On building better brains at any age, treating Depression vs. Dementia, emerging neurotechnologies, psychedelics, and more

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing eleven new research find­ings and inno­v­a­tive resources for life­long cog­ni­tive and brain health. #1. Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treat­ment? #2. Either way, the ear­li­er the bet­ter, but it’s nev­er too late: New…

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Akili Interactive Labs raises $160M in equity and debt to transform cognitive healthcare via prescription videogame treatments

Akili rais­es $110m to build its dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pipeline (phar­mafo­rum): Endeav­or­Rx became the first and so far only approved pre­scrip­tion video game treat­ment in the US when it was cleared by the FDA last year to treat atten­­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), and has also been giv­en a green light in Europe.

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Study: Some “brain-boosting” supplements sold in the US contain not-approved drugs at supratherapeutic doses, exposing users to unknown side effects

___ Some brain-boost­­ing sup­ple­ments con­tain an unap­proved drug that could harm users, study warns (STAT news): “Promis­ing to lift brain fog or improve mem­o­ry, brain-boost­­ing sup­ple­ments have joined sex­u­al-enhance­­ment and weight-loss reme­dies in the light­ly reg­u­lat­ed world of dietary sup­ple­ments. These prod­ucts may be sold legal­ly with broad-brush come-ons like these, as long as they don’t…

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Startup Aural Analytics raises $4.3M to monitor neurological health by analyzing speech patterns

Aur­al Ana­lyt­ics rais­es $4.3M for voice-based cog­ni­tive health mon­i­tor­ing (Mobi­Health­News): “Aur­al Ana­lyt­ics, a start­up using speech ana­lyt­ics algo­rithms to gauge changes in brain health, has raised $4.3 mil­lion in seed fund­ing … The arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence engine col­lects speech sam­ples through a smart­phone or tablet app, and uploads these to a cloud serv­er for analy­sis. From these, 

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Brain stimulation using magnetic fields: Key Neurotech Patent #12

Magnetic-field-stimulation

Today we are dis­cussing a 2003 patent, assigned to McLean Hos­pi­tal, pio­neer­ing brain stim­u­la­tion tech­niques. U.S. Patent No. 6,572,528: Mag­net­ic field stim­u­la­tion tech­niques Assignee(s): McLean Hos­pi­tal Inventor(s): Michael L. Rohan, Aimee Par­row, Per­ry F. Ren­shaw Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Hybrid Issue Date: June 3, 2003 Sharp­Brains’ Take: The ‘528 patent dis­clos­es mag­net­ic stim­u­la­tion tech­niques for enhanc­ing brain function…

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Akili raises an additional $11.9M; brings Amgen, Merck, Pfizer and Shire to the digital medicine table

—– Akili Adds Amgen Ven­tures and M Ven­tures* to Series B Financ­ing, Increas­ing Round to $42.4 Mil­lion (press release): “Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs, Inc. (“Akili”), a dig­i­tal med­i­cine com­pa­ny devel­op­ing nov­el, non-phar­­ma­­co­log­i­­cal ther­a­peu­tics and diag­nos­tics for cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders, today announced an $11.9 mil­lion expan­sion of its recent Series B financing. 

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