• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

depression

Mapping ‘psychedelic trips’ in the brain to better direct their therapeutic effects

April 4, 2022 by The Conversation

Image cred­it: Shutterstock

For the past sev­er­al decades, psy­che­delics have been wide­ly stig­ma­tized as dan­ger­ous ille­gal drugs. But a recent surge of aca­d­e­m­ic research into their use to treat psy­chi­atric con­di­tions is spurring a recent shift in pub­lic opinion.

Psy­che­delics are psy­chotrop­ic drugs: sub­stances that affect your men­tal state. Oth­er types of psy­chotrop­ics include anti­de­pres­sants and anti-anx­i­ety med­ica­tions. Psy­che­delics and oth­er types of hal­lu­cino­gens, how­ev­er, are unique in their abil­i­ty to tem­porar­i­ly induce intense hal­lu­ci­na­tions, emo­tions and dis­rup­tions of self-aware­ness. [Read more…] about Map­ping ‘psy­che­del­ic trips’ in the brain to bet­ter direct their ther­a­peu­tic effects

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: academic research, anxiety, artificial intelligence, brain regions, cognitive-flexibility, depression, psychedelics, psychiatric conditions, psychotropic drugs, therapeutic, treat psychiatric conditions

Separating brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becoming more urgent by the day

March 21, 2022 by SharpBrains

A) New video game com­pa­ny aims to devel­op ther­a­peu­tic games (The Verge):

Video game-based tools can help with con­di­tions like depres­sion and ADHD, research shows. Deep­Well Dig­i­tal Ther­a­peu­tics plans to build on those stud­ies. “There was an amaz­ing amount of sci­ence that had already been done,” Dou­glas says. “We start­ed to rec­og­nize exact­ly how ther­a­peu­tic these games already were.” [Read more…] about Sep­a­rat­ing brain-healthy wheat from chaff is becom­ing more urgent by the day

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, Bayer, DeepWell, depression, digital therapeutics, Woebot Health

New DARPA initiative aims to harness cognitive science, sensors and machine learning to detect early brain signs of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation

March 10, 2022 by SharpBrains

New Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence Tool to Shed Light on Men­tal Health (DARPA press release):

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 30,000 active duty mem­bers and vet­er­ans have tak­en their own lives – four times as many as those killed in post-911 mil­i­tary oper­a­tions. Cur­rent meth­ods to detect ear­ly signs of behav­ioral and men­tal health risk fac­tors rely on self-report­ing and screen­ing ques­tion­naires, which can’t reli­ably pre­dict sui­ci­dal­i­ty. Effec­tive behav­ioral health assess­ment is a mis­sion-crit­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty requir­ing nov­el tools to iden­ti­fy and help those at risk.

Today, DARPA announced the Neur­al Evi­dence Aggre­ga­tion Tool (NEAT) pro­gram. NEAT aims to devel­op a new cog­ni­tive sci­ence tool that iden­ti­fies peo­ple at risk of sui­cide by using pre­con­scious brain sig­nals rather than ask­ing ques­tions and wait­ing for con­scious­ly fil­tered respons­es. [Read more…] about New DARPA ini­tia­tive aims to har­ness cog­ni­tive sci­ence, sen­sors and machine learn­ing to detect ear­ly brain signs of depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and sui­ci­dal ideation

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain signals, cognitive-science, DARPA, depression, health-screening, NEAT, neural evidence, preconscious, risk of suicide, suicidal ideation

Computer-assisted cognitive behavior therapy (CCBT) may outperform Treatment as Usual (TAU) in helping patients reduce depression, improve 6‑month remission rates

February 16, 2022 by SharpBrains

Study: Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CCBT) improved depres­sion for pri­ma­ry care patients (Mobi­Health News):

Researchers found patients who used CCBT in addi­tion to reg­u­lar treat­ment led to “sig­nif­i­cant­ly greater improve­ment” on the Patient Health Questionnaire–9, used to screen for and mea­sure depres­sive symp­toms. Those results also held up over time.

“Results of this study show that treat­ment for depres­sion in pri­ma­ry care can be enhanced by the addi­tion of CCBT to TAU [treat­ment as usu­al],” the study’s authors wrote. “After 12 weeks of acute treat­ment, CCBT sig­nif­i­cant­ly out­per­formed TAU in reduc­ing PHQ‑9 scores; these pos­i­tive results were main­tained over the 3- and 6‑month fol­low-up inter­vals. Remis­sion rates were more than dou­ble for CCBT com­pared with TAU at all time points.” [Read more…] about Com­put­er-assist­ed cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py (CCBT) may out­per­form Treat­ment as Usu­al (TAU) in help­ing patients reduce depres­sion, improve 6‑month remis­sion rates

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: antidepressants, cCBT, computer-assisted cognitive behavior therapy, depression, depressive symptoms, Good Days Ahead, Patient Health Questionnaire–9, PHQ-9, primary-care, Psychotherapy

APA: With digital mental health going mainstream, will/ should psychologists be able to “prescribe” interventions?

January 14, 2022 by SharpBrains

Men­tal health, meet ven­ture cap­i­tal (APA):

Until recent­ly, men­tal health was a rel­a­tive blip on the radar of ven­ture cap­i­tal­ists. But over the past few years, and par­tic­u­lar­ly since the onset of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, pri­vate investors have made a dra­mat­ic run for this space, pour­ing $3.1 bil­lion into men­tal health ven­tures by the third quar­ter of 2021 alone, accord­ing to Rock Health, a seed fund that sup­ports star­tups work­ing in dig­i­tal health. That rep­re­sents a third of all dig­i­tal health fund­ing for 2021, more than 7 times the amount of fund­ing placed in such ven­tures in 2015. [Read more…] about APA: With dig­i­tal men­tal health going main­stream, will/ should psy­chol­o­gists be able to “pre­scribe” interventions?

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, APA, COVID, depression, digital mental health, FDA, FDA-approved, insomnia, meditation, mental health, mindfulness, prescription, Psychology, Rock Health, substance use, trauma, venture-capital

Could I be wrong? Exploring cognitive bias, curiosity, intellectual humility, and lifelong learning

November 30, 2021 by SharpBrains

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing eight time­ly sci­en­tif­ic and indus­try news plus a few fun teasers to appre­ci­ate our unique human brains.

#1. Could I be wrong? Explor­ing research on cog­ni­tive bias, curios­i­ty, intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty, and life­long learning

“None of us thinks that our beliefs and atti­tudes are incor­rect; if we did, we obvi­ous­ly wouldn’t hold those beliefs and atti­tudes. Yet, despite our sense that we are usu­al­ly cor­rect, we must accept that our views may some­times turn out to be wrong. This kind of humil­i­ty isn’t sim­ply virtuous—the research sug­gests that it results in bet­ter deci­sions, rela­tion­ships, and out­comes. So, the next time you feel cer­tain about some­thing, you might stop and ask your­self: Could I be wrong?”

#2. Great inter­view on bilin­gual­ism, sports, edu­ca­tion and neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty — en español

#3. Should old­er politi­cians, and oth­er lead­ers, under­go cog­ni­tive test­ing? The debate con­tin­ues … here are some good com­ments from the online debate we had last summer:

  • PRO: “Def­i­nite­ly. We rou­tine­ly screen appli­cants for a wide range of jobs. Apply for the police, you will be test­ed. Join the mil­i­tary, you will be eval­u­at­ed. Should we not know if a can­di­date for the high­est posi­tion in the coun­try has a seri­ous emo­tion­al, intel­lec­tu­al or psy­cho­log­i­cal impairment?”
  • CON: “I dis­agree because these tests are very bad at pre­dict­ing how good some­one would be in lead­ing a coun­try. It doesn’t require the abil­i­ty to store a lot of infor­ma­tion in your work­ing mem­o­ry. Being a good leader requires only one essen­tial thing: hav­ing the right priorities.”
  • IT DEPENDS: “Who makes the test? What cog­ni­tive met­rics do we use? The bias­es in that design could lead to sig­nif­i­cant unex­pect­ed or even inten­tion­al­ly skewed results.”

#4. Click Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es fur­ther $52M to build up dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics pipeline for depres­sion, insom­nia, smok­ing ces­sa­tion and more

What a year for Click and for dig­i­tal therapeutics!

#5. The Amer­i­can Med­ical Association’s (AMA) to ease access to remote Cog­ni­tive Behav­ioral Ther­a­py Monitoring

The road to heav­en is paved with good decisions…

#6. FDA-approved, Cybin-spon­sored clin­i­cial tri­al to mea­sure ketamine’s impact on the brain via Ker­nel Flow neu­roimag­ing helmet

“The word psy­che­del­ic means ‘mind-man­i­fest­ing,’ but what has been miss­ing is use­ful ‘mind-imaging’—the abil­i­ty to dynam­i­cal­ly trace the neur­al cor­re­lates of human con­scious expe­ri­ence. Con­ven­tion­al neu­roimag­ing just isn’t dynam­ic enough to study the psy­che­del­ic expe­ri­ence in the brain as it hap­pens. This study of ketamine’s psy­che­del­ic effects while wear­ing head­gear equipped with sen­sors to record brain activ­i­ty could open up new fron­tiers of under­stand­ing” — Dr. Alex Belser, Cybin’s Chief Clin­i­cal Officer

#7. Bea­con Biosig­nals rais­es $27M to scale EEG, AI-based neu­ro­bio­mark­er dis­cov­ery platform

“ana­lyz­ing EEGs is labor inten­sive and inter­pre­ta­tion of these tests can vary from one clin­i­cian to another..…Beacon Biosig­nals has assem­bled what it claims is one of the world’s largest clin­i­cal EEG data­bas­es. By apply­ing its pro­pri­etary machine-learn­ing algo­rithms to the data­base, the com­pa­ny says it has iden­ti­fied neurobiomarkers—biological indi­ca­tors that are asso­ci­at­ed with cer­tain groups of patients, drug activ­i­ty, and ther­a­peu­tic efficacy.”

#8. Amy­loid-relat­ed imag­ing abnor­mal­i­ties (ARIA) found in approx­i­mate­ly 40% of patients tak­ing “Alzheimer’s drug” Aduhelm

Not good, yet com­plete­ly pre­dictable, and let’s remem­ber this is for a “treat­ment” cost­ing as much as $100,000/ year with exact­ly ZERO proven clin­i­cal ben­e­fit: “…The researchers found 425 cas­es in the com­bined adu­canum­ab group expe­ri­enced ARIA (41.3%), and ARIA-ede­ma was iden­ti­fied in 362 patients or 35.2%. Of them, 94 (26%) had symp­toms, such as headache, con­fu­sion, dizzi­ness and nau­sea. They found ARIA-micro­he­m­or­rhage and ARIA-super­fi­cial sidero­sis in 197 patients (19.1%) and 151 patients (14.7%), respectively.”

Final­ly, Let’s Thank our unique Human Brains and Minds with a few fam­i­ly-friend­ly riddles

Q: What does, “you must come and vis­it us some­time!” actu­al­ly mean?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a Hap­py & Healthy Hanukkah, Decem­ber and Christmas,

The Sharp­Brains Team

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning Tagged With: aducanumab, Aduhelm, Alzheimer's drug, Beacon Biosignals, Click Therapeutics, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Monitoring, cognitive-bias, cognitive-testing, curiosity, Cybin, depression, digital therapeutics, FDA, insomnia, intellectual humility, Kernel Flow, machine-learning, neuroimaging, neuroplasticity, psychedelic, smoking cessation

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 35,205 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy