COVID-19

The neuroscience behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

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With COVID-19 vac­cines work­ing and restric­tions lift­ing across the coun­try, it’s final­ly time for those now vac­ci­nat­ed who’ve been hun­kered down at home to ditch the sweat­pants and reemerge from their Net­flix caves. But your brain may not be so eager to dive back into your for­mer social life. [Read more…] about The neu­ro­science behind why our brains will need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

Debate: Are depression and dementia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

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Every sev­en sec­onds, some­one in the world is diag­nosed with demen­tia. A typ­i­cal case that I often see in my prac­tice is as fol­lows: A 76-year-old woman has a two-year his­to­ry of pro­gres­sive wors­en­ing of short-term mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tive decline. She can’t recall the names of her grand­chil­dren and is dev­as­tat­ed by her dete­ri­o­rat­ing abilities.

How­ev­er, this is not the first time in her life that she has had feel­ings of loss and despair. Over the past 30 years, she has inter­mit­tent­ly strug­gled with depres­sion and anx­i­ety. Her fam­i­ly has many ques­tions: Does she have demen­tia or Alzheimer’s? Could her depres­sion have led to a demen­tia diag­no­sis? Is it only depres­sion and not demen­tia? These are all good ques­tions and the col­lec­tive answer to them is “yes.” [Read more…] about Debate: Are depres­sion and demen­tia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

Innovation in COVID times: Otsuka and Click Therapeutics announce fully virtual clinical trial, leveraging Verily’s Project Baseline

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Otsu­ka launch­es piv­otal tri­al of dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics for depres­sion (Med­C­i­ty News):

Otsu­ka Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal is launch­ing a vir­tu­al study to see if dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics can reduce depres­sion symptoms.

It’s the next step in a part­ner­ship between the Tokyo-based drug­mak­er and Click Ther­a­peu­tics, a dig­i­tal health start­up that is devel­op­ing pro­grams for smok­ing ces­sa­tion, depres­sion and insom­nia. [Read more…] about Inno­va­tion in COVID times: Otsu­ka and Click Ther­a­peu­tics announce ful­ly vir­tu­al clin­i­cal tri­al, lever­ag­ing Verily’s Project Baseline

Four trends accelerating mental health innovation in the COVID/ post-COVID era

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The mon­ey behind men­tal health: How the pan­dem­ic increased inno­va­tion, invest­ment in behav­ioral health care (Fierce Healthcare):

Ear­li­er this month, Mod­ern Health marked a mile­stone few com­pa­nies ever reach: uni­corn status.

With the help of its lat­est $74 mil­lion fund­ing round, the start­up, which serves as a men­tal health ben­e­fits plat­form for employ­ers, topped a $1 bil­lion val­u­a­tion. [Read more…] about Four trends accel­er­at­ing men­tal health inno­va­tion in the COVID/ post-COVID era

Survey finds concerns AND hope to address growing mental health needs due to the covid pandemic

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Dig­i­tal providers come to the fore to sup­port glob­al men­tal health dur­ing pan­dem­ic (press release):

Research pub­lished today shows how dig­i­tal providers are com­ing togeth­er to sup­port the men­tal health needs of mil­lions of users unable to access tra­di­tion­al ser­vices dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. [Read more…] about Sur­vey finds con­cerns AND hope to address grow­ing men­tal health needs due to the covid pandemic

Can COVID-19 coronavirus “invade” human brain tissue? (Quick answer: evidence so far is mixed)

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Brain scans show low­er part of a COVID-19 patient’s brain stem, post­mortem. Arrows point to light and dark spots sug­gest­ing blood ves­sel dam­age, with­out signs of infec­tion by the coro­n­avirus that caus­es COVID-19. Cred­it: Nation­al Insti­tute of Neu­ro­log­i­cal Dis­or­ders and Stroke, NIH

Tak­ing a Clos­er Look at COVID-19’s Effects on the Brain (NIH Direc­tor’s blog):

While pri­mar­i­ly a res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease, COVID-19 can also lead to neu­ro­log­i­cal prob­lems. The first of these symp­toms might be the loss of smell and taste, while some peo­ple also may lat­er bat­tle headaches, debil­i­tat­ing fatigue, and trou­ble think­ing clear­ly, some­times referred to as “brain fog.” All of these symp­toms have researchers won­der­ing how exact­ly the coro­n­avirus that caus­es COVID-19, SARS-CoV­‑2, affects the human brain. [Read more…] about Can COVID-19 coro­n­avirus “invade” human brain tis­sue? (Quick answer: evi­dence so far is mixed)