brainwave

Neurofeedback or medication to treat ADHD?

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Neu­ro­feed­back (NF) is an approach for treat­ing ADHD in which indi­vid­u­als receive real-time feed­back on their brain­wave activ­i­ty and taught to alter their typ­i­cal EEG pat­tern to one that is con­sis­tent with a more focused and atten­tive state.

While con­sid­er­able research sup­ports the effec­tive­ness of neu­ro­feed­back for many chil­dren with ADHD, rel­a­tive­ly few stud­ies have direct­ly com­pared neu­ro­feed­back to ADHD med­ica­tion. [Read more…] about Neu­ro­feed­back or med­ica­tion to treat ADHD?

Meta-analysis finds sustained benefits of neurofeedback for kids with ADHD

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In neu­ro­feed­back treat­ment for ADHD, indi­vid­u­als learn to alter their typ­i­cal pat­tern of brain­wave activ­i­ty, i.e., EEG activ­i­ty, to one that is con­sis­tent with a focused and atten­tive state.

This is done by col­lect­ing EEG data from indi­vid­u­als as they focus on stim­uli pre­sent­ed on a com­put­er screen. Their abil­i­ty to con­trol the stim­uli, e.g., keep­ing the smile on a smi­ley face keep­ing a video play­ing, depends on their main­tain­ing an EEG state that reflects focused attention.

Over time, most indi­vid­u­als bet­ter at this. Sup­port­ers of neu­ro­feed­back argue that learn­ing to alter EEG activ­i­ty and focus bet­ter dur­ing train­ing even­tu­al­ly gen­er­al­izes to real-world tasks that require strong atten­tion skills, e.g., read­ing, home­work, etc.

Although many experts remain skep­ti­cal of this approach, despite numer­ous sup­port­ive stud­ies, a recent­ly pub­lished meta-analy­sis of neu­ro­feed­back treat­ment pro­vides impor­tant new sup­port. [Read more…] about Meta-analy­sis finds sus­tained ben­e­fits of neu­ro­feed­back for kids with ADHD

Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge funds program testing neurofeedback-based brain training to reduce cravings and battle opioid addiction

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Soft­ware engi­neer Kel­ly Cash­ion (right) adjusts a wire­less EEG head­set on research engi­neer Nilesh Powar. Cred­it: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton Research Institute

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Bat­tling Addic­tion With Brain­pow­er (Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton press release):

“The Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton Research Insti­tute has won a $10,000 Ohio Opi­oid Tech­nol­o­gy Chal­lenge award for a pro­gram that will teach peo­ple with opi­oid addic­tions how to reduce their crav­ings by regain­ing con­trol of their brains.

“Using neu­ro­feed­back, we’ll work with our vol­un­teers to help them learn to reg­u­late activ­i­ty in the part of their brain asso­ci­at­ed with crav­ings and rewire some of those path­ways, allow­ing them to reduce their crav­ings and expe­ri­ence a more ‘nor­mal’ state even with­out opi­oids.” [Read more…] about Ohio Opi­oid Tech­nol­o­gy Chal­lenge funds pro­gram test­ing neu­ro­feed­back-based brain train­ing to reduce crav­ings and bat­tle opi­oid addiction

Nissan is developing brainwave technology to read and augment driver’s mind (not replace it)

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This car tech makes you a bet­ter dri­ver by read­ing your mind. We gave it a test dri­ve (The Wash­ing­ton Post):

“Might the car of the future be able to read your mind?

At CES, the big tech trade show, cars dom­i­nat­ed much of the con­ver­sa­tion. But one expe­ri­ence stood out because it was so far-out: I donned an exper­i­men­tal cap from Nis­san that inter­pret­ed sig­nals from my brain with the goal of mak­ing me a bet­ter dri­ver. [Read more…] about Nis­san is devel­op­ing brain­wave tech­nol­o­gy to read and aug­ment driver’s mind (not replace it)

Update: To honor Brain Awareness Week 2017, let’s highlight 10 Key Facts To Harness Neuroplasticity And Improve Brain Fitness

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– Giant neu­ron iden­ti­fied in mouse brain via nov­el brain imag­ing tech­nique. Study linked below.

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Last week was Brain Aware­ness Week, so let’s first of all dis­cuss these 10 Key Facts to Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty & Improve Brain Fit­ness com­ing from the hun­dreds of sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical stud­ies we ana­lyzed to pre­pare the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Improve Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age.

And here’s the rest of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter explor­ing the lat­est in brain health and men­tal performance.

New research:

New thinking:

New tools (via SharpBrains’ analysis of neurotech patents):

 

Final­ly, here’s a brain teas­er to test your pat­tern recog­ni­tion and oth­er cog­ni­tive skills: The Emp­ty Tri­an­gle.

 

Have a nice Spring!

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

Update: ¿Habla Español? Know someone who’d enjoy a great brain book in Spanish?

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Portada_ComoInvertirEnSuCerebroTime for Sharp­Brains’ Feb­ru­ary e‑Newsletter, this time fea­tur­ing the glob­al launch of our new book, in Span­ish, Cómo inver­tir en su cere­bro: Una guía Sharp­Brains para mejo­rar su mente y su vida, avail­able already as a soft-cov­er and e‑book!

–> If you speak Span­ish, please get a copy for your­self. Tam­bién puede ver el video de la char­la de pre­sentación aquí (comien­za en el min­u­to 5), y leer el artícu­lo Esculpir el cere­bro, mucho más allá de un sueño de Ramón y Cajal.

–> If you don’t speak Span­ish, please share this with some­one who does…we believe he or she will love the book! We’ve been work­ing quite hard over the last year to deliv­er a great adap­ta­tion of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness to “la lengua de Cer­vantes” — the jury is now out.

Some oth­er news…

Brain Health Sci­ence & Practice:

Dig­i­tal Brain Health Indus­try & technology:

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Final­ly, please keep in mind that March 10–16th is 2014 Brain Aware­ness Week. Let’s all find a way to cel­e­brate and invest in our most pre­cious resource!