Bioethi­cists call for over­sight of poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed, con­sumer-grade neu­rotech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts (Med­ical News):

“The mar­ket­ing of direct-to-con­sumer “neu­rotech­nolo­gies” can be entic­ing: apps that diag­nose a men­tal state, and brain devices that improve cog­ni­tion or “read” one’s emo­tion­al state. How­ev­er, many of these increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar prod­ucts aren’t ful­ly sup­port­ed by sci­ence and have lit­tle to no reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight, which pos­es Read the rest of this entry »

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(More on the pos­i­tive side, at MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review) The smart­phone app that can tell you’re depressed before you know it your­self:

“There are about 45 mil­lion peo­ple in the US alone with a men­tal ill­ness, and those ill­ness­es and their cours­es of treat­ment can vary tremen­dous­ly. But there is some­thing most of those peo­ple have in com­mon: a smart­phone Read the rest of this entry »

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Lim­it­ing children’s screen time linked to bet­ter cog­ni­tion, study says (CNN):

“Lim­it­ing kids’ recre­ation­al screen time to less than two hours a day, along with suf­fi­cient sleep and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, is asso­ci­at­ed with improved cog­ni­tion, accord­ing to a study pub­lished in The Lancet Child & Ado­les­cent Health.

The study includ­ed about 4,500 US chil­dren ages 8 to 11 and mea­sured their habits against the Cana­di­an 24-Hour Move­ment Guide­lines for Chil­dren and Youth. It found that Read the rest of this entry »

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Dear read­er,

It’s time for Sharp­Brains month­ly e-newslet­ter, start­ing in this occa­sion with an impor­tant arti­cle by Duke University’s Dr. David Rabin­er rais­ing con­cerns about the grow­ing non-med­ical use of ADHD drugs.

New research:

• Do ADHD drugs real­ly help col­lege stu­dents with­out ADHD?
• Mind­ful­ly debunk­ing four med­i­ta­tion myths
• Cog­ni­tive train­ing & reme­di­a­tion works, espe­cial­ly in schiz­o­phre­nia and healthy aging

New tools:

• Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy pio­neers, please design with the end-user in mind
• FDA clears deep tran­scra­nial mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion device to treat obses­sive-com­pul­sive dis­or­der
• DARPA paving the way for a future brain-based Inter­net

New thinking:

• Per­spec­tive: There’s no epi­dem­ic of anx­i­ety dis­or­ders among teenagers
• New book explores nine lives impact­ed by rare brain dis­or­ders

Last but not least, as you prob­a­bly know Sep­tem­ber is World Alzheimer’s Month. We’d like to help improve pub­lic knowl­edge about brain health and Alzheimer’s risk fac­tors by mak­ing The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize your Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age eas­i­er to access and read.

From tomor­row Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 29th, until Mon­day, Octo­ber 1st, we’ll be run­ning a Kin­dle Count­down Deal via Ama­zon in which you can order the book with dis­counts of up to 90%.

We hope you enjoy the book and it helps you pro­tect your most impor­tant asset: your amaz­ing human brain.

–> To order in the US, click Here

–> To order in the UK, click Here

–> To order in oth­er coun­tries, click Here

Have a great month of Octo­ber,

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Evi­dence That Com­put­er­ized Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Works (Psy­chol­o­gy Today)

“Many peo­ple use com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing with the hopes of pre­vent­ing men­tal decline or improv­ing men­tal per­for­mance. But do these brain train­ing games actu­al­ly work?  Read the rest of this entry »