Anticipating the Privacy and Informed Consent issues of the Neurotechnology Era

In con­junc­tion with the new Nation­al Geo­graph­ic pro­gram “Break­through: Decod­ing the Brain,” com­ing this Sun­day, Novem­ber 15, at 9 pm ET, I was asked to pro­vide my per­spec­tive on a very provoca­tive ques­tion: What if sci­en­tists were able to implant or erase mem­o­ries? For some, like those suf­fer­ing from PTSD this could be life-chang­ing, or do you…

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Should Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (not antidepressant drugs) be the first-line treatment for depression?

— Depres­sion: A change of mind (Nature): “Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py, com­mon­ly known as cog­ni­tive behav­iour­al ther­a­py (CBT), aims to help peo­ple to iden­ti­fy and change neg­a­tive, self-destruc­­­tive thought pat­terns. And although it does not work for every­one with depres­sion, data have been accu­mu­lat­ing in its favour. “CBT is one of the clear suc­cess sto­ries in psychotherapy,”…

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Top 10 recent scientific studies on the value of mindfulness in education

— More and more stud­ies are show­ing the poten­tial ben­e­fits of mind­ful­ness prac­tices for stu­dents –to improve phys­i­cal health, psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being, social skills, even aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance in some cas­es– as well as for teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors –pri­mar­i­ly to reduce stress and burnout–. To give you an update on the land­scape of sci­en­tif­ic research about the role…

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Update: Let’s transform brain health from “suffer-in-silence” to “let-me-take-control”

Time for our Sep­tem­ber 2014 e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing a wealth of insights  and inno­va­tions reports…including four thought-pro­­vok­ing inter­views with Spon­sors of the 2014 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit (Octo­ber 28–30th). Enjoy! New per­spec­tives at the fron­tier of Brain, Health & Inno­va­tion: Bar­bara Arrow­smith Young: Every kid should prac­tice stress reduc­tion and tar­get­ed cog­ni­tive exer­cis­es at school Michael Meagher (Cog­nic­i­ti): Let’s trans­form brain…

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Trend: From anti-depressant “magic pills” towards targeted combination of medications and cognitive therapy

— Com­bi­na­tion of Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py and Drugs Effec­tive­ly Treats Severe Non-Chron­ic Depres­sion (Uni­ver­si­ty Her­ald): “Pre­vi­ous stud­ies showed that about two-thirds of the patients with major depres­sive dis­or­der will recu­per­ate on anti-depres­sant med­ica­tions; about one-third of the patients will expe­ri­ence full remis­sion, but half will then dete­ri­o­rate before ful­ly recov­er­ing. Cog­ni­tive ther­a­py is as effec­tive as…

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