AI-enabled chatbot Wysa receives FDA Breakthrough Device designation for patients with chronic pain, depression and anxiety

AI Behav­ior Health Chat­bot App Fast-Tracked by FDA (Psy­chol­o­gy Today): Recent­ly the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) grant­ed break­through device des­ig­na­tion to Wysa’s AI-based dig­i­tal men­tal health con­ver­sa­tion­al agent that deliv­ers cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py (CBT) via a smart­phone to adults suf­fer­ing from depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and chron­ic mus­cu­loskele­tal pain

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How ’sleeping on it’ can help the prefrontal cortex regulate emotional responses, making us feel better in the morning

Instead of lying awake wor­ry­ing, we’re often told to “sleep on it” when mak­ing deci­sions both big and small. And there’s actu­al­ly a sci­en­tif­ic basis for this advice. Sleep can influ­ence our response to emo­tion­al sit­u­a­tions, and helps us to man­age our men­tal health. To under­stand why sleep and emo­tions are so con­nect­ed, it’s important…

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

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.…

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

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.”

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

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…

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

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…

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