Fig­ure 3. Weight Loss at Month 1 Cor­re­lat­ed with Changes in BOLD in Regions Asso­ci­at­ed with Cog­ni­tive Con­trol. Cred­it: Selin Neselil­er et al

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New research sug­gests that high­er-lev­el brain func­tions have a major role in los­ing weight. In a study among 24 par­tic­i­pants at a weight-loss clin­ic, those who achieved great­est suc­cess in terms of weight loss demon­strat­ed more activ­i­ty in the brain regions of the lat­er­al pre­frontal cor­tex asso­ci­at­ed with self-con­trol. Read the rest of this entry »

Cred­it: UCIrvine/flickr , CC BY-NC-ND

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Mind­ful­ness in can­cer treat­ment: time to stop and think (The Con­ver­sa­tion):

“Breathe deeply and focus on the moment: mind­ful­ness now appears every­where as a tech­nique to improve well-being, includ­ing in health care.

Mind­ful­ness train­ing is often sug­gest­ed for can­cer patients to reduce high lev­els of anx­i­ety and dis­tress asso­ci­at­ed with diag­no­sis, treat­ment and antic­i­pa­tion of pos­si­ble dis­ease recur­rence. But two ques­tions per­sist: does mind­ful­ness work and, if so, for whom? Read the rest of this entry »

reSET® for Sub­stance Use Dis­or­der. Image Cred­it: Pear Ther­a­peu­tics

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The FDA just approved the first app for treat­ing sub­stance abuse (CNBC):

“The app, devel­oped by a start-up called Pear Ther­a­peu­tics, is designed to be pre­scribed by clin­i­cian and used along­side coun­sel­ing.

Pear’s tech­nol­o­gy dig­i­tizes a form of talk ther­a­py called cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py, or CBT, which focus­es on “exam­in­ing the rela­tion­ships between thoughts, feel­ings and behav­iors”, Read the rest of this entry »

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e-newslet­ter explor­ing the lat­est in brain health.

New research:

• Study debunks 4 com­mon myths about brain train­ing and life­long cog­ni­tive enhance­ment
• Don’t over­look sleep dif­fi­cul­ties in chil­dren with ADHD; they may impair func­tion­ing as much as ADHD itself
• Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT), not med­ica­tion, dri­ves long-term rewiring of the brain to help reduce psy­chosis symp­toms

New thinking:

• Four rea­sons the future of brain health is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and bright
• Read­ers around the globe are enjoy­ing The Sharp­Brains Guide book in mul­ti­ple lan­guages: the Eng­lish edi­tion has received 100+ excel­lent cus­tomer reviews in the US alone (plus great com­ments in Cana­da, the UK and Aus­tralia); the Span­ish edi­tion has earned spec­tac­u­lar com­ments in the US, Spain and Mex­i­co; and the Japan­ese and Pol­ish edi­tions are doing very well. Thank you, Gra­cias, Ari­ga­to, Dzieku­je Ci, Obri­ga­dos. Please help us spread the word 🙂
• 10 Final­ists announced for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize

New tools:

• Past and Future Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nolo­gies, as seen through 50 Key Patents. As part of our new series, here are a few select­ed foun­da­tion­al patents, espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant for those inter­est­ed in tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion:
• Cour­tesy of Microsoft, Man­ag­ing infor­ma­tion flow based on user’s men­tal state and cog­ni­tive load and Antic­i­pat­ing wear­ables, machine learn­ing and cog­ni­tive enhance­ment
• Improv­ing dri­ving safe­ty with alarms trig­gered by impend­ing sleep state, detect­ed via brain sig­nals
• Remote com­put­er-imple­ment­ed meth­ods for cog­ni­tive test­ing (Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing; Lumos Labs)
• Test­ing and train­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty (Cog­niFit)
• Com­put­er mod­el­ing meets Tran­scra­nial Mag­net­ic Stim­u­la­tion (TMS) (Brain­lab)

Final­ly, if you’re look­ing for some extra men­tal stim­u­la­tion, don’t for­get to check out our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illu­sions.

Have a great month of March!

The Sharp­Brains Team

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Time for a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e-newslet­ter explor­ing the lat­est dig­i­tal brain health tech­nolo­gies, neu­ro­science find­ings and insights for  life­long brain health and men­tal health.

New tools:

• Sur­vey of key sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal and invest­ment trends rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing Brain Health in our Dig­i­tal Age
• Is Your iPhone Real­ly Fry­ing Your Brain? Five Things You Need To Know
• The Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Aging & Brain Health Inno­va­tion (CC-ABHI) is look­ing for tri­al part­ners to test inno­v­a­tive solu­tions
• Con­sumers exper­i­ment with tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion (tDCS) with no reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight
• Brain scans map­ping lan­guage and mem­o­ry areas can help guide epilep­sy-relat­ed surg­eries

New research:

• Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT) + Med­ica­tion out­per­forms CBT alone to treat ADHD symp­toms among adults. At the same time…
• To reduce heart dis­ease and stroke risks, reg­u­late stress and improve brain health
• UT Dal­las researcher secures $2.7m grant to bet­ter mon­i­tor and address TBI-relat­ed cog­ni­tive and func­tion­al deficits
• The Mediter­ranean Diet seen to sub­stan­tial­ly reduce brain shrink­age among old­er adults
• Both mater­nal and parental obe­si­ty linked to young children’s neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal delays

New thinking:

• Improve edu­ca­tion, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and health via brain enhance­ment
• Ten Impor­tant Sig­nals to help rein­vent Brain Health in the Dig­i­tal Age & serve the needs of an Aging Pop­u­la­tion
• 50 Final­ists from 37 coun­tries short­list­ed for the $1M Glob­al Teacher Prize
• The One New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion To Help You Keep All Your New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions
• For­get think­ing vs. feel­ing dichoto­my. Think/ feel holis­tic brain func­tion­ing

Final­ly, here you are a fun brain teas­er to chal­lenge your frontal lobes.

We hope you enjoy all the neu­ro-stim­u­lat­ing read­ing 🙂

The Sharp­Brains Team