and include open days at neu­ro­science labs; exhi­bi­tions about the brain; lec­tures on brain-relat­ed top­ics; social media cam­paigns; dis­plays at libraries and com­mu­ni­ty cen­ters; class­room work­shops; and more. This year BAW takes place March 14–20th, 2022.

Let’s Thank our unique Human Brains and Minds with a few family-friendly riddles

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Q: What is a sure way of sus­tain­ing a friend­ly and socia­ble feel­ing towards the whole world?
A: Con­sort only with strangers.

Q: What beats regret­ting what you said?
A: Trea­sur­ing what you DIDN’T say.

Q: What does, “you must come and vis­it us some­time!” actu­al­ly mean?
A: Noth­ing at all. How­ev­er, if you take it seri­ous­ly, be ready for the what-are-you-doing-here welcome!

– Kei­th Per­reur-Lloyd is an Anglo-French com­pos­er and musi­cian cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Spain. You can learn more about his clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions here.

More fun ways to challenge our brains and minds:

On physical activity, neuroplasticity, depression, screen time, neuromodulation and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing this time eight sci­en­tif­ic reports and indus­try resources plus a few fun brain teasers.

#1. Study finds ulti­mate hack to pro­tect teen brains from harm­ful screen time: Exer­cise (and good role-mod­el­ing):

“Girls who spent less than an hour on screens and boys who spent less than 90 min­utes on screens were not neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed by it. But at high­er amounts of screen time, their life sat­is­fac­tion dropped significantly—they were less hap­py with their lives, and it got worse the more time they spent … (the) study also found that teens who got more reg­u­lar exer­cise had greater life sat­is­fac­tion and few­er phys­i­cal com­plaints for both gen­ders. Not only that, the effects were large­ly unre­lat­ed to how much time a teen spent on screens, so that if teens exer­cised more, it could poten­tial­ly undo the dam­age to their well-being that went along with even six or eight hours of screen time.”

#2. Stud­ies find grow­ing evi­dence link­ing weight, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and depres­sion:

‘Obe­si­ty and depres­sion are both major glob­al health chal­lenges, and our study pro­vides the most robust evi­dence to date that high­er BMI caus­es depres­sion,’ said lead author Jess O’Loughlin. ‘Under­stand­ing whether phys­i­cal or social fac­tors are respon­si­ble for this rela­tion­ship can help inform effec­tive strate­gies to improve men­tal health and wellbeing.’

#3. Dr. Judith Beck on the future of cog­ni­tive ther­a­py and psy­chother­a­py:

Let’s hope! — “I think Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT) will con­tin­ue to be adapt­ed for more prob­lems, diag­noses, and con­di­tions. We will train many kinds of care­givers, teach­ers, front-line work­ers, police, and even politicians.”

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

“We dis­cov­ered that the most pre­dic­tive mod­el – rep­re­sent­ing the most com­mon mode of city nav­i­ga­tion – was not the quick­est path, but instead one that tried to min­i­mize the angle between the direc­tion a per­son is mov­ing and the line from the per­son to their des­ti­na­tion … Evo­lu­tion is a sto­ry of trade-offs, not opti­miza­tions, and the cog­ni­tive load of cal­cu­lat­ing a per­fect path rather than rely­ing on the sim­pler point­ing method might not be worth a few saved min­utes. After all, ear­ly humans had to pre­serve brain pow­er for dodg­ing stam­ped­ing ele­phants, just like peo­ple today might need to focus on avoid­ing aggres­sive SUVs.”

#5. Trend: Har­ness­ing dig­i­tal tech to improve men­tal health and well­ness:

“Designed with the help of Dutch aca­d­e­m­ic Isabela Granic … the game is cen­tred around an avatar who stays in bed for the day and aims to relax play­ers by using sooth­ing music, mut­ed colours and self-care prac­tices. Think med­i­ta­tive tasks such as word games and guid­ed breath­ing exer­cis­es. There’s no way to win, com­pete or binge – in fact, it delib­er­ate­ly starts to feel bor­ing after a few min­utes of play, which dis­in­cen­tivizes mind­less scrolling. #Self­Care was an instant hit, gar­ner­ing half a mil­lion down­loads in its first six weeks with­out any advertising…”

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

“What made this proof-of-prin­ci­ple tri­al suc­cess­ful was the dis­cov­ery of a neur­al bio­mark­er – a spe­cif­ic pat­tern of brain activ­i­ty that indi­cates the onset of symp­toms – and the team’s abil­i­ty to cus­tomize a new DBS device to respond only when it rec­og­nizes that pat­tern. The device then stim­u­lates a dif­fer­ent area of the brain cir­cuit, cre­at­ing on-demand, imme­di­ate ther­a­py that is unique to both the patient’s brain and the neur­al cir­cuit caus­ing her illness.”

#7. Six guide­lines to nav­i­gate the Aduhelm con­tro­ver­sy and (hope­ful­ly) help patients with Mild Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment and ear­ly-stage Alzheimer’s Dis­ease:

“After ini­tial­ly indi­cat­ing that Aduhelm could be pre­scribed to any­one with demen­tia, the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion now spec­i­fies that the pre­scrip­tion drug be giv­en to indi­vid­u­als with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or ear­ly-stage Alzheimer’s, the groups in which the med­ica­tion was studied.
Yet this nar­row­er rec­om­men­da­tion rais­es ques­tions. What does a diag­no­sis of mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment mean? Is Aduhelm appro­pri­ate for all peo­ple with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment, or only some? And who should decide which patients qual­i­fy for treat­ment: demen­tia spe­cial­ists or pri­ma­ry care physicians?”

#8. The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) hard­ens data secu­ri­ty rules for health apps and devices:

“With data breach­es on the rise, the FTC is look­ing to make health apps more account­able for telling patients when their data has been exposed.”

 

Wish­ing you and yours a sweet Hal­loween and a healthy month of November,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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