Click Therapeutics

Could I be wrong? Exploring cognitive bias, curiosity, intellectual humility, and lifelong learning

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing eight time­ly sci­en­tif­ic and indus­try news plus a few fun teasers to appre­ci­ate our unique human brains.

#1. Could I be wrong? Explor­ing research on cog­ni­tive bias, curios­i­ty, intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty, and life­long learning

“None of us thinks that our beliefs and atti­tudes are incor­rect; if we did, we obvi­ous­ly wouldn’t hold those beliefs and atti­tudes. Yet, despite our sense that we are usu­al­ly cor­rect, we must accept that our views may some­times turn out to be wrong. This kind of humil­i­ty isn’t sim­ply virtuous—the research sug­gests that it results in bet­ter deci­sions, rela­tion­ships, and out­comes. So, the next time you feel cer­tain about some­thing, you might stop and ask your­self: Could I be wrong?”

#2. Great inter­view on bilin­gual­ism, sports, edu­ca­tion and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty — en español

#3. Should old­er politi­cians, and oth­er lead­ers, under­go cog­ni­tive test­ing? The debate con­tin­ues … here are some good com­ments from the online debate we had last summer:

  • PRO: “Def­i­nite­ly. We rou­tine­ly screen appli­cants for a wide range of jobs. Apply for the police, you will be test­ed. Join the mil­i­tary, you will be eval­u­at­ed. Should we not know if a can­di­date for the high­est posi­tion in the coun­try has a seri­ous emo­tion­al, intel­lec­tu­al or psy­cho­log­i­cal impairment?”
  • CON: “I dis­agree because these tests are very bad at pre­dict­ing how good some­one would be in lead­ing a coun­try. It doesn’t require the abil­i­ty to store a lot of infor­ma­tion in your work­ing mem­o­ry. Being a good leader requires only one essen­tial thing: hav­ing the right priorities.”
  • IT DEPENDS: “Who makes the test? What cog­ni­tive met­rics do we use? The bias­es in that design could lead to sig­nif­i­cant unex­pect­ed or even inten­tion­al­ly skewed results.”

#4. Click Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es fur­ther $52M to build up dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pipeline for depres­sion, insom­nia, smok­ing ces­sa­tion and more

What a year for Click and for dig­i­tal therapeutics!

#5. The Amer­i­can Med­ical Association’s (AMA) to ease access to remote Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py Monitoring

The road to heav­en is paved with good decisions…

#6. FDA-approved, Cybin-spon­sored clin­i­cial tri­al to mea­sure ketamine’s impact on the brain via Ker­nel Flow neu­roimag­ing helmet

“The word psy­che­del­ic means ‘mind-man­i­fest­ing,’ but what has been miss­ing is use­ful ‘mind-imaging’—the abil­i­ty to dynam­i­cal­ly trace the neur­al cor­re­lates of human con­scious expe­ri­ence. Con­ven­tion­al neu­roimag­ing just isn’t dynam­ic enough to study the psy­che­del­ic expe­ri­ence in the brain as it hap­pens. This study of ketamine’s psy­che­del­ic effects while wear­ing head­gear equipped with sen­sors to record brain activ­i­ty could open up new fron­tiers of under­stand­ing” — Dr. Alex Belser, Cybin’s Chief Clin­i­cal Officer

#7. Bea­con Biosig­nals rais­es $27M to scale EEG, AI-based neu­ro­bio­mark­er dis­cov­ery platform

“ana­lyz­ing EEGs is labor inten­sive and inter­pre­ta­tion of these tests can vary from one clin­i­cian to another..…Beacon Biosig­nals has assem­bled what it claims is one of the world’s largest clin­i­cal EEG data­bas­es. By apply­ing its pro­pri­etary machine-learn­ing algo­rithms to the data­base, the com­pa­ny says it has iden­ti­fied neurobiomarkers—biological indi­ca­tors that are asso­ci­at­ed with cer­tain groups of patients, drug activ­i­ty, and ther­a­peu­tic efficacy.”

#8. Amy­loid-relat­ed imag­ing abnor­mal­i­ties (ARIA) found in approx­i­mate­ly 40% of patients tak­ing “Alzheimer’s drug” Aduhelm

Not good, yet com­plete­ly pre­dictable, and let’s remem­ber this is for a “treat­ment” cost­ing as much as $100,000/ year with exact­ly ZERO proven clin­i­cal ben­e­fit: “…The researchers found 425 cas­es in the com­bined adu­canum­ab group expe­ri­enced ARIA (41.3%), and ARIA-ede­ma was iden­ti­fied in 362 patients or 35.2%. Of them, 94 (26%) had symp­toms, such as headache, con­fu­sion, dizzi­ness and nau­sea. They found ARIA-micro­he­m­or­rhage and ARIA-super­fi­cial sidero­sis in 197 patients (19.1%) and 151 patients (14.7%), respectively.”

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

Q: What does, “you must come and vis­it us some­time!” actu­al­ly mean?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a Hap­py & Healthy Hanukkah, Decem­ber and Christmas,

The Sharp­Brains Team

 

Click Therapeutics raises further $52M to build up digital therapeutics pipeline for depression, insomnia, smoking cessation and more

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Get­ty Images

With Sanofi still on board, Click Ther­a­peu­tics clos­es $52M series B for dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics in depres­sion, chron­ic pain and more (Fierce Biotech):

Anoth­er medtech devel­op­er’s plans to cre­ate dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics to treat a wide range of ill­ness­es are click­ing into place, thanks to a third mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar invest­ment in Click Ther­a­peu­tics in bare­ly a year. [Read more…] about Click Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es fur­ther $52M to build up dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pipeline for depres­sion, insom­nia, smok­ing ces­sa­tion and more

Innovation in COVID times: Otsuka and Click Therapeutics announce fully virtual clinical trial, leveraging Verily’s Project Baseline

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Otsu­ka launch­es piv­otal tri­al of dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics for depres­sion (Med­C­i­ty News):

Otsu­ka Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal is launch­ing a vir­tu­al study to see if dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics can reduce depres­sion symptoms.

It’s the next step in a part­ner­ship between the Tokyo-based drug­mak­er and Click Ther­a­peu­tics, a dig­i­tal health start­up that is devel­op­ing pro­grams for smok­ing ces­sa­tion, depres­sion and insom­nia. [Read more…] about Inno­va­tion in COVID times: Otsu­ka and Click Ther­a­peu­tics announce ful­ly vir­tu­al clin­i­cal tri­al, lever­ag­ing Verily’s Project Baseline

Update: Understanding Brain Health via Cosmological Health, and vice versa

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LEFT: SECTION OF CEREBELLUM, WITH MAGNIFICATION FACTOR 40X, OBTAINED WITH ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (DR. E. ZUNARELLI, UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF MODENA); RIGHT: SECTION OF A COSMOLOGICAL SIMULATION, WITH AN EXTENSION OF 300 MILLION LIGHT-YEARS ON EACH SIDE (VAZZA ET AL. 2019 A&A). CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing find­ings, books and resources for life­long brain health.

#1. “The human brain (sec­tion; left image above) func­tions thanks to its wide neu­ronal net­work that is deemed to con­tain approx­i­mate­ly 69 bil­lion neu­rons. On the oth­er hand, the observ­able uni­verse (sec­tion sim­u­la­tion; right image) can count upon a cos­mic web of at least 100 bil­lion galax­ies. With­in both sys­tems, only 30% of their mass­es are com­posed of galax­ies and neu­rons. With­in both sys­tems, galax­ies and neu­rons arrange them­selves in long fil­a­ments or nodes between the fil­a­ments. Final­ly, with­in both sys­tems, 70% of the dis­tri­b­u­tion of mass or ener­gy is com­posed of com­po­nents play­ing an appar­ent­ly pas­sive role: water in the brain and dark ener­gy in the observ­able Uni­verse.” Under­stand­ing Brain Health via Cos­mo­log­i­cal Health, and vice versa

#2. One very smart and gen­er­ous brain to bright­en your day: Indi­an teacher Ran­jitsinh Disale wins annu­al $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize; shares half with 9 finalists

#3. “Of all the qual­i­ties par­ents can cul­ti­vate in their chil­dren, hope and opti­mism are the most pre­cious. We can nur­ture hope and opti­mism in our kids by demon­strat­ing that we always have some con­trol over our envi­ron­ment and our­selves. The future isn’t a tide that’s going to crush us, it’s a wave we’re a part of.” — Made­line Levine, author of Ready or Not. Three favorite 2020 books on par­ent­ing and men­tal health

#4. A superb mem­oir on becom­ing a psy­chother­a­py pio­neer and best­selling writer: Becom­ing Myself, by Irvin D. Yalom

#5. This sur­vey of 2500 fam­i­lies about what ADHD treat­ments seem to work/ not work finds that 49% of par­ents report Exer­cise to be ‘Extreme­ly or Very Effec­tive;’ above any oth­er treatment.

#6. On the dan­gers of “pro­duc­tiz­ing” lifestyle guide­lines that help build brain reserve and delay cog­ni­tive prob­lems; Buy­er beware: The sto­ry of a pricey and “cre­den­tialled” pro­gram to end Alzheimer’s Disease

#7. Now, giv­en that “In a new McK­in­sey report, 62% of employ­ees con­sid­er men­tal health issues a top chal­lenge,” it is good to see grow­ing resources and approach­es aimed at address­ing the chal­lenge: Calm rais­es $75 mil­lion, expands into cor­po­rate men­tal health and wellness

#8. And, step by step, dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics are going main­stream: Click Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $30 mil­lion in debt to advance com­mer­cial­iza­tion of smok­ing ces­sa­tion app Clickotine

#9. Nev­er two with­out three: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $80M; finds cost sav­ings of $2,150 per patient with opi­oid use disorder

#10. Final­ly, we asked our team and trust­ed advi­sors to com­pile a list of ideas to stay sane and healthy in the months ahead, pri­or­i­tiz­ing habits shown to pro­mote brain health, resilience and pos­i­tive neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: Enjoy these 3 New Year Res­o­lu­tions and 36 Ideas for a Hap­pi­er & Health­i­er 2021

Wish­ing you a safe, healthy and hap­py New Year

Click Therapeutics raises $30 million in debt to advance commercialization of smoking cessation app Clickotine

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Click Ther­a­peu­tics Secures $30M in Growth Cap­i­tal from K2 HealthVen­tures to Expand Oper­a­tions (press release):

Click Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc. (“Click”), a leader in Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics™ solu­tions as pre­scrip­tion med­ical treat­ments, today announced $30 mil­lion in debt financ­ing from K2 HealthVen­tures (K2HV), a health­care-focused spe­cial­ty finance com­pa­ny, to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial­iza­tion of its lead­ing smok­ing ces­sa­tion solu­tion, Click­o­tine™, and to advance its pipeline of clin­i­cal­ly-val­i­dat­ed dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics [Read more…] about Click Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $30 mil­lion in debt to advance com­mer­cial­iza­tion of smok­ing ces­sa­tion app Clickotine

Update: A life of cognitive and physical exercise helps you stay sharp in your 70s and beyond

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 13 fas­ci­nat­ing brain research find­ings, use­ful resources–and a brain teas­er to test your atten­tion skills.

#1. Good news of the month: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

#2. A dis­tinc­tion WITH a dif­fer­ence: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve cog­ni­tion over time

#3. “Be mind­ful that with the rapid changes we are expe­ri­enc­ing, our brains are going through accel­er­at­ed learn­ing. Our brains get tired just as our bod­ies would if we ran a marathon with­out train­ing.” How COVID-relat­ed stress can dis­rupt your brain cir­cuits and nine tips to pre­vent it

#4. Yes, Yes, and Yes. To har­ness our best selves, “Tem­per your empa­thy, train your com­pas­sion, and avoid the news”

#5. Things start ear­ly. Marsh­mal­low Test with a twist: 3- and 4‑year-olds kids dis­play more self-con­trol when their rep­u­ta­tion is at stake

#6. Which is why we look for­ward to see­ing 9,000+ stu­dents, plus their many teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors, fur­ther devel­op their unique brains and minds in years ahead: Help­ing shape the future of life­long learn­ing via SEK Edu­ca­tion Group

#7. “… it would cer­tain­ly be pre­ma­ture to sug­gest that mov­ing to a high alti­tude state would improve a child’s ADHD symp­toms. How­ev­er, the find­ings high­light the val­ue of keep­ing an open mind in efforts to under­stand the devel­op­ment of ADHD and the role nat­ur­al envi­ron­ments may play in poten­tial­ly alle­vi­at­ing it.” Study finds sur­pris­ing cor­re­la­tion between states’ ele­va­tion and ADHD prevalence

#9. Time to start pay­ing seri­ous atten­tion to the brain/ cog­ni­tive side effects of com­mon med­ica­tions. Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic predisposition

#10. Fas­ci­nat­ing: “After a 14-day train­ing peri­od … visu­ospa­tial skills improved by 40%. This increase in visu­ospa­tial abil­i­ty was shown to be direct­ly respon­si­ble for a reduc­tion in motion sick­ness by 51% in the sim­u­la­tor … and a 58% reduc­tion in the on-road tri­al.” Study: Self-dri­ving cars will increase motion sickness…unless we retrain our brains to improve visu­ospa­tial skills

#11. Behav­ioral health and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty meet big phar­ma to hope­ful­ly address a huge need. Click Ther­a­peu­tics and Boehringer Ingel­heim part­ner to devel­op and mar­ket a dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic to treat schizophrenia

#12. Neu­ralink: Thumbs up or down?

#13. Brain teas­er: Did you notice the numer­i­cal error as it hap­pened? If not, feel free to go back and find it now 🙂

 

Wish­ing you a safe and healthy October,

 

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and the Sharp­Brains Team