cognitive-impairments

Digital therapeutics pioneer Akili Interactive plans to go public in mid-2022 at a $1B valuation

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Pal­i­hapi­tiya-Led SPAC to Merge With Akili in $1 Bil­lion Deal (Bloomberg):

Akili Inter­ac­tive, a start­up that has devel­oped a video game to help treat atten­tion-deficit dis­or­ders in kids, has agreed to go pub­lic through a merg­er with one of Chamath Palihapitiya’s blank-check companies.

The deal, which con­firms a Bloomberg News report, val­ues the com­bined enti­ty at about $1 bil­lion, Akili and Social Cap­i­tal Suvret­ta Hold­ings Corp. I said in a state­ment seen by Bloomberg. It will pro­vide as much as $412 mil­lion in gross cash pro­ceeds, the com­pa­nies said. [Read more…] about Dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pio­neer Akili Inter­ac­tive plans to go pub­lic in mid-2022 at a $1B valuation

Study: Brain training games could be used to assess cognitive abilities, replace the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE)

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The Use of Mobile Games to Assess Cog­ni­tive Func­tion of Elder­ly with and with­out Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Disease):

Abstract: In the past few years numer­ous mobile games have been devel­oped to train the brain. There is a lack of infor­ma­tion about the rela­tion between the scores obtained in these games and the cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties of the patients. The aim of this study was to deter­mine whether or not mobile games can be used to assess cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties of elder­ly. Twen­ty healthy young adults, 29 old patients with cog­ni­tive impair­ments (Mini-Men­tal State Exam (MMSE) [Read more…] about Study: Brain train­ing games could be used to assess cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, replace the Mini-Men­tal State Exam (MMSE)

Why computerized neuropsychological tests will become routine — chemo brain example

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Good arti­cle today in the NYT on “chemo brain” — some typ­i­cal short-term and long-term cog­ni­tive con­se­quences of chemotherapy.

The Fog That Fol­lows Chemother­a­py (New York Times)

This quote is crit­i­cal — for chemo brain and also for a vari­ety of clin­i­cal con­di­tions that present asso­ci­at­ed cog­ni­tive impair­ments: “Con­trol­ling for brain func­tion before can­cer treat­ment begins can help deter­mine cause and effect. In one study, can­cer patients took a bat­tery of neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests before start­ing chemother­a­py, three weeks after com­plet­ing treat­ment, and again one year lat­er. Although a third of the patients had signs of cog­ni­tive impair­ment before ther­a­py began, the num­ber jumped to 61 per­cent after treat­ment, and half remained impaired a year later.”

As we have dis­cussed before, we believe that inex­pen­sive com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive assess­ments will start to become wide­ly avail­able in only a few years, to help set up indi­vid­u­al­ized cog­ni­tive base­lines and inform clin­i­cal diag­noses and treat­ments. For more, you can read Com­put­er­ized Cog­ni­tive Assess­ments: oppor­tu­ni­ties and concerns

Ten Reflections on Cognitive Health and Assessments

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Let me sum­ma­rize ten high­lights and reflec­tions from stim­u­lat­ing dis­cus­sions on cog­ni­tive health and assess­ments I have had this month so far.

Jan­u­ary 8–9th: Sym­po­sium on Co-Adap­tive Learn­ing: Adap­tive Tech­nol­o­gy for the Aging (details Here), orga­nized by the Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty’s Cen­ter for Adap­tive Neur­al Systems:

1. Cog­ni­tive health is a crit­i­cal fac­tor in over­all health­care, but is often approached in a frag­ment­ed, non-sys­tem­at­ic way. Most speak­ers in the sym­po­sium did men­tion how cog­ni­tive health issues inter­act with their spe­cif­ic areas of focus (aging, Parkin­son’s Dis­ease, trau­mat­ic brain injury, Alzheimer’s…) but there was a lack of a com­mon frame­work and tax­on­o­my to define the prob­lem and iden­ti­fy solu­tions and inter­ven­tions to mea­sure and help main­tain cog­ni­tive health across the lifespan.

2. For exam­ple, Parkin­son’s Dis­ease. Did you know (I did­n’t) that a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Parkin­son’s patients have well-iden­ti­fied cog­ni­tive impair­ments, most­ly in their exec­u­tive func­tions but also per­cep­tu­al problems?

3. We tru­ly need a Cul­ture of Cog­ni­tive Health, as Ran­dal Koene point­ed out.

4. May online cog­ni­tive games serve as ongo­ing, real-time assess­ment of cog­ni­tive func­tion? Misha Pavel thought so. He also added we may well see “cog­ni­tive exer­cise coach­es” some­time in the horizon.

5. Skip Riz­zo pre­sent­ed how vir­tu­al real­i­ty can help address Post Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (PTSD) and even to admin­is­ter inno­v­a­tive cog­ni­tive assessments.

6. My pre­sen­ta­tion, titled The Emerg­ing Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Mar­ket: Sta­tus, Trends and Chal­lenges, is avail­able Here

7. Jan­u­ary 22nd: Con­sumer Reports orga­nized a health sum­mit titled [Read more…] about Ten Reflec­tions on Cog­ni­tive Health and Assessments

Obesity Crisis or Cognitive Crisis?

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The arti­cle Clum­sy kids more like­ly to become obese adults: study (CBC)…

- “The study was based on tests of about 11,000 peo­ple in Britain who were test­ed for hand con­trol, co-ordi­na­tion and clum­si­ness at age sev­en and 11, and were then fol­lowed until age 33.”

- “Prof. Scott Mont­gomery of the Karolin­s­ka Insti­tutet in Stock­holm and his col­leagues at Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don in Eng­land said they pur­pose­ly chose mea­sure­ments of fine hand con­trol such as pick­ing up match­es, rather than those like­ly to be influ­enced by par­tic­i­pat­ing in sports, such as catch­ing balls.”

- “While it is often assumed that the cog­ni­tive impair­ments seen in adult obe­si­ty are a con­se­quence of excess weight, that could be putting the chick­en before the egg, the researchers say”

…reminds me of Judith Beck­’s words on how to “Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person”

- “The main mes­sage of cog­ni­tive ther­a­py over­all, and its appli­ca­tion in the diet world, is straight-for­ward: prob­lems los­ing weight are not one’s fault. Prob­lems sim­ply reflect lack of skills–skills that can be acquired and mas­tered through prac­tice. [Read more…] about Obe­si­ty Cri­sis or Cog­ni­tive Crisis?