cognitive-screenings

On the 7 Habits of Highly Stress-Resilient Minds, cognitive screenings, anti-amyloid drugs, and more

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Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains e‑newsletter, this time cov­er­ing the lat­est devel­op­ments in stress research, med­i­ta­tion, vir­tu­al real­i­ty, anti-amy­loid drugs, cog­ni­tive screen­ings, and more.

#1. The 7 Habits of High­ly Stress-Resilient Minds

“Any­thing worth doing will have aspects of stress woven through: chal­lenge, dis­com­fort, risk. We can’t change that. But what we can change is our response” – Elis­sa Epel, Direc­tor of the Aging, Metab­o­lism, and Emo­tions Cen­ter at UCSF

#2. Har­ness­ing mind­ful­ness and vir­tu­al real­i­ty sim­u­la­tions to max­i­mize sports performance

Good tips and tools to “sim­u­late or repli­cate real-world per­for­mance anx­i­ety and pres­sure in a con­trolled way, allow­ing pro­gres­sive and man­aged expo­sure to stress.”

#3. 8 week Mind­ful­ness-Based Stress Reduc­tion (MBSR) course found to be as effec­tive as Lexapro (esc­i­talo­pram) to treat adults with anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, and with far few­er side effects

“When peo­ple can come into a clin­ic and be seen by a psy­chol­o­gist or psy­chi­a­trist and giv­en a full evaluation—where the [pro­fes­sion­al] can dis­cuss with the patient the option of med­ica­tion, psy­chother­a­py, or meditation—that will be a good thing” — study’s lead author, Dr. Eliz­a­beth Hoge at George­town University

#4. CMS: anti-amy­loid drug Leqem­bi (lecanemab) doesn’t meet the “rea­son­able and nec­es­sary” stan­dard required for wider Medicare coverage

Brave evi­dence-based deci­sion, fac­ing con­sid­er­able pres­sure — “impor­tant ques­tions still need to be answered to sup­port peo­ple with Medicare, care­givers, and their refer­ring and treat­ing physi­cians to make informed, appro­pri­ate deci­sions about use of any drug in this par­tic­u­lar class” … also, reg­istry-based stud­ies “may be used to assess whether out­comes seen in care­ful­ly con­trolled clin­i­cal tri­als (e.g., FDA tri­als) are repro­duced in the real-world and in a broad­er range of patients.”

#5. Pilot pro­gram by IU and Davos Alzheimer’s Col­lab­o­ra­tive to test AI-pow­ered cog­ni­tive screen­ing at scale

“…The test itself, the Linus Health Core Cog­ni­tive Eval­u­a­tion, is com­prised of a lifestyle-based ques­tion­naire and a

dig­i­tal cog­ni­tive assess­ment, which asks patients to remem­ber three unre­lat­ed words, com­plete the clock draw­ing test, and repeat the three words. The tool then uses arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) to detect sub­tle signs of cog­ni­tive impair­ment and gen­er­ates a score…“[Using that score,] they get a stop­light that’s green, yel­low, or red. And the doc­tor can take a quick look at it and decide, ‘what do I do with this?’”

#6. Pear Ther­a­peu­tics los­es 97% of its mar­ket cap­i­tal­iza­tion since 2021, explores strate­gic alternatives

Unfor­tu­nate news from a pio­neer in dig­i­tal med­i­cine, show­ing how hard it is to bring non-inva­sive inter­ven­tions to mar­ket via clin­i­cal channels.

#7. Beyond bulky VR head­sets: Voice recog­ni­tion, eye track­ing, and nat­ur­al ges­tures in the era of the meta­verse and the “Medi-verse”

“We don’t real­ly know the poten­tial of the meta­verse … includ­ing a poten­tial “Medi-verse” that focus­es on health­care deliv­ery. But … one thing that seems unlike­ly is us con­tin­u­ing to inter­act with the dig­i­tal world through desk­top com­put­ers, smart­phones, and bulky head­sets. More like­ly, we will inter­act with the dig­i­tal world through voice recog­ni­tion, eye track­ing, and nat­ur­al ges­tures like in the sce­nario above.” -- Dr. Cori Lath­an, author of Invent­ing the Future: Sto­ries from a Techno-Optimist

#8. Ten resources, brain teasers and illu­sions to cel­e­brate Brain Aware­ness Week 2023

We have brains; there­fore we feel, and think, and are. Some­thing we cel­e­brat­ed dur­ing Brain Aware­ness Week (March 13–19th) and can and should keep cel­e­brat­ing every day!

 

Have a great month of May

 

10 Predictions on How Digital Platforms will Transform Brain Health in 2013

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Just a quick note: we’ll host a webi­nar on Jan­u­ary 30th to dis­cuss key mar­ket pre­dic­tions based on “The Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020: Web-based, mobile and bio­met­rics-based tech­nol­ogy to assess, mon­i­tor and enhance cog­ni­tion and brain func­tion­ing”, our new mar­ket report.

Here are 10 pre­dic­tions, many of which will like­ly be real­ized before the end of 2013: [Read more…] about 10 Pre­dic­tions on How Dig­i­tal Plat­forms will Trans­form Brain Health in 2013

Update: Preparing Society for the Cognitive Age, and Industry Webinar

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Here you have the August edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter cov­er­ing cog­ni­tive health and Brain Fitnessbrain fit­ness top­ics. Please remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive this Newslet­ter by email, using the box at the top of this page.

Sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tion Fron­tiers in Neu­ro­science recent­ly pub­lished a spe­cial issue on Aug­ment­ing Cog­ni­tion, and invit­ed me to con­tribute with an arti­cle titled Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age. Ground­break­ing brain research has occurred over the last 20 years. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve brain health and per­for­mance is immense, but we need to ensure the mar­ket­place matures in a ratio­nal and sus­tain­able man­ner, both through health­care and non-health­care chan­nels. Click Here to read my article.

Announce­ments

In May 2009 Sharp­Brains pub­lished The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket 2009, the main indus­try report for lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions prepar­ing their mem­bers, their clients, and their patients for the cog­ni­tive age. 150-pages long, the report includes a mar­ket sur­vey with 2,000+ respon­dents, detailed analy­sis of 20+ ven­dors, research briefs writ­ten by 12 lead­ing sci­en­tists and data and trends for 4 major cus­tomer segments.webinar

Below we share the full Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry of the report and announce an exclu­sive webi­nar on Sep­tem­ber 29th to dis­cuss the State of the Mar­ket in more depth with buy­ers of the report.

To order the report and access both the report and the webi­nar, you can click Here. (Only $975 ‑a 25% dis­count- using Dis­count Code Frontiers2009 before Sep­tem­ber 28th).

State of the Market

The brain fit­ness field holds excit­ing promise for the future while pre­sent­ing clear oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges today. The good news is that there are more tools avail­able than ever before to assess and train a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive skills. The bad news is that there are no mag­ic pills and that con­sumers, while sat­is­fied over­all, seem con­fused by com­pet­ing claims on how to reduce one’s “brain age.” We do see signs that this ear­ly-stage mar­ket can mature in a more ratio­nal, struc­tured man­ner; but there is much work to be done. We esti­mate that the size of the U.S. brain fit­ness soft­ware (i.e., appli­ca­tions designed to assess or enhance cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties) mar­ket in 2008 was [Read more…] about Update: Prepar­ing Soci­ety for the Cog­ni­tive Age, and Indus­try Webinar

Cars don’t work because they don’t fly

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Study Ques­tions Effec­tive­ness Of $80 Mil­lion Per Year ‘Brain Exer­cise Prod­ucts Indus­try for Elder­ly (Sci­ence Daily)

- “There is much research on the ben­e­fits of cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion strate­gies among elder­ly who already expe­ri­ence mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s dis­ease, as well as on the pos­i­tive impact of phys­i­cal exer­cise. The researchers, how­ev­er, want­ed to eval­u­ate cur­rent research that would focus on the impact of cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions in the healthy elder­ly population.”

- “…they con­clud­ed that there was no evi­dence indi­cat­ing that struc­tured cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tion pro­grams had an impact on the pro­gres­sion of demen­tia in the healthy elder­ly population”

Com­ment:  we have not reviewed the analy­sis yet, so can­not com­ment in depth. How­ev­er, just from the press release, we see a few poten­tial prob­lems in how the study was framed, reduc­ing its prac­ti­cal val­ue: [Read more…] about Cars don’t work because they don’t fly

Brain fitness & training heads towards its tipping point

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How do you know when some­thing is fast mov­ing towards a Glad­wellian tip­ping point? When health insur­ance com­pa­nies and pub­lic pol­i­cy mak­ers launch sig­nif­i­cant initiatives.

For exam­ple, the gov­ern­ment of Ontario recent­ly announced a $10 mil­lion invest­ment with Bay­crest Research Cen­tre who will part­ner with MaRS Ven­ture Group to devel­op and com­mer­cialise brain fit­ness tech­nolo­gies. The invest­ment was matched by an addi­tion­al $10 mil­lion from pri­vate sources.

Anoth­er impor­tant devel­op­ment was the $18 mil­lion agree­ment between the Aus­tralian-based Brain Resource Com­pa­ny (ASX:BRC) and OptumHealth in the US. This will allow for the pro­vi­sion of web-based cog­ni­tive assess­ments as part of a clin­i­cian’s deci­sion sup­port systems.

These are some ini­tia­tives cov­ered in a webi­nar Top Ten Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Events of 2008 pre­sent­ed in Decem­ber for Sharp­Brains’ clients. Alvaro Fer­nan­dez described the state of play and main dri­vers behind the growth of the bur­geon­ing brain fit­ness mar­ket — which I will try and sum­ma­rize here.

The key dri­vers seem to be [Read more…] about Brain fit­ness & train­ing heads towards its tip­ping point

Brain Fitness Update: Best of 2008

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Dear read­er and mem­ber of Sharp­Brains’ community,
We want to thank you for your atten­tion and sup­port in 2008, and wish you a Hap­py, brain fitness and health newsletterPros­per­ous, Healthy and Pos­i­tive 2009!

Below you have the Decem­ber edi­tion of our month­ly newslet­ter. Enjoy:

Best of 2008 

Announc­ing the Sharp­Brains Most Impor­tant Book of 2008: Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Torkel Kling­berg has writ­ten a very stim­u­lat­ing and acces­si­ble book on a cru­cial top­ic for our Infor­ma­tion Age: The Over­flow­ing Brain: Infor­ma­tion Over­load and the Lim­its of Work­ing Mem­o­ry. We have named it The Sharp­Brains Most Impor­tant Book of 2008, and asked Dr. Kling­berg to write a brief arti­cle to intro­duce his research and book to you. Enjoy it here.

Top 30 Brain Fit­ness Arti­cles of 2008: We have com­piled Sharp­Brains’ 30 most pop­u­lar arti­cles, writ­ten by thir­teen Expert Con­trib­u­tors and staff mem­bers for you. Have you read them all?

Novem­ber-Decem­ber News: No month goes by with­out sig­nif­i­cant news in the field of cog­ni­tive fit­ness. Sum­ma­rized here are 10 recent devel­op­ments wor­thy of atten­tion, includ­ing an upcom­ing brain train­ing prod­uct for ice hock­ey play­ers, my lec­ture at New York Pub­lic Library, and more.

Inter­views: Videogames, Meditation

Are videogames good for your brain?: A land­mark study by Dr. Arthur Kramer and col­leagues has shown that play­ing a strat­e­gy videogame can bring a vari­ety of sig­nif­i­cant men­tal ben­e­fits to old­er brains. Anoth­er recent study, also by Kramer and col­leagues, does not show sim­i­lar ben­e­fits to younger brains (despite play­ing the same game). How can this be? Dr. Kramer, who has kind­ly agreed to serve on Sharp­Brains’ Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Board, elaborates.

Med­i­ta­tion on the Brain: Dr. Andrew New­berg pro­vides an excel­lent overview of the brain ben­e­fits of prac­tices such as med­i­ta­tion. He rec­om­mends, “look for some­thing sim­ple, easy to try first, ensur­ing the prac­tice is com­pat­i­ble with one’s beliefs and goals. You need to match prac­tice with need: under­stand the spe­cif­ic goals you have in mind, your sched­ule and lifestyle, and find some­thing practical.” 

The Need for Objec­tive Assessments 

Cog­ni­tive screen­ings and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease: The Alzheimer’s Foun­da­tion of Amer­i­ca just released a thought­ful report advo­cat­ing for wide­spread cog­ni­tive screen­ings after the age of 65 (55 giv­en the right con­di­tions). Sharp­Brains read­ers, probed by Dr. Joshua Stein­er­man, seem to agree.

Quan­ti­ta­tive EEG for ADHD diag­no­sis: Dr. David Rabin­er reports on the find­ings from a recent study that doc­u­ments the util­i­ty of Quan­ti­ta­tive EEG as an objec­tive test to assist in the diag­no­sis of ADHD. If this pro­ce­dure were to become more wide­ly used, he sug­gests, the num­ber of chil­dren and ado­les­cents who are inap­pro­pri­ate­ly diag­nosed and treat­ed for the dis­or­der would dimin­ish substantially.

Shall we ques­tion the brand new book of human trou­bles?: The fights over the new ver­sion of the psy­chi­atric diag­nos­tic man­u­al, the DSM‑V, are start­ing to come to light. Dr. Vaugh­an Bell won­ders why the pub­lic debate avoids the key ques­tion of whether diag­no­sis itself is use­ful for men­tal health and why psy­cho­met­rics are sim­ply ignored.

Resources for Life­long Learning

Edu­ca­tion builds Cog­ni­tive Reserve for Alzheimers Dis­ease Pro­tec­tion: Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon reviews a recent study that sup­ports the Cog­ni­tive Reserve hypoth­e­sis — men­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ing expe­ri­ences through­out life, such as for­mal edu­ca­tion, help build a reserve in our brains that con­tributes to a low­er prob­a­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s symptoms.

5 Tips on Life­long Learn­ing & the Adult Brain: Lau­rie Bar­tels asks us to please please 1) chal­lenge our­selves with new learn­ing, 2) remem­ber that neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis are hall­marks of our brains, 3) check for mis-learn­ing on an ongo­ing basis, 4) more visu­als, less text, 5) move it, move it — start today!

Neu­ro­science Core Con­cepts: We all have heard “Use It or Lose It”. Now, what is “It”? The Soci­ety for Neu­ro­science (SfN) has just released a user-friend­ly pub­li­ca­tion titled Neu­ro­science Core Con­cepts, aimed at help­ing edu­ca­tors and the gen­er­al pub­lic learn more about the brain.