Study: Social media and general tech engagement not found to “fry” teenagers’ brains

By SharpBrains | May 10, 2021

Lit­tle to no increase in asso­ci­a­tion between ado­les­cents’ men­tal health prob­lems and dig­i­tal tech (Sci­ence Dai­ly): With the explo­sion in dig­i­tal enter­tain­ment options over the past sev­er­al decades and the more recent restric­tions on out­door and in-per­­son social activ­i­ties, par­ents may wor­ry that exces­sive engage­ment with dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy could have long-term effects on their chil­dren’s mental…

Read More

On centenarians, memory, Mars, tDCS, ADHD, digital health, beautiful brains, and more

By SharpBrains | April 30, 2021

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing ten time­ly resources and research find­ings for life­long brain and men­tal fit­ness. #1. Let’s start with a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry and study :-) Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable … (Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in researching…

Read More

Study: Depression affects visual perception … making it more accurate

By SharpBrains | April 19, 2021

Depres­sion affects visu­al per­cep­tion (press release by Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki): Researchers spe­cialised in psy­chi­a­try and psy­chol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki inves­ti­gat­ed the effects of depres­sion on visu­al per­cep­tion. The study con­firmed that the pro­cess­ing of visu­al infor­ma­tion is altered in depressed peo­ple, a phe­nom­e­non most like­ly linked with the pro­cess­ing of infor­ma­tion in the…

Read More

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

By SharpBrains | March 19, 2021

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

Blue Note Therapeutics raises $26M to help treat cancer-related distress via cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM)

By SharpBrains | March 9, 2021

Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics Rais­es $26.25 Mil­lion in Series A Financ­ing (press release): Blue Note Ther­a­peu­tics, Inc., today announced the clos­ing of a Series A financ­ing round of $26.25 mil­lion. Pro­ceeds will allow the com­pa­ny to scale the orga­ni­za­tion and fund near-term clin­i­cal tri­als of its lead pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic (PDT), which will poten­tial­ly improve the…

Read More

Growing research points to expanding adoption of online cognitive behavioral therapies, both guided and unguided

By SharpBrains | February 22, 2021

We are see­ing a num­ber of fas­ci­nat­ing meta-ana­ly­s­es com­par­ing the val­ue of A) face-to-face vs. Inter­net-based cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­pies and B) guid­ed vs unguid­ed inter­net-based cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py, espe­cial­ly in the case of depres­sion. Here you have a cou­ple great exam­ples, sug­gest­ing a grow­ing adop­tion in the near future of web-based, and increas­ing­ly per­son­al­ized, interventions.

Read More