clinical-trials

Can the controversial FDA approval of Aduhelm backfire and delay the discovery of actual Alzheimer’s treatments? (Yes, it can)

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The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) recent­ly approved adu­canum­ab, the first treat­ment that aims to slow the pro­gres­sion of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. But approval of the drug has pro­voked mixed reac­tions from the sci­en­tif­ic community.

Alzheimer’s dis­ease is char­ac­ter­ized by pro­gres­sive mem­o­ry loss, spa­tial dis­ori­en­ta­tion and many oth­er cog­ni­tive and behav­iour­al dis­or­ders that ulti­mate­ly lead to a state of total depen­dence. [Read more…] about Can the con­tro­ver­sial FDA approval of Aduhelm back­fire and delay the dis­cov­ery of actu­al Alzheimer’s treat­ments? (Yes, it can)

Cumulus Neuroscience raises $8.3M to develop EEG-based wireless ‘Fitbit for the brain’

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Belfast-based Cumu­lus rais­es €6.9m for its ‘Fit­bit for the brain’ (The Irish Times):

… For­mer­ly known as Brain­Wave­Bank, the com­pa­ny has devel­oped a wire­less elec­troen­cephalo­gram (EEG) head­set and pro­pri­etary soft­ware plat­form that use advanced ana­lyt­ics and machine learn­ing to mea­sure cog­ni­tive fitness.

“This fund­ing will allow us to build on the ground-break­ing advances we have made in remote, fre­quent mon­i­tor­ing of brain activ­i­ty and cog­ni­tive func­tion in the home, in part­ner­ship with lead­ing devel­op­ers of dig­i­tal bio­mark­ers,” said Mr Cun­ning­ham, the company’s chief exec­u­tive. [Read more…] about Cumu­lus Neu­ro­science rais­es $8.3M to devel­op EEG-based wire­less ‘Fit­bit for the brain’

The NIH starts spending $1.5 billion in new Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neuro-technologies (BRAIN) projects

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NIH Starts to Spend $4.8 Bil­lion in “Extra” Cures Drug Research Mon­ey (P&T Community):

“The Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) launched 110 new brain research projects in the fis­cal year end­ing last Sep­tem­ber (2017) with the first por­tion of the $1.5 bil­lion over 10 years it will hope­ful­ly receive from the 21st Cen­tu­ry Cures Act, which spread a total of $4.8 bil­lion over four NIH pro­grams. That is mon­ey over and above the NIH annu­al appro­pri­a­tion from Con­gress. The oth­er three “Inno­va­tion Funds” are: Pre­ci­sion Med­i­cine, Can­cer Moon­shot, and Regen­er­a­tive Medicine.

The $1.5 bil­lion in new Brain Research through Advanc­ing Inno­v­a­tive Neu­ro-tech­nolo­gies (BRAIN) research mon­ey seems par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant giv­en the announce­ment in Jan­u­ary that Pfiz­er was end­ing its Alzheimer’s research pro­gram [Read more…] about The NIH starts spend­ing $1.5 bil­lion in new Brain Research through Advanc­ing Inno­v­a­tive Neu­ro-tech­nolo­gies (BRAIN) projects

Survey: Parents view Exercise as more effective than Prescription Medications to treat children with ADHD

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Con­sid­er how research sup­port for ADHD treat­ments are typ­i­cal­ly estab­lished. The ‘gold-stan­dard’ approach would be a ran­dom­ized-con­trolled tri­al in which chil­dren with ADHD are ran­dom­ly assigned to the treat­ment or con­trol group. The treat­ment, what­ev­er it hap­pens to be, would be care­ful­ly imple­ment­ed in a research-based pro­to­col. If pos­si­ble [Read more…] about Sur­vey: Par­ents view Exer­cise as more effec­tive than Pre­scrip­tion Med­ica­tions to treat chil­dren with ADHD

Can better cognitive testing platforms accelerate pharma’s Alzheimer’s research and development efforts?

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Alzheimer’s cure behind the boom in brain sci­ence (Finan­cial Review):

“Bio­gen is one of many mem­bers of big phar­ma seek­ing the block­buster drug which will inevitably be worth mul­ti­ple bil­lions of dol­lars. Big phar­ma in the US spends about $US5 bil­lion a year on Alzheimer’s research and development.

Expo­nen­tial growth in the dis­ease over the past decade has not been accom­pa­nied by the devel­op­ment of approved drugs. In fact, [Read more…] about Can bet­ter cog­ni­tive test­ing plat­forms accel­er­ate pharma’s Alzheimer’s research and devel­op­ment efforts?

Is the future of brain sensors and signals open-source or commercial? (Hint: Probably both)

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OpenEphysNeu­ro­sci­en­tists Join the Open-Source Hard­ware Move­ment (IEEE Spectrum):

“Grad­u­ate stu­dents Josh Siegle and Jakob Voigts were plan­ning an ambi­tious series of exper­i­ments at their MIT neu­ro­science labs in 2011 when they ran into a prob­lem. [Read more…] about Is the future of brain sen­sors and sig­nals open-source or com­mer­cial? (Hint: Prob­a­bly both)