To treat depression, we will likely combine neuroplasticity-based brain training games with antidepressants

Com­put­er Games Bet­ter Than Med­ica­tion in Treat­ing Elder­ly Depres­sion (Live Sci­ence): “Com­put­er games could help in treat­ing old­er peo­ple with depres­sion who haven’t been helped by anti­de­pres­sant drugs or oth­er treat­ments for the disorder…In a study of 11 old­er patients, researchers found play­ing cer­tain com­put­er games was just as effec­tive at reduc­ing symp­toms of depres­sion as 

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May Update: Brain Training in Mental Health Toolkits for Prevention and Rehabilitation

The use of a vari­ety of brain train­ing inter­ven­tions is grow­ing in the area of men­tal health. Emerg­ing evi­dence sug­gests that in the near future tar­get­ed brain train­ing may even be used to pre­vent sub­stance abuse. For exam­ple, train­ing work­ing mem­o­ry may reduce sub­stance abusers’ dis­count­ing of long-term rewards and pun­ish­ments — such dis­count­ing is…

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Schizophrenia Research is Leading the Way in Cognitive Remediation

As announced by the NIMH a few months ago, schiz­o­phre­nia can now be con­sid­ered as a brain dis­or­der. Research is focus­ing on the cog­ni­tive deficits as the main prob­lem of the dis­or­der, prob­a­bly pre­ced­ing and per­haps lead­ing to the symp­toms of hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions. A recent arti­cle in the Psy­chi­atric Times reviews the dif­fer­ent cognitive…

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Using Brain Plasticity to help Children with Learning Disabilities

Did you read The Brain That Changes Itself: Sto­ries of Per­son­al Tri­umph from the Fron­tiers of Brain Sci­ence, the great book on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty by Nor­man Doidge? If  so, you will have heard about the Arrow­smith School/ Pro­gram, which was also one of the Top Ten Final­ists in 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards.  The fol­low­ing is…

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Technology as the missing link to enable a brain-based model of brain care: interview with Dr. John Docherty

Dr. John Docher­ty is an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try at the Weill Med­ical Col­lege, Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty, Direc­tor of Post Grad­u­ate Edu­ca­tion there, and Chief Med­ical Offi­cer of Brain Resource. Trained as a clin­i­cal research fel­low in neu­ropsy­chophar­ma­col­o­gy at NIMH, he lat­er returned as Chief of the Psy­choso­cial Treat­ments Research Branch, respon­si­ble for all fed­er­al­ly supported…

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Update: Expo Day; Top 15 Articles of 2009

In this Jan­u­ary issue of our eNewslet­ter, we will first brief you on the enlight­en­ing demos that will take place on Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 20th, as part of the Sharp­Brains Sum­mit, and then present the 15 most stim­u­lat­ing Sharp­Brains arti­cles of 2009. Expo Day If you want to see and dis­cuss the lat­est pro­grams and tech­nolo­gies for…

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